This week, we elected the next president of the United States.

One politician left a mark in Minnesota after getting a city named after him — James G Blaine.

“Almost nobody knows the story about the history of Blaine,” Orville Lindquist with the Blaine Historical Society said.

James G. Blaine was born in 1830.

“He grew up in Pennsylvania,” Lindquist said. “He was a member of the state Legislature in Maine. He was the speaker of the Maine House of Representatives.”

Blaine went on to become a senator from Maine, U.S. Secretary of State and candidate for U.S. president.

Moses Ripley helped form Blaine Township in Minnesota in 1877.

“Moses Ripley came from Maine and was a political adherent of James Blaine, so when they put the township together he proposed naming the township after his political hero James Blaine,” Lindquist said.

The name stuck and Blaine Township became the city of Blaine. Historians don’t believe James G. Blaine ever visited Minnesota.