Nature and history in the Phalen Creek valley

Nature and history in the Phalen Creek valley. Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary. , You are standing on a place that has been important to people for thousands of years. Phalen Creek and Trout Brook once flowed into a marsh here and then into the Mississippi River. American Indians lived nearby and buried their dead on the bluff above. A cave in the bluff known as Wakan Tipi or Spirit House was and is considered a sacred place to the Dakota people., [Captions:] , This view toward what is now Downtown Saint Paul shows the landscape as it was known to hundreds of generations of American Indians., Twelve thousand years ago, this area was home to one of the largest waterfalls in North America. As the rush of water washed away the sandstone and undermined the limestone along the river, it receded and carved the distinctive gorge that stretches to downtown Minneapolis. In 1680 Father Hennepin gave it the English name "Saint Anthony Falls" and in the 1880s it was locked in place near downtown Minneapolis., [Timeline:] , 10,000 BC The glaciers that long covered Minnesota retreated and the River Warren carved out the Minnesota and Mississippi River valleys., Woolly mammoth were common here in ancient times., 100 - 300 AD American Indians built mounds on the river bluffs, employing burial practices typical of the Hopewell Culture that once influenced much of the Eastern United States., This mica hand is an example of the craftsmanship of the ancient Hopewell Culture., 1680 Dakota Indians returned from a trip down the Mississippi River with three French explorers, included Father Louis Hennepin, and landed at the mouth of Phalen Creek., Wakan Tipi included carvings of snakes and other images., 1766 English colonist Jonathan Carver visited the cave the Dakota knew as Wakan Tipi and etched the British coat-of-arms into the cave wall. Following the publication of his journal, Europeans and Americans began calling it Carver's Cave., 1837 The Dakota ceded their lands east of the Mississippi River , a total of 35 million acres., 1851 The Mdewakanton Dakota ceded their lands west of the Mississippi for a reservation up the Minnesota River.