Built by James and Wilhelmina Douglas in 1873 and occupied until 1887, James Douglas ran a steam ship line along the Red River and served as Moorhead's first Post Master. — — Map (db m43831) HM
The railroad bridge west of this spot marks the location of the first bridge over the Red River. In early 1872, the Northern Pacific Railway built west from Duluth and reached the river — this is where Moorhead was founded. Bridge construction . . . — — Map (db m213595) HM
Born in Maine in 1842, Solomon G. Comstock worked on the family farm until he came of age and then followed the pioneers west. After reading law in Bangor, he studied at the University of Michigan, then went to Omaha and Minneapolis. Finally, in . . . — — Map (db m207124) HM
Herein, under the Ordinance of 1787, began the westward expansion of this nation • The American Bill of Rights first nationally recognized • Human slavery prohibited • Primogeniture abolished • And the great new principle of colonies becoming equal . . . — — Map (db m155672) HM
Acquiring a Homestead David S. Patterson came to Itasca in 1889. Patterson made claim to 152 acres, which included the Headwaters of the Mississippi. He purchased the land in 1891 for $191. Patterson's cabin was north of McMullen's cabin near . . . — — Map (db m155671) HM
Built their pioneer home at this place in 1893, one building being used as a store and post office. An act of the Minnesota Legislature in 1945 authorized acquisition of the homestead as an addition to Itasca State Park. Dedicated in grateful . . . — — Map (db m155673) HM
In 1906 this community was named in honor of Colonel William Colvill, commander of the First Minnesota Regiment.
At the Battle of Gettysburg, July 2, 1863, this regiment was ordered to charge and advance of Confederates twenty times their . . . — — Map (db m232203) HM
Lake Superior Indians recognized the unique nature of this bay long ago, naming it "Kitchi-Bitobig", meaning "double body of water." When white man first settled around this bay, in 1854, a few Indian families lived in tepees and cabins around the . . . — — Map (db m203151) HM
Welcome!
The Point is a broad tombolo which defines the two natural harbors that have made Grand Marais an important spot on Lake Superior's shore for centuries. The 8.4 acre Point was conveyed to the federal government in 1942, and is part . . . — — Map (db m203216) HM
Minnesota's Northern Border
Determining, surveying, and marking Minnesota’s border with Canada took 142 years and left the state with a tag end called the Northwest Angle standing isolated and alone on the Canadian side of Lake of the . . . — — Map (db m206879) HM
The lever fur press, much like the reconstructed model before you, was frequently used at fur trading posts operated by the North West Company. It was simple to operate and could be constructed from wood found near the post. Fur pelts, with . . . — — Map (db m153042) HM
Inside the Historic Depot in front of you are three of the sixteen buildings that once comprised the summertime headquarters of the North West Company. The depot was not a fort but instead a secure transshipment point for valuable furs and trade . . . — — Map (db m152973) HM
Father Frederic Baraga, learning of a possible
epidemic afflicting the Indians at Grand Portage in 1846, set out in a small boat from Madeline Island in Wisconsin with an Indian guide.
An unexpected storm threatened them, but their lives were . . . — — Map (db m98448) HM
Few spots in Minnesota are richer in historical lore than Old Crow Wing. Here in 1768, the Sioux suffered a significant defeat in their long struggle to regain central Minnesota from the invading Chippewa. A British fur trader wintered at the . . . — — Map (db m207134) HM
The establishment of Fort Ripley in 1848 represents the U.S. government’s effort to establish control on the northern frontier. Construction began on the west bank of the Mississippi River across from this point a year before Minnesota became a . . . — — Map (db m43935) HM
As Hastings quickly grew and settlement in the area increased, this port city soon became the commercial center for Dakota County farmers.
Farmers brought wagons full of crops to the Hastings market, and then returned home driving wagons full . . . — — Map (db m47843) HM
This sculpture should not be viewed with realism, but as the artist’s expression of some of the images that helped form the community.
The wagon wheel represents commerce and the progress of life. It is placed in your line of sight so you look . . . — — Map (db m137312) HM
From 1856 to 1865, in its first decade of existence, the city of Hastings grew by 2,500 people, enjoying a boom of settlement also experienced by other cities along the Mississippi.
A steady flow of settlers, including many immigrants, . . . — — Map (db m48361) HM
A natural harbor on the great Mississippi River highway led to the early development of Hastings. The river brought explorers, traders, soldiers, speculators, businessmen, and settlers. It carried from here the products of the prairies and forests. . . . — — Map (db m199536) HM
Just northwest of here, at the bottom of the hill, stood the home of Ignatius Donnelly, author, orator, politician, reformer, and prophet who was easily the best known Minnesotan of his time, both in the state and throughout the world.
. . . — — Map (db m65584) HM
For more than 10,000 years, people have lived near the Mississippi River. The first cultures relied on hunting, fishing, and gathering for survival. As early as 1,000 years ago, however, Indian peoples were farming portions of the river valley near . . . — — Map (db m49801) HM
On this historic site, the SW corner of Block 67 of the Nininger City plat, was located a building that served the citizens for a century and a half. Construction began in March, 1858, when the Nininger Chapter of the Independent Order of Good . . . — — Map (db m65618) HM
What does a house say about its occupants?
The West 2nd Street Residential Historic District, just to the west between Eddy and Forest streets, vividly shows the diversity of house styles built between 1857 and 1890. A short walk to the . . . — — Map (db m198547) HM
Called M'Dote or "the place where waters meet" by the Dakota, this area is central to many Dakota creation stories and is significant to Dakota people today. Just west of this site is Pilot Knob, which was used extensively for burials by the Dakota . . . — — Map (db m37659) HM
A National Scenic Byway
The Great River Road is the longest scenic byway in the nation, stretching nearly 3,000 miles through ten states from the Mississippi River's headwaters in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. For thousands of years, the . . . — — Map (db m199537) HM
In front of you stands the Faribault House, built by long-time fur trader Jean-Baptiste in 1839. Faribault was originally from the Montreal area, and had been associated with the British and American fur traders since the late 1790s. He built . . . — — Map (db m37618) HM
[symbol of the Daughters of the American Revolution]
Mendota
In the language of the Sioux means the mouth of a river. Was the earliest
permanent white settlement in southern Minnesota. A pioneer center of the fur trade. . . . — — Map (db m37534) HM
Mendota
This wide valley intersection between the two rivers known today as the Minnesota and Mississippi has been a meeting place for people for thousands of years.
The Dakota people lived on these prairielands by the 1700s. . . . — — Map (db m229001) HM
The history of Minnesota is replete with stories of boomtowns becoming ghost towns. Sometimes their demise was caused by national or historical shifts in markets, such as the fading of the fur trade or the bottoming out of the wheat market. Other . . . — — Map (db m199637) HM
The first stone house erected in the State
of Minnesota by its first Governor,
Gen. Henry Hastings Sibley.
Secured in 1910 for the St. Paul Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution
from St. Peter's Parish of Mendota
— by . . . — — Map (db m235093) HM
Settler Mary Morrison’s home was built here on a stagecoach line one day’s journey from St. Paul. She rented rooms to travelers and named her business the Prairie House. Another hotel and store, the Rosemount House, opened in 1859. Today’s . . . — — Map (db m208534) HM
Rice Lake and its surrounding area were popular among early Indians for the abundance of good hunting and the wild rice that grew in the shallow lake waters. Women of the Winnebago tribe harvested the rice even after the first white settlers . . . — — Map (db m196833) HM
Knute Nelson, who was known for his courage and common sense, served the people of Minnesota as a public officeholder for over 50 years. Born in Norway in 1843, he was elected to the Minnesota legislature and to two terms in the United States . . . — — Map (db m207638) HM
Osakis was one of the stops on the Burbank Minnesota Stage Company Line to the Red River, established in the spring of 1859 upon the opening of the Fort Abercrombie Military Road. During the Sioux outbreak of 1862 the maintenance of this line of . . . — — Map (db m157797) HM
With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States acquired a vast area west of the Mississippi River. Eager for information about its new territory, the government dispatched a series of explorers to learn more about the land and the native . . . — — Map (db m178486) HM
Settled in 1863 and platted in 1854, this town from June, 1856 to November, 1861, was the Government Land Office for the southern area. The St. Paul-Dubuque stage route, opened in 1854, following the Territorial Road from Hastings, roughly the . . . — — Map (db m207537) HM
Like immigrants from many European nations in the mid-19th century, Norwegians left their homeland to escape overpopulation, food shortages, and farm foreclosures. They began arriving in Minnesota in the 1850s, drawn by rich farmland and job . . . — — Map (db m31323) HM
Horse medicine, school slates, eyeglasses, flour - all might have been for sale or trade in the log cabin store opened in 1853 by Felix Meighen and Robert Foster, boyhood friends from Pennsylvania. As the only store in Fillmore County, it did a . . . — — Map (db m205151) HM
Minnesota's Roads. "A perfect highway is a thing of beauty and joy forever," enthused a speaker at Minnesota's first "Good Roads" convention in 1893. "It blesses every home by which it passes."
Early in the 1890s, even before the automobile . . . — — Map (db m9911) HM
This scenic Mississippi River site provided Native Americans food, shelter, and transportation for over 9,000 years. Count Frontenac, the Governor of New France, sponsored the first European explorers to this area in 1680. James (Bully) Wells . . . — — Map (db m47158) HM
In the 1857 town plat of Frontenac (then called Westervelt), Wakondiota Park was designated as two blocks long, one block wide, and located at what is now the Christ Episcopal Church site. When the town was renamed in 1859, the park was moved one . . . — — Map (db m47877) HM
This diverse landscape has always attracted a wide range of inhabitants. At one time, mammoths and mastodons roamed this area. Birds such as the marbled godwit and chestnut collared longspur once lived in the prairie. And people have inhabited this . . . — — Map (db m224645) HM
Minnesota has lost 99 percent of its native prairies and 92 percent of its old-growth forests. This 13-acre parcel seeks to recover part of that original landscape.
Susan Windgrow - Prairie Island resident. . . . — — Map (db m239615) HM
Founded in 1853 and called “Mattson’s Settlement” after its first resident, Hans Mattson, the community was renamed Vasa in 1856 in honor of Swedish King Gustav Vasa. Once called “the most Swedish colony in America,” . . . — — Map (db m45380) HM
Settled by a colony that moved from Lowell, Mass. in 1856, this community takes its name from the Zumbro River which flows through it. This stream, called Riviere des Embarras by the French because of a raft of driftwood at its mouth, became . . . — — Map (db m203002) HM
You are entering a river bluff environment that has been greatly altered over the last two centuries. The bluff top area was formerly oak savannah with prairie and woodland elements. Natural springs and shallow flood plain lakes in the river bottoms . . . — — Map (db m117485) HM
Welcome to the 19th century dwelling of Gideon and Agnes Hopkins Pond, missionaries to the Dakota Indians, farmers, and ministers to the community of Bloomington, Minnesota, during the mid- to late-1800s.
Following a move from the Lake . . . — — Map (db m117722) HM
After several years at Lake Calhoun and a series of battles with the Ojibwe (Anishinabe), Chief Cloud Man (Marpiyawicasta) moved to the banks of the Minnesota River. In 1843 Gideon and Samuel Pond followed Cloud Man to this river bluff location. . . . — — Map (db m117498) HM
Welcome to Pond Dakota Mission Park, the site of the historic Oak Grove Mission and the 1856 Gideon and Agnes Pond House. The Ponds served as missionaries to the Dakota Indians and as farmers and ministers to the community of Bloomington, Minnesota. . . . — — Map (db m117549) HM
Samuel Pond (1808-1891) and Gideon Pond (1810-1878) were born into a mostly rural United States comprised of 17 states with a population of slightly over 7 million. These brothers from Connecticut were two of the most influential persons interacting . . . — — Map (db m117720) HM
1834 – 1934
To honor Samuel W. and Gideon H. Pond
Volunteer missionaries to the Dakotas who arrived at Ft. Snelling May 6, 1834.
This tablet is placed on the house built in 1856 by Gideon H. Pond. Near-by is the site of . . . — — Map (db m4894) HM
Although this site is known today as the Earl Brown farm, it originally belonged to Captain John Martin, who was involved in steamboating, lumbering, banking, flour milling and railroading. In the mid-1880s, he purchased 420 acres of rich Hennepin . . . — — Map (db m69931) HM
Neighbors, horticulture, and wheat
John Cummins frequently exchanged labor with his neighbors, helping with sowing, harvesting, processing and building. He became interested in trees, nuts, flowers and fruits, and worked to promote their . . . — — Map (db m105280) HM
How Did Edina Become Edina?
The Waterville Mill was built at this spot in 1857 by four partners looking to make use of fast-running waters in Minnehaha Creek. Land was purchased and a dam installed at a natural cascade in the creek. A . . . — — Map (db m198307) HM
[east side]
The Cahill Settlement was one of the early communities in the western half of Richfield Township. It was established in the 1850s by Irish immigrants fleeing famine in their native Ireland.
During the years of 1846, . . . — — Map (db m55813) HM
An Appreciation
He served with distinction in the Indian wars of the old northwest border and in the War of 1812. In August, 1820, he assumed command of the Fifth United States Infantry at Camp Coldwater on the site of Fort Snelling. Selecting the . . . — — Map (db m227949) HM
The house on the hill...
On the hill before you stands the first frame house built within the original confines of Maple Grove Township. It was constructed in 1854 (four years before Minnesota became a state) by Pierre Bottineau, one of . . . — — Map (db m197973) HM
In 1857, Minnesota was still a year away from statehood. The tiny town of Minneapolis had been incorporated in 1856, while St. Anthony, its larger sister on the east bank of the Mississippi, was a year older. The cities were linked by the . . . — — Map (db m238063) HM
On the hill above was
erected the
first dwelling
in Minneapolis by
Samuel W. and Gideon H. Pond
missionaries to the Indians
June, 1834.
Dedicated by the Native Sons of Minnesota, May 30th, 1908. — — Map (db m205658) HM
Missionaries Samuel and Gideon Pond arrived at Fort Snelling in 1834 and were immediately dispatched to work with Cloudman, Chief of the Dakota people, who had established an agricultural settlement on the eastern shores of Lake Calhoun near the . . . — — Map (db m212037) HM
Waterpower Engineering
Almost immediately after lands on the west side of the Falls were opened for private development in 1855, the Minneapolis Mill Company began to exploit the use of waterpower for commercial purposes. In 1857, the . . . — — Map (db m235926) HM
Do you know how many times the Stevens House has been moved?
For 134 years, this small wood structure has been moved four times. The third move, which brought the house to Minnehaha Park, is heralded as the first act . . . — — Map (db m243401) HM
The US Post Office stands on the site of the first permanent dwelling in what is now Minneapolis. The land was part of the Fort Snelling Military Reservation in 1849, but the army allowed John H. Stevens to build a house in return for operating a . . . — — Map (db m43036) HM
Built in 1850, this was the first house on the west bank of the Mississippi, located at Saint Anthony Falls near the present-day Minneapolis Post Office.
John H. Stevens received permission to occupy the site, a part of the Fort . . . — — Map (db m17264) HM
History of Lake Street
When the City of Minneapolis was established in 1856, Lake Street was a mile beyond the southern boundary of the city.
Early Lake Street was home to dance halls, lumberyards, churches, horsesheds and . . . — — Map (db m144127) HM
African American families were among the first to settle in the neighborhood that grew south of East Lake Street. During much of the 20th century, restrictive housing covenants limited where African Americans could buy homes. Minority . . . — — Map (db m134464) HM
This church stands as the first Minneapolis Methodist Church founded west of the Mississippi River. It has been the site of several Annual Conference sessions and twice Methodist bishops have been consecrated at its altar. Having brought scores . . . — — Map (db m122510) HM
Here You Are Here, by the only natural waterfalls on the Mississippi River, the town of St. Anthony Falls got its start in the 1850s. The falls, considered sacred by the Native Americans who once called this area home, powered the mills that . . . — — Map (db m238160) HM
Looking across the Mississippi River from North Minneapolis toward the Northtown Yards, ca. 1928.
Land owners' names are shown in 1873 around the St. Paul and Pacific railway and the river.
The landscape around the . . . — — Map (db m245535) HM
Midstream in the Mississippi River, Nicollet Island served countless generations of Indian people as a crossing point and camping spot. After Europeans assumed the right to make boundaries, the island lay between lands claimed by England, France, . . . — — Map (db m155492) HM
In 1911, Axel Anderson established his lunchroom to serve railroad and streetcar workers employed at the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad yards, located just a few blocks to the north and at the Lake Street Station of the Twin . . . — — Map (db m134582) HM
Martin and Elizabeth Layman were typical of the transplanted Easterners who settled in Minnesota in the mid-1800s. They arrived in Minnesota in 1853, where they eventually settled with their children on a farm on the southern edge of the . . . — — Map (db m245596) HM
History of Lake Street
When the City of Minneapolis was established in 1856, Lake Street was a mile beyond the southern boundary of the city.
Early Lake Street was home to dance halls, lumberyards, churches, horsesheds, blacksmiths, . . . — — Map (db m213113) HM
The Chicago line reached 35th Street by 1890, 46th Street by 1904, 48th Street by 1922, and 54th Street by 1928. Each extension opened up new areas to development, making it easy for people to commute to jobs and go shopping. As historian . . . — — Map (db m240773) HM
A Dakota word for "falling waters"
described Saint Anthony Falls, an untamed cascade extending form shore to shore until the mid-1800s. Major Thomas Forsyth visited the falls in 1819:
A young Pennsylvanian won the race to grab land at the Falls of St. Anthony after the area was opened to settlement in 1838. Franklin Steele, the sutler (civilian storekeeper) at Fort Snelling, staked his claim in a moonlight caper that beat out the . . . — — Map (db m155490) HM
In commemoration of the courageous French explorers whose discoveries inspired French settlement and anticipated the growth of the City of Minneapolis, this plaque was dedicated by His Excellency, Jacques Kosciusko-Morizet, Ambassador of France . . . — — Map (db m238142) HM
The village of St. Anthony was platted in 1849, and by 1855 a number of frame buildings stood along Main Street. In that year brothers Moses and Rufus Upton constructed a fine business block from locally made brick and opened a store on the ground . . . — — Map (db m155483) HM
The University of Minnesota's first building, a preparatory school, was located on this site from 1851 until the University moved to its present location in 1855.
When the city of Minneapolis acquired the land for a park in 1903, it was . . . — — Map (db m37825) HM
Long before farmers plowed Minnesota's western prairies, lumberjacks were felling pines in its northern forests. Beginning in the late 1840s, trees from Ojibway lands upriver were being cut into boards by sawmills at the Falls of St. Anthony. But . . . — — Map (db m155493) HM
Built in 1848, the Ard Godfrey House is the earliest frame house still standing in Minneapolis. An example of Greek Revival architecture, it originally occupied a site in the vicinity of Main and Second Streets Southeast.
Ard Godfrey, a . . . — — Map (db m37774) HM
Here at the Falls of St. Anthony, where waterpower, river transportation, and eventually railroads came together, the industrial heart of the upper Midwest began to beat in the mid-1800s. Keen-eyed factory and mill owners from the states of the . . . — — Map (db m155495) HM
From time immemorial, Indians, Traders and Explorers
among whom were Hennepin and Carver have used the
Mississippi river as a highway of travel, unloading
their canoes at the bend just below here. They
plodded up the portage trail across what is . . . — — Map (db m140044) HM
Wedged between the Mississippi River and the steep river bluffs, the isolated but legendary district known as Bohemian Flats flourished for nearly 70 years.
English scholar George Tuthill Barrett traveled through Minneapolis in the early . . . — — Map (db m232014) HM
Born the son of 1812 War Veteran, Benjamin Bartholomew, and a grandson of Revolutionary War heroes, Benjamin Bartholomew and Abigail Patchen Bartholomew, Riley was the oldest of 12 siblings living on a frontier farm in Harpersfield, Ashtabula County . . . — — Map (db m37380) HM
Named for Charles W. Christmas, first county surveyor of Hennepin County, elected in 1852, who platted the original town site of Minneapolis for John H. Stevens and Franklin Steele. This lake and Lake Minnetonka now occupy what in pre-glacial times . . . — — Map (db m71571) HM
These two grindstones from the Rice Flour Mill became historical finds from the October 1982 flooding when the Fish Hook River rose 5 inches. The Rice Brothers (Franklin and Gilbert) came to Park Rapids in about 1880 and one year later located a . . . — — Map (db m206371) HM
Minnesota Territory 1849-1858 (marker side 1) On March 3, 1849, during his last hours in office. President James K. Polk signed a bill adding a new name to the American political landscape — Minnesota Territory. A vast . . . — — Map (db m126662) HM
The Suomi Hills area is named after the small Finnish community of Suomi (pronounced soo-o-me) located north of Grave Lake. Suomi is the Finnish name for the homeland, Finland.
The virgin pine was harvested from the Suomi Hills area from 1905 . . . — — Map (db m232030) HM
Nothing But Prairie
Look across the landscape. Imagine standing here in 1850.
There were no farms, no roads – only tallgrass prairie,
shimmering in the wind as far as the eye could see.
The lifecycle of these southern Minnesota . . . — — Map (db m161865) HM
Erected by the State of Minnesota
in the year 1909, to the memory of the pioneer setters of Jackson County, whose names are inscribed below, massacred by the Sioux Indians on March 26th, 1857, and August 24th, 1862.
1857 Massacre
William . . . — — Map (db m205190) HM
Olson Slaabakken Cabin
Emmet Olson donated this cabin to the city of Jackson in 1926. The cabin is said to have been the first cabin occupied by the family of Engebret Olson when they arrived in Jackson County in 1860. He said that he traded a . . . — — Map (db m205193) HM
This cabin was donated by
Emmet Olson
in 1927 to this park.
Built prior to 1860, the cabin was the home of these Norwegian settlers who underwent the Indian massacre of Aug. 24, 1862, in Belmont Twp. north of Jackson. Sioux raiders . . . — — Map (db m205191) HM
When Daniel Delaney and a man named McLeod camped on the shores of the lake in 1855, they became the first white men of record to visit the area. John Masters, a land developer who came in 1856, gave the body of water its name.
Diamond has . . . — — Map (db m76925) HM
In 1872, February 2 began as a beautiful winter day with several inches of freshly fallen snow. The animals gave the first indication of the turn in the weather with the birds flying low and the cattle lowing restlessly. By that afternoon, the . . . — — Map (db m231746) HM
What is believed to be one of the last pitched battles between the Ojibwe and Dakota ended near this marker about 1860. Some Dakota hunters found a party of Ojibwe encroaching on Dakota grounds. They attacked, killing several Ojibwe and driving the . . . — — Map (db m78413) HM
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