There are many
different theories about how things began. One author says our globe originally
was a mass of molten granite which cooled in a slow process, and through the
ages became a rough, ragged mass. Abrasion and erosion ground the surface into
powder, oceans swept over it, chemical changes operated on it. Next, the sand
rock of the Twin Cities area was laid down, followed by the so-called Trenton
Limestone of the upper Mississippi Valley. The age of reptiles came on and huge
monsters wallowed in the muddy water which, in time, hardened into building
stone.
During the glacial
period the edges of the limestone strata were ground smooth by the sliding of
the ice sheet on its way down from the north. The Mississippi of that day
flowed from bluff to bluff. Piles of rock, boulders, sand and gravel were
deposited by the wild water and icebergs. The glacial period passed and
vegetation appeared.
Later, man came to our
continent, some say across the land bridge between Alaska and Siberia. Many
tribes were formed and scattered across the continent. Early French explorers
found the Chippewas, also known as Ojibways, around Lake Superior and from them
the explorers learned that their enemies, the Dakotas, also known as the Sioux,
occupied vast territory to the west, including Minnesota and for ages the two
tribes had waged war there.
Two adventurous young
Frenchmen, Medard Chouart, known as Sieur Groselliers, and Pierre D’Esprit,
called Sieur Radisson, were probably the first white men in Minnesota. They
spent the winter of 1659-60 among the Sioux villages in the Mille Lacs region
and learned of a beautiful river that flowed through the area. In 1679 Daniel
Greysolon, also known as Sieur Du Luth, set up a trading post in the Dakota
Village of Kathio and in 1680, Father Louis Hennepin, coming upstream, reached
a beautiful falls in the Mississippi which he named St. Anthony after his
patron saint. Hennepin, along with two traders, was captured by the Indians and
Du Luth, upon hearing this, canoed down the river and assisted in their
release.
Little evidence is left
of Indians in our area, but they had camped here as seen by the usual campsite
refuse found around lower Twin Lake and in the plowed fields of this locality.
(Are you sure it wasn’t left over from a high school wiener roast?) We then are
left with a great legacy of Indian names for our streams and lakes, counties
and even the name of our state. Dakota chiefs included Wabasha, Red Wing and
Little Crow.
By the treaty ending
the Revolution in 1776 the U.S. was made to extend no farther than the
Mississippi River. Our area continued under the French flag until 1762 when
France, by a secret treaty, ceded to Spain all the land west of the Mississippi
and so it remained until 1800. The part of Minnesota in which we live, being
west of the river, was not included in the so-called Northwest Territory, or in
England’s claim. In 1800, by the secret treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain ceded
this land back to France, and it was sold in 1803 to the United States through
the Louisiana Purchase.
The government of this
area was successively under Indiana Territory from 1803 to 1805; Louisiana
Territory, 1805-1812; Missouri Territory, 1812-1821; unorganized from
1821-1834; Michigan Territory, 1834-1836; Wisconsin Territory, 1836-1838; and
Iowa Territory, 1838-1846. Following that, we were again a No Man’s Land from
1846 until March 3, 1849, when Congress passed the act signed by President
Zachary Taylor, creating the Minnesota Territory. Its western boundary extended
to the Missouri River.
General H.H. Sibley,
who had come to Minnesota in 1834 from Detroit, went to Washington as an
elected representative in the fall of 1848 to see the creation of the Minnesota
Territory. The name adopted for the Territory was that given by the Sioux
Indians to the Minnesota River. The first part of the name—”Minne” means water.
“Sota” has been given various meanings by white people who were unable to
understand just what the Indians meant by the word. They guessed clear, cloudy,
sky-tinted and others. Sky Tinted Water is the meaning which has appealed to
most, and is surely suggestive of the lakes of the state and our own local
scene as well. So this all happened
before our time!
Note: Taken from the
writings of Helen Blodgett.