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Fort Snelling is a former military fortification and National Historic Landmark in the U.S. state of Minnesota on the bluffs overlooking the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. The military site was initially named Fort Saint Anthony, but it was renamed Fort Snelling once its construction was completed in 1825.
Learn stories of the military fort and its surrounding area, home to a wide history that includes Native peoples, trade, soldiers and veterans, enslaved people, immigrants, and the changing landscape.
- The Shape of Water
- Bdote: Where Two Waters Come Together
- Trade Along The Rivers
- A Fort on The River
- Enslaved at Fort Snelling
- Beyond The Walls
- Land Speculation
- The Civil War, 1861–65
- A Rush to Combat
- Expansion After The Civil War
The Mississippi River was a small tributary 12,000 years ago. It joined the massive Glacial River Warren not far from this spot. Melting glaciers fed both rivers. The River Warren shrank over time, and the Minnesota River formed. Today, you can visit the place where the rivers join—their confluence—at the tip of Wita Taŋka, or Pike Island. Wita Taŋ...
The land around the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers is sacred. Dakota people call it Bdote, which means “a place where two rivers come together” in the Dakota language. As long as 10,000 years ago, Native people came here to hunt, fish, and celebrate. They lived in small groups. They traveled with the seasons, gathering food and ...
Native people traded with each other along the region’s waterways for thousands of years. Europeans arrived in the mid-1600s. After that, French and British traders sought furs from Native trappers. They offered woolen blankets, cotton and linen cloth, metal goods, firearms, fishing gear, and more in exchange. By 1823, the American Fur Company cont...
In 1805, the US Army ordered Lt. Zebulon Pike to find a site for a military post along the Mississippi River. He chose land near Bdote. Troops began building the fort in 1819. They used Platteville limestone, quarried from the edge of the river bluff. Fort St. Anthony was completed in 1825. It was renamed in honor of Col. Josiah Snelling, who super...
Minnesota was a free territory, but some military officers moved to the fort with enslaved people. US Army officers were paid to hire servants. Some used enslaved workers instead. The Army allowed this practice, which was not exclusive to Fort Snelling. Enslaved African Americans and the Fight for Freedom Dred Scott, about 1857
The US government incorporated Minnesota Territory in 1849. Two years later, the Treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota were signed. The government acquired millions of acres of land from the Dakota people. As a result, a flood of settlers and land speculators moved to Minnesota. The territory’s population was 6,077 in 1850. By 1860, it was 172...
Franklin Steele was a land speculator. In 1857, he bought 8,000 acres of land surrounding Fort Snelling. The US government had decommissioned the fort because it had served its purpose. The financial panic of 1857 meant Steele couldn’t sell the land. He made more than $100,000 renting the land to the government during the Civil War. In 1870, the go...
On April 12, 1861, the Civil War began. That day, Minnesota governor Alexander Ramsey pledged 1,000 troops from Minnesota. The state was the first to make such an offer. Fort Snelling was reopened as a place to gather and train recruits. About 24,000 soldiers passed through the fort during the war. The Civil War (1861-1865) Sgt. Anton Simonet, 1863...
When the US–Dakota War of 1862 began, parts of four volunteer regiments were forming at Fort Snelling. Col. Henry Sibley rushed four companies to the Minnesota River Valley. Others soon followed. Many soldiers who joined to save the Union occupied distant forts and were sent to fight Dakota people instead. Others later battled Confederate rebels on...
Beginning in 1878, the US Army’s Department of Dakota was headquartered at Fort Snelling. It oversaw all military operations in Minnesota, Dakota Territory, and Montana Territory. From 1882 to 1888, the 25th United States Infantry Regiment, a segregated African American unit, was garrisoned at the fort. The Fort Expands (1865-1940) Company I, 25th ...
May 24, 2015 · On a bluff overlooking where the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers meet is Fort Snelling. Its construction began in the 1820s with the idea that it would be both a fort and a trading post.
Feb 28, 2020 · Historic Fort Snelling commands the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. Visitors to the fort interact with re-enactors that describe the history and the lives of the people who lived, visited, and traded here.
Learn stories of the military fort and its surrounding area, home to a wide history that includes Native peoples, trade, soldiers and veterans, enslaved people, immigrants, and the changing landscape.
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Jul 25, 2016 · Fort Snelling continued to expand in the decades following the Civil War. During the 1870s and 1880s, the fort became the headquarters of the US military’s Department of the Dakota and was a staging and supply base for campaigns against Native American nations in the west.
