MinnesotaHistory.net

This article was first published on this site in January 2010. The information is also discussed in the new book Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota. Although the National Park Service’s final EIS for the Coldwater/Bureau of Mines property in Hennepin County, Minnesota, contains the statement that “no historical documentation of American Indian [...]

Anyone holding a ceremony at Coldwater Spring, a sacred and culturally important place for Dakota people, is required to get a permit from the local office of the National Park Service office in St. Paul, known as the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area or MNRRA.  However as of August 30, 2012, no permits are [...]

Could the National Park Service be a fit guardian for the Gettysburg Battlefield if it announced publicly that it did not accept the belief that a profoundly important battle took place there, one that was a turning point in the history of the Civil War and indeed for the history of the country, and that [...]

It is time for the National Park Service to leave Coldwater Spring in Hennepin County, Minnesota. The NPS, or its local branch, the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (MNRRA), is unfit to manage this sacred and culturally important site which first entered federal hands through the Dakota Treaty of 1805. As reported in the [...]

In an August 24, 2012, Minnesota Public Radio interview, Jan Klein, a descendant of white settlers killed in the US- Dakota War of 1862, described her role as one of the 85 people advising the Minnesota Historical Society about the content of the 1862 exhibit now at the History Center in St. Paul. Klein began with the [...]

A new documentary, produced and directed by Dakota activist and artist Sheldon P. Wolfchild, chronicling from the tragic events of 1862 from the Dakota point of view, which has already been shown at several venues, will be shown again as part of a series of 1862 events on August 23, at Turner Halle, 102 South State [...]

You are headed for the 1862 exhibit at the History Center in St. Paul, the exhibit of the hour, the thing to see in this 150th anniversary year. To get there you go to the third floor and reach a long hallway that leads to the exhibit. On the left you see a large open [...]

It’s easy to find the Mill City Museum. Just look beneath the Gold Medal Flour sign on the west side of the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis. As I approached, in 2005, the old limestone walls of the Washburn Crosby A mill containing the museum within their shell, I could feel the goose bumps starting. [...]

It has been hard to find time to write articles for MinnesotaHistory.net in the last year. Four and a half years ago I got a call from some people asking me write a grant proposal and to work with some other people to do to do some research on a really compelling topic. Two grants [...]

It was a tense evening at the meeting of the executive council of the Minnesota Historical Society on November 11, 1901. An invited speaker had given a speech for the ostensible purpose of telling the ancient history of the state, but at the end of his speech had condemned the white settlers and the U.S. [...]