Mortal/History

2000 Years Ago As many as 37 burial Mounds were constructed by the Hopewell culture, one of several Native American Mound builders approximately 2000 years ago. The dead were buried with artifacts, indicating a religious tradition. The mounds built by the Hopewell culture were built in a distinctive fashion, burying the deceased's ashes; the Dakota Indians later used the same site to bury their dead, wrapping the bodies in animal skins.

1600 - 1837 Dakota peoples lived near the site of the Mounds. Just below the mounds was a large cave at the base of the bluff. Called Carver's Cave by the white settlers, the location was known as "Wakân Teepee" - sacred lodge, or dwelling of the Great Spirit - by the Dakota. The cave was eventually destroyed by the railroad passing through the area along the river's edge.

1805 Unratified treaty by Lieutenant Zebulon Pike for possession of land in the land in the region.

1825 Fort Snelling military fortification completed.

1838 French fur trader Pierre “Pig’s Eye” Parrant set up a tavern named the Pig’s Eye. The community that sprung up around the tavern had become important as a trading center and a destination for settlers heading west. Locals called the area Pig’s Eye or Pig’s Eye Landing after Parrant’s popular tavern.

1841 Father Lucien Galtier was sent to minister to the Catholic French Canadians and established a chapel on the bluffs above Pig's Eye Landing named for his favorite saint, Paul the Apostle. The settlement's name was changed to Saint Paul in honor of the chapel.

1849 St. Paul: Capital of Minnesota Territory. Squatters occupied military-reservation land on the west side of river (Minneapolis side) near St. Anthony Falls.

1850 Squatters given land and Minneapolis founded.

1851 Minneapolis: University of Minnesota founded.

1858 St. Paul: State Capitol when Minnesota admitted to Union.

1862 Dakota War - Conflict broke out between the United States and several bands of Dakota peoples. It began on August 18, 1862, at the Lower Sioux Agency along the Minnesota River. By September, 358 settlers had been killed, in addition to 77 soldiers and 29 volunteers. The total number of Dakota casualties is unknown. After nearly 400 trials by a military commission completed in less than six weeks, 303 Dakota men were sentenced to death and 38 Dakota men were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota. This was the largest one-day mass execution in American history. 1600 Dakota people, many of them women and children, who were imprisoned at Fort Snelling in the aftermath of the conflict. At least 130 died during the cold winter months of captivity.
St. Paul: Northern Pacific Railway train departed on first trek.

1863 In May, 1863, the Dakota survivors from the camp at Fort Snelling were crowded aboard steamboats and taken to Crow Creek in southeastern South Dakota. Those who survived Crow Creek were moved again three years later to the Santee Reservation in Nebraska.

1870 Minneapolis: Flour Milling Capital of World.

1886 St Paul: St. Paul Union Stockyard established.

1904 St. Paul: 12 people died, and there were injuries to many others, along with destruction of property, both private and public, estimated, in round numbers, at $1,000,000 resulted from a furious gale which tore down the valley of the Mississippi at about 9 o'clock last night from a point somewhere near the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, near Fort Snelling. At about that point the fury of the elements seemingly divided and with a roar descended on the twin cities and their environs.

1914 Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport opens on Fort Snelling Unorganized Territory.

1950 St. Paul: Charles M. Schulz published 1st Charlie Brown strip.

1965 St. Paul: Beatlemania!

2004 Minneapolis: Mall of America opened.

2007 Minneapolis: Interstate 35W Bridge collapsed, 13 fatalities.