02-10-1997 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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1 BACKGROUND RESEARCH Archival research began prior to the fieldwork and had three general objectives: (a) to identify previously recorded cultural resources, (b) to predict where historic archeological sites may be located, and (c) to develop local contexts for evaluating the significance of cultu’ •’ resources identified in the field. Research utilized a range of primary and seconc.;:'/ source materials, and the level of detail was matched to the Phase I (reconnaj^-ance) «:cale of this survey. The following paragraphs provide a brief review of the general history of the post-contact period development of the project area. This discussion has been derived from county narrative histories (Holcombe and Bingham 1915; Warner and Foote 1881), old maps and plats (Andreas 1874; Dahl 1898; Foote 1890; Hixon 1916; Trj'gg 1964; Westby 1913; Wright 1873), and other documents (Borchert and Yaeger 1969; Roberts 1988; Upham 1969). Figures 5 through 8 show the survey area as it was depicted on various historic lats. Prior to Euro-.American settlement, western Hennepin County was occupied and utilized by Native Americans for thousands of years. At the time of initial Native American- European contact in the mid-17th century, there appears to have been very few native people living anywhere in the Twin Cities area, but by the end of the 18th century, the region was the tribal homeland of the Eastern Dakota or Santee Sioux. The natural resources of Lake Minnetonka, an important locus of tribal activity since pre-contact times, was also utilized by the historic Dakota (see Durand 1982). Until 1820, Euro- American occupation of the area was limited to a few short-lived fur trading posts along the Mississippi, Minnesota, and Crow Wing rivers. Construction of Fort Snelling at the confluence of the Mississippi and the Minnesota rivers signaled the beginning of permanent, white settlement in the region. What is now Hennepin County was not part of the United States until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and was not opened to Euro-American settlement until after the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux in 1851. Hennepin County was created by the territorial legislature in 1852, with civil townships organized after 1858. The project area originally included Medina Township, but was reorganized as Orono Township in 1889. The placename commemorates the town of the same name in the state of Maine (Upham 1969:221). Euro-American settlement was slow before 1855, although several places along the Minnesota River and Lake Minnetonka attracted the attention of early real estate speculators and townsite promoters. The Panic of 1857 and the Civil War of 1861-65 slowed development, but postwar railroad construction and advancements in agricultural technology triggered a period of rapid rural population growth between ca. 1865 and 1915. Wheat was the primary cash crop during the pioneer era, but farming became increasingly diversified during the late 19th centur}', culminating in the "golden age" of the family farm between ca. 1890 and 1920. This era of agricultural prosperity coincided I I I I I 1 1