Visit Fort Ridgely - site mentioned in Spirit Car

One of the sites mentioned in our book for May, "Spirit Car", is a historic site that can be visited.

http://sites.mnhs.org/historic-sites/fort-ridgely

Fort Ridgely

Built in 1853 as a police station to keep peace as settlers poured into the former Dakota lands, it withstood several attacks in the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 and became a training ground for Civil War recruits. 


 The site is located within Fort Ridgely State Park and is managed by the Nicollet County Historical Society.

The restored commissary building houses interpretive exhibits and a gift shop. The stone foundations of the other fort buildings remain and interpretive markers on the grounds tell the fort's story. The site is located within Fort Ridgely State Park which offers hiking trails, horseback riding, a nine hole golf course, fishing and camping.

History

Yielding to pressure from the U.S. government in 1851, the Eastern Dakota (Eastern Sioux) sold 35 million acres of their land across southern and western Minnesota.

The Dakota moved onto a small reservation along the Minnesota River, stretching from just north of New Ulm to the South Dakota border.

 

In 1853, the U.S. military started construction on Fort Ridgely, near the southern border of the new reservation and northwest of the German settlement of New Ulm. The fort was designed as a police station to keep peace as settlers poured into the former Dakota lands.

 

Nine years later, unkept promises by the U.S. government, nefarious practices by fur traders and crop failure all helped create tensions that erupted into the U.S.-Dakota War in August 1862. Dakota forces attacked the fort twice, on August 20 and August 22. The fort that had been a training base and staging ground for Civil War volunteers suddenly became one of the few military forts west of the Mississippi to withstand a direct assault. Fort Ridgely's 280 military and civilian defenders held out until Army reinforcements ended the siege.

 

The Army abandoned the Fort in 1867. Civilians occupied the remaining buildings and later dismantled them for their own use. From 1935 to 1942 the Veteran Conservation Corps excavated the site, restored the foundations of eight fort buildings and reconstructed the entire commissary building. In 1970 the fort was added to the National Register of Historic Places, while much of the park was added in 1989. The Minnesota Historical Society assumed stewardship of the site in 1986.

 

Resources for Further Investigation

 

U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 website

 

Fort Ridgely

72404 County Road 30

Fairfax, MN 55332

See map: Google Maps

Directions

In Fort Ridgely State Park, off Minn. Hwy. 4, seven miles south of Fairfax.

Hours

Memorial Day Weekend-Labor Day: Thursday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Open Monday holidays.

Admission

$5 adults, $3 seniors (65+), students w/ID and children 6-17. Free for children age 5 and under and MHS members. Minnesota State Park vehicle permit required.