Historic Fort Snelling

August, 1819
U.S. Army soldiers, under the command of Col. Henry Leavenworth, arrive at the confluence of the Mississippi and St. Peter's (later Minnesota) rivers.

Sept. 10, 1820
Cornerstone is laid and building of a military fort commences.

November 1822
Troops move into new barracks at Fort St. Anthony.

1825 Fort is completed and renamed for Col. Josiah Snelling, its first commander.

1836 Dred Scott is brought to Fort Snelling as the slave of the fort's surgeon. Two decades later he sues for his freedom, based on having lived in a free territory. The Supreme Court's famous decision to deny him his freedom is one of the issues that solidifies abolitionist sympathies and draws the country closer to civil war.

1839 Swiss, Scottish and French immigrants from Lord Selkirk's failed colony in Canada, who had been given temporary refuge at the fort, are forced by the Army to move down river in 1839, where they form the small settlement that grows into the city of St. Paul.

1858 The fort grounds are sold to a land speculator and platted as a town site.

1861-65
Fort Snelling is reactivated as an army fort and used as a training center for the thousands of volunteers joining the Union Army.

1862 U.S. Army troops under the command of Gen. Henry Sibley are dispatched from Fort Snelling to aid troops and civilians under siege by the Dakota at Fort Ridgely.

1898 Troops from Fort Snelling are sent to fight in the Spanish-American War.

1941-45
Fort Snelling serves as a processing center for 300,000 inductees and as a training center for military railway and military police units. The fort also houses a Japanese language school.

1960 Fort Snelling is given National Historic Landmark status saving it from the path of highway construction. It is turned over to the Minnesota Historical Society for investigation, restoration and reconstruction in 1965.

1970 Historic Fort Snelling is opened to the public.

1983 Fort Snelling Visitor Center is opened to the public.