Fort Ridgely
Address:
72404 County Road 30, Fairfax MN 55332
Admission: $5 adults, $3 seniors, college students and children 6-17. State Park vehicle permit required.
Phone: 507-934-2160
Email:
ftridgely@mnhs.org
Website: http://www.mnhs.org/fortridgely
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. In 1853, the U.S. military started construction on Fort Ridgely, 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 Aug. 20 and Aug. 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.
