We do not know when the first white man entered the Missouri River, but it is probably between 1700 and…
Tag: settler colonialism
A Note from Cottonwood Corners
The two states of Dakota were once part of the vast Dakotaland which extended from the Mississippi to the Missouri…
A Note from Cottonwood Corners
Shortly after 1900 two railroad towns – Evarts and LeBeau – appeared on the east side of the Missouri River…
A Note from Cottonwood Corners
The homesteaders came west to improve their economic status. This was universally the impelling motive in the westward settlement of…
A Note from Cottonwood Corners
Henry Jones (most often just plain “Hank”), the veteran DeGrey postmaster, desired to get into government service. This was at…
A Note from Cottonwood Corners
Because of the Homestead Act, the public land passed into private hands so quickly that by 1885 all Dakota east…
A Note from Cottonwood Corners
Chevalier and Francois Verendrye were fur traders who built trading posts across Canada and down into what was later to…
A Note from Cottonwood Corners
Colonel Dodge, who was the chief engineer of the Union Pacific Railway, gathered valuable statistics regarding the wholesale slaughter of…
A Note from Cottonwood Corners
The Omaha Daily Bee reported on May 21, 1885 that: “The American buffalo is virtually an extinct animal. There are…
A Note from Cottonwood Corners
The first effort at road building by white men in what would later become Dakota Territory was in 1857. One…