Historic Fort Snelling

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Built between 1820 and 1825. Originally known as Fort St. Anthony. It received its current name upon its completion in 1824 in honor of Colonel Josiah Snelling, who commanded the regiment that built it, and oversaw its construction.

It was one of the few stone fortifications built by the U.S. Army in the West, and one of the strongest from a military perspective.

Fort Snelling is noted because it was a post where John Emerson, Dred Scott's owner worked. Emerson, who purchased Scott in St. Louis, lived with Dred and Harriet Scott at the fort during much of the 1830s. At the time, slavery was illegal at Fort Snelling due to the Missouri Compromise; Dred and Harriet's time in Minnesota a led to the infamous U.S. Supreme Court's case.

After the Civil War, the regular army returned to the fort. They protected the interests of the white settlers from the Dakota people and others from the fort, west to the Rocky mountains, dispatching forces projected for the Indian Wars and the Spanish American War of 1898.

www.historicfortsnelling.org/
www.mnhs.org/places/sites/hfs/history.html

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