By Nyttend - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8377924
In 1791, US Army forces, under the command of Arthur St Clair, were routed in battle by a tribal confederation of Miami and Shawnee. Six hundred twenty-three American soldiers were killed, as opposed to 50 Native Americans.
Two years later, General “Mad” Anthony Wayne built Fort Recovery at the site of St Clair’s Defeat, being easily identified due to the large amount of unburied remains. June 30, 1794, a large Native American force and a few British officers conducted a siege, but were not able to gain control. Later that summer, Wayne made advances into what was then known as the Northwest Territory. He defeated the confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. In 1795, the Treaty of Greenvile ceded most of the modern state of Ohio to the United States.
The battles sites were excavated in 1894, with 1200 remains reburied in a memorial park. A memorial obelisk was built in 1912. The Fort Recovery State Museum opened in 1938.
----------
One of the oldest roads in the state, Fort Road was originally built by the federal government after Fort Ridgely was completed in 1853-54. Supplies were shipped from Fort Snelling to Traverse des Sioux, then transported by wagon to Fort Ridgely.
Nicollet County Road 5 runs more than 42 miles from its eastern terminus at its intersection with US Highway 169 in St Peter to the Renville County line. Old Fort Road presumably extended from Traverse des Sioux, although the portion running through the campus of Gustavus Adolphus College has been blocked off. Fort Road as an address runs from the western edge of St Peter to the end of CR-5.
In an ideal world, a paved trail would have been installed when the road was refurbished in the early 2010s. This planned geocache trail will have to suffice, but won’t alleviate my anxiety when biking here.