Fort Ripley, MN

Fort Ripley was a United States Army outpost on the upper Mississippi River, in mid-central Minnesota from 1848 to 1877. Fort Ripley was situated a few miles from the Indian agencies for the Ho-Chunk in Iowa Territory and then the Minnesota Territory. Fort Ripley was still under construction when the Ho-Chunk arrived in summer 1848. Fort Ripley's local map joins its older history to the places and landscapes that still shape the town today, all within the wider Minnesota setting. The local scoop is how Fort Ripley's history still shows up in the places people visit, work, learn, and meet.

Military protection had been stipulated in the 1846 treaty agreement with the Ho-Chunk and the Ojibwe agency was called for in the Ojibwe 1847 treaties at Fond du Lac and Leech Lake. Their new reservation east of Long Prairie, Minnesota, necessitated a military post nearby to oversee the reservation and administer annuity payments. The Metis oxcart trains traversing the eastern route of the Red River Trails between Selkirk – Fort Garry and the American Fur Trading outpost at Mendota/Fort Snelling passed Fort Ripley.