1800 to 1900 Mendota's part in the making of Minnesota

The nineteenth century was a time of great change in this area.

In 1803 the United States acquired all the land west of the Mississippi from Spain in the Louisiana Purchase

Lt. Zebulan Pike entered the area on an expedition with two objectives; to find the source of the Mississippi River (he didn't find it), and to select sites for military posts to protect the fur traders and their lucrative business with the Indians. When camped on what is now known as Pikes Island he signed a treaty with the Dakota for land to be a military reservation in 1805.

In 1816 the fur trade for the British in Minnesota was closed by an act of Congress declaring that only American citizens could be licensed to trade with the Indians in the United States. Losing their source of furs from below the border the Northwest Fur Company eventually went into decline and was forced to merge with the Hudson Bay Company in 1821.

In 1819 Colonel Henry Leavenworth and 122 soldiers arrive at Mendota to assemble materials for construction of wood palisade fort. He set up Camp New Hope opposite the fort site near Mendota. Over half of soldiers died during winter from sickness.

In 1820 Colonel Josiah Snelling assumes command and construction on Fort Snelling had begun. Soon settlers and fur traders started to arrive and were allowed land on the military reservation. The location of Mendota at the intersection of the St. Peter's (Minnesota) and the Mississippi Rivers became a major center for trade with the Dakota Indians and a thoroughfare for travelers going west.

The demand for beaver furs for the Hatters of Europe was still very strong through the first half of the nineteenth century until the introduction of silk caused the demand to drop drastically.

Like the French voyageurs that visited the Minnesota area in the eighteenth century, many of the first settlers around Mendota were also fur traders. Jean Baptiste Faribualt, a prominent fur trader in the Minnesota Valley along the Minnesota River, arrived here in 1819 after the British burned his home and pillaged his furs and merchandise in the War of 1812. He started farming on Pike's Island, then on the bank, each time being flooded out by the rivers. He finally gave up and built on higher ground finishing his stone house the year after Henry Sibley built his.

"Pig's Eye" Parrant arrives in Mendota in 1832. He set up a distillery and started selling liquor to the soldiers of the fort and the Indians.

In 1838 "Pig's Eye" Parrant was ejected from Mendota by Indian Agent Taliaferro and Colonel Snelling for selling liquor to the Indians and soldiers. He moved down river a few miles where he became the first settler in St. Paul (Pig's Eye).

Henry Sibley arrived in 1834 as the head of the American Fur Company's Dakota efforts. Here at Mendota he ran the company's headquarters controlling all the trade with the Dakota. This location where the Minnesota and the Mississippi Rivers meet and protected by Fort Snelling became central to the growth and expansion of the area. Henry built the first stone house in Minnesota where he had many guests and held many meetings at which the future of the area was determined. He was important in all the major negotiations with the Indians because of his knowledge of the language and experience trading with them. His political life involved first getting Minnesota named a territory and then as a state. In 1862, just after defeat at Bull Run, Sibley was commissioned as an officer in the US army and sent to quell the Sioux uprising. He quickly put an end to the war.

The second half of the nineteenth century was marked by the rapid growth of the surrounding area. Pig's Eye (now St. Paul) became the capitol of the state of Minnesota.