Mille Lacs Kathio State Park, also known as Kathio Site, is a

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

Mille Lacs Lake Mille Lacs Lake (also called Lake Mille Lacs or Mille Lacs) is a large but shallow lake in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is located in the counties of Mille Lacs, Aitkin, and Crow Wing, roughly 75 miles north of the Minneapolis-St. Paul m ...

. The park preserves habitation sites and mound groups, believed to date between 3000 BC and 1750 AD, that document

Dakota Dakota may refer to: * Dakota people, a sub-tribe of the Sioux ** Dakota language, their language Dakota may also refer to: Places United States * Dakota, Georgia, an unincorporated community * Dakota, Illinois, a town * Dakota, Minnesota, a ...

Indian culture and

Ojibwe The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...

-Dakota relationships. The park contains 19 identified archaeological sites, making it one of the most significant archaeological collections in Minnesota. The earliest site dates to the Archaic period and shows evidence of copper tool manufacture. The Dakota lived in this area roughly until the 18th century, when many bands of them were moving southward into the prairies and river areas of southern Minnesota. At the same time, Ojibwe (

Anishinaabe The Anishinaabeg (adjectival: Anishinaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe (including Saulteaux and Oji-Cree), Odawa, Potawatomi, ...

) were moving in from the east. Ojibwe oral tradition, published by

William Whipple Warren William Whipple Warren (May 27, 1825 – June 1, 1853) was a historian, interpreter, and legislator in the Minnesota Territory. The son of Lyman Marcus Warren, an American fur trader and Mary Cadotte, the Ojibwe-Metis daughter of fur trader M ...

, suggests that there was a

battle A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...

in which they successfully took control of the area from the Lakota. Around the time of contact in the 1850s, loggers came to the area. The next 50 years resulted in a large quantity of trees being felled and floated down the

Rum River The Rum River is a slow, meandering stream that connects Minnesota's Mille Lacs Lake with the Mississippi River. It runs for U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 5, 2 ...

or across

to sawmills. The name "Kathio" is actually a corruption of "Izatys", a name the

Mdewakanton The Mdewakanton or Mdewakantonwan (also spelled ''Mdewákhaŋthuŋwaŋ'' and currently pronounced ''Bdewákhaŋthuŋwaŋ'') are one of the sub-tribes of the Isanti (Santee) Dakota ( Sioux). Their historic home is Mille Lacs Lake (Dakota: ''Mde W� ...

Dakota people gave themselves. Explorer

Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut ( 1639 – 25 February 1710) was a French soldier and explorer who is the first European known to have visited the area where the city of Duluth, Minnesota, United States, is now located and the head of Lake Superi ...

visited the area in 1679. He named the area "Izatys", but his poor handwriting led people to mistake the "Iz" as a "K". Further errors led to the name being transliterated to "Kathio". The Kathio Historic District site was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1964. File:EntranceMilleLacsKathioStatePark.jpg, Entrance sign File:millelacs.jpg, Kayak dock File:Kathiomounds.jpg, Native burial mounds File:OgechieLakeMN.jpg, Ogechie Lake File:WilfordSite.jpg, Wilford Archeological Site

References

External links

Mille Lacs Kathio State Park website, at Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
{{authority control 1957 establishments in Minnesota Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota IUCN Category V National Historic Landmarks in Minnesota Native American history of Minnesota Protected areas established in 1957 Protected areas of Mille Lacs County, Minnesota State parks of Minnesota Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota National Register of Historic Places in Mille Lacs County, Minnesota

See also

References

External links