The Iowa Great Lakes, often referred to as Okoboji, is a group of natural lakes in northwestern Iowa in the United States. There are seven lakes in the region totaling 12,687 acres (5,134 ha) with the three principal lakes of the group being Big Spirit Lake, West Okoboji Lake, and East Okoboji Lake. They are the largest natural lakes in the state of Iowa. The largest, Spirit Lake, is 5,684 acres (2,300 ha). The lake area extends to the north into Jackson County, Minnesota. The headwaters of Little Sioux River flow past the west side of the lake area.
Starved Rock State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Illinois, characterized by the many canyons within its 2,630 acres (1,064 ha). Located just southeast of the village of Utica, in Deer Park Township, LaSalle County, Illinois, along the south bank of the Illinois River, the park hosts over two million visitors annually, the most for any Illinois state park.
Fort Ridgely was a frontier United States Army outpost from 1851 to 1867, built 1853–1854 in Minnesota Territory. The Sioux called it Esa Tonka. It was located overlooking the Minnesota river southwest of Fairfax, Minnesota. Half of the fort's land was part of the south reservation in the Minnesota river valley for the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute tribes. Fort Ridgely had no defensive wall, palisade, or guard towers. The Army referred to the fort as the "New Post on the Upper Minnesota" until it was named for three Maryland Army Officers named Ridgely, who died during the Mexican–American War.
The Spirit Lake Massacre was an attack by a Wahpekute band of Santee Sioux on scattered Iowa frontier settlements during a severe winter. Suffering a shortage of food, the renegade chief Inkpaduta led 14 Sioux against the settlements near Okoboji and Spirit lakes in the northwestern territory of Iowa near the Minnesota border, in revenge of the murder of Inkpaduta's brother, Sidominadotah, and Sidominadotah's family by Henry Lott. The Sioux killed 35-40 settlers in their scattered holdings, took four young women captive, and headed north. The youngest captive, Abbie Gardner, was kept a few months before being ransomed in early summer. It was the last Native American attack on settlers in Iowa, but the events increased tensions between the Sioux and settlers in the Minnesota Territory. Nearly 30 years after the events, in 1885 Gardner-Sharp published her memoir, History of the Spirit Lake Massacre and Captivity of Miss Abbie Gardner, which was reprinted several times in small editions. It was one of the last captivity narratives written of European Americans' being held by Native Americans. In 1891, Gardner-Sharp purchased the primitive family cabin and returned home. For the last 30 years of her life, she subsisted on the modest earnings from her book and souvenir sales. The town erected a historical monument to commemorate the attack. The State of Iowa now maintains the park and Abbie Gardner Sharp home site.
Lake Shetek State Park is a state park of Minnesota, United States, on Lake Shetek, which is the largest lake in southwestern Minnesota and the headwaters of the Des Moines River. It is most popular for water recreation and camping. However the park also contains historical resources related to the Dakota War of 1862, including an original log cabin and a monument to 15 white settlers killed there and at nearby Slaughter Slough on August 20, 1862.
Prickett's Fort State Park is a 188-acre (76.1 ha) West Virginia state park north of Fairmont, near the confluence of Prickett's Creek and the Monongahela River. The park features a reconstructed refuge fort and commemorates life on the Virginia frontier during the late 18th century.
Inkpaduta was a war chief of the Wahpekute band of the Dakota during the 1857 Spirit Lake Massacre and later Western Sioux actions against the United States Army in the Dakota Territory, Wyoming and Montana.
The Battle of Horseshoe Bend, also referred to as the Battle of Pecatonica and the Battle of Bloody Lake, was fought on June 16, 1832 in present-day Wisconsin at an oxbow lake known as "Horseshoe Bend", which was formed by a change in course of the Pecatonica River. The battle was a major turning point in the Black Hawk War, despite being of only minor military significance. The small victory won by the U.S. militia at Horseshoe Bend helped restore public confidence in the volunteer force following an embarrassing defeat at Stillman's Run. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend ended with three militia men killed in action and a party of eleven Kickapoo warriors dead.
The Sinsinawa Mound raid occurred on June 29, 1832, near the Sinsinawa mining settlement in Michigan Territory. This incident, part of the Black Hawk War, resulted in the deaths of two men; a third man survived by seeking cover in a nearby blockhouse. In the aftermath of the raid, Captain James W. Stephenson set out to pursue the attackers—a straggling band of Sauk Native Americans—but lost their trail at the Mississippi River. The attack occurred in the same week as other skirmishes and raids, and as a result helped contribute to the growing fear in the region. The raid caused the residents of nearby Platteville to consider fleeing their settlement.
Sequoyah's Cabin is a log cabin and historic site off Oklahoma State Highway 101 near Akins, Oklahoma. It was the home between 1829 and 1844 of the Cherokee Indian Sequoyah, who in 1821 created a written language for the Cherokee Nation. The cabin and surrounding park, now owned by the Cherokee Nation, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
The Moran Bay Patrol Cabin was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps about 1932. The log structure was located in the northern backcountry of Grand Teton National Park, and was built to a standard design for such structures, in the National Park Service Rustic style, but for the U.S. Forest Service, which administered much of the area prior to the expansion of the park in 1943. The Upper Granite Canyon Patrol Cabin is similar.
Fort Sinquefield is the historic site of a wooden stockade fortification in Clarke County, Alabama, near the modern town of Grove Hill. It was built by early Clarke County pioneers as protection during the Creek War and was attacked in 1813 by Creek warriors.
The Col. James Graham House is a historic log cabin located on West Virginia Route 3 in Lowell, West Virginia. It was built in 1770 as a home for Col. James Graham, the first settler of Lowell, and his family. It was later the site of an Indian attack on the Graham family in 1777. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 16, 1976. The Graham House is the oldest multi-story log cabin in West Virginia. It is currently operating as a museum.
The Dickinson County Courthouse is located in Spirit Lake, Iowa, United States. Built in two phases in 2006 and 2009, it is the fourth building to house court functions and county administration.
The Willard Bunnell House is a historic house museum in Homer, Minnesota, United States. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 for having state-level significance in the themes of architecture, commerce, and exploration/settlement. It was nominated for being Minnesota's first permanent house south of Saint Paul, as well as for its Gothic Revival architecture and association with brothers Willard (1814–1861) and Lafayette Bunnell (1824–1903), who helped develop the area during its frontier days. It is now managed by the Winona County Historical Society.
Pillsbury Point State Park is located in Arnolds Park, Iowa, United States. It is Iowa's smallest state park and unlike the others, it is an urban park. At 6.48 acres (2.62 ha), it is a narrow park that extends along a point of land into West Okoboji Lake adjacent to private summer houses. The overlook at the north end of the park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. The historic designation includes walkways along the lake, stone steps, stone benches, and property boundary markers.
The Theophile Bruguier Cabin is a historic building located in Sioux City, Iowa, United States. Bruguier was a Quebec native who was a trader with the American Fur Company. He was the first Caucasian settler in what would become Sioux City. He settled at the confluence of the Missouri and the Big Sioux Rivers in 1849. With him were his two wives, Dawn and Blazing Cloud, and his father-in-law War Eagle, a chief of Yankton tribe, and extended family. He built a number of log structures on his 560-acre (230 ha) claim. Bruguier took up farming and set up his own fur-trading company. War Eagle and his two daughters, Bruguier's wives, died in the 1850s. Bruguier sold a tract of land to Joseph Leonnais in 1855, and it became the original townsite for Sioux City. He built this single-room cabin for his home about 1860, and married Victoria Brunette in 1862. Bruguier and his wife moved to a farm near Salix, Iowa, where he died in 1895.
The Old Settlers' Association of Johnson County Cabins, also known as City Park Cabins, are historic buildings located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. These are two log structures built by the Old Settlers' Association of Johnson County. The single-room log cabin was built in 1889 for Johnson County's semicentennial. It had been located at two different county fairground sites until it was moved to City Park in 1918. The second cabin was built here by the association in 1913. It is a dogtrot house that is meant to be a replica of an early trading post in this area. These are typical log house forms from Iowa's pioneer era whose existence are now rare. They also represent an effort by a social organization to commemorate the community's common pioneer heritage. A third element that is part of the historical designation is a bronze plaque affixed to a granite boulder. Located southwest of the cabins, it was installed in 1929 to mark a "Grand Army Tree" that was planted nearby. It is not known if the tree survives. The buildings and plaque were listed together on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.
Abbie Gardner-Sharp was born in 1843 to Rowland Gardner and Frances M. Smith. She was the third of four children, Mary M., Eliza M., and Rowland, youngest child and only son.
Templar State Recreation Area is a 10-acre (4.0 ha) state recreation area in Dickinson County, Iowa, United States, near the city of Orleans. The recreation area is located on the western shore of Big Spirit Lake, the largest of the Iowa Great Lakes, and is one of several state parks and recreation areas in the Great Lakes region. Its amenities include a boat ramp, fishing areas, and picnic buildings; the boat ramp is on a lagoon, which shelters boaters from winds on the lake.
