Service Begins Habitat Restoration Project on Site of Historic Dakota Conflict Battle

Restoring wildlife values and habitats on drained wetlands and recovered tallgrass prairie in Minnesota is nothing new for biologists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service). But a restoration project set to begin this spring near Currie, Minn., will be significant not only for wildlife, but for communities and families of southwest Minnesota that were touched by a tragic chapter in state history. This month, the Service will begin work on an upland portion of a long-drained marsh known as "Slaughter Slough", a place where 11 settlers and a number of Dakota Indians were killed in August 1862.

Today, most of the site is either a dried up soybean field or partially drained wetland. But in the summer of 1862 it was a mix of native prairie and marshy wetland, filled with reeds, cattails and other aquatic grasses. It was also the place where on August 20, 1862, members of nine families took refuge from an armed band of Dakota Indians, who with others from their tribe, had begun attacking settlers along the Minnesota River Valley three days before. In addition to the settlers, the "Battle of Slaughter Slough" claimed the life of Dakota Leader Grizzly Lean Bear and possibly other Dakota. The battle was one of a handful of skirmishes and battles that became known as the Dakota Conflict of 1862.

A stone monument and log cabin at Lake Shetek State Park, near Currie, Minn., are the lone physical reminders of the battle and the marsh. Slaughter Slough marsh, like so many rural wetlands, was drained in 1912 to provide more land for crops. The Service worked with local landowners to acquire about 640 acres of the site and will soon begin planting a mix of grasses and forbs harvested from native tallgrass prairie on about 110 acres of uplands overlooking the former marsh.

According to Steve Kallin, manager of the Services Windom Wetland Management District (WMD), the Service hopes to restore the site to what it looked like in 1862. "Its not much to look at now, just a soybean field and a dry, partially drained wetland,