The Full History of Lake Shetek
Last weekend I traveled north for a quick weekend of camping in southwest Minnesota to soak up the outdoors as much as possible before what looks like a solitary winter thanks to COVID-19. I camped with my husband and some friends at Lake Shetek State Park, just outside the town of Curie. The lakes that make the park appealing were created at the end of the last ice age. Lake Shetek, the source of the Des Moines River, was formed when a melting glacier carved the channel that became Beaver Creek intersected the Des Moines River. Sediment built up and created banks and dams that resulted in the large, shallow lake. Lake Shetek is the largest lake in southwest Minnesota and has been inhabited by people since about 900 A.D. Native American’s had been roaming this region for centuries, hunting buffalo on the flat grasslands and camping by the lakes shores. It wasn’t until the 1830’s that the first white explorers arrived, following shortly thereafter by settlers in 1856.
Flat grasslands along the Casey Jones bike trail
The state park was established in 1937 at this location because of the lakes, an amenity in short supply in southwest Minnesota. Government officials hoped the new park would draw visitors that were overburdening Camden State Park 30 miles away. It was constructed by out of work men residing nearby in a nearby Works Progress Administration camp. The WPA program was designed to employ young men jobless because of the Great Depression. This particular WPA camp housed 200 men and was opened in the fall of 1934 on Keeley Island (west of Lake Shetek).
The park was listed in the National Register in July 1992 for its Rustic Style and WPA era historic resources such as the Beach House (1939-1940), Mess Hall (1940), Stone Steps, and other notable buildings. The park has an incredible history dating to well before its establishment in 1937. The monument in the park was built in 1907 to honor the twelve people who died during the U.S.-Dakota Conflict of 1862, arguably the more important history for this state park. What follows is the history of the U.S.-Dakota Conflict and how it arose.
In the 1800’s the park was nothing more than a series of farmsteads with rustic cabins housing the Duley, Koch, Meyer, Hurd, Ireland, Eastlick, Smith, Everett and Wright families living in the area.
William J. and Laura Duley Sr. moved to the area in November 1861 with their five children after their farm and sawmill in Winona County were ruined physically and financially. William made a claim on the Des Moines River below the current dam but traded the claim in April 1862 with William Everett.
Andreas and Christina Koch came from Germany and built a cabin on their land claim in 1859. Without children, they worked their 13 acres of corn, barley, buckwheat and potatoes themselves. They also had cattle, pigs, and chicken. It is suspected that the Dakota resented Andreas for his unwillingness to trade with them and poor ability to speak English.
John and Julia Wright were the most "well-to-do" of the settlers at Shetek. They arrived in 1859 with their daughter Eldora and had a son, George, shortly after their arrival.
On August 20, 1862 a group of Dakota arrived at the Koch cabin and asked Andreas for some water. According to the story, he was shot in the back while walking to the well. The Dakota told Christina to "go home to her mother" and spared her life. She fled to warn other settlers, first to the Smith cabin, then the Wright’s.
Charlie Hatch rode to the Duley cabin to tell them of the deaths of John Voigt and Andreas Koch. The Duley's fled to the Wright cabin to the south, where only Julia and her children were present because John Wright was hundreds of miles away in Olmsted County helping with a harvest. The Dakota arrived at the Wright cabin but were persuaded by Pawn, a local Dakota, to let the settlers leave peacefully and unharmed. The settlers began heading east in a wagon on the Sioux Falls-New Ulm wagon road. They made it about 2.5 miles before the Dakota overtook them.
Seeing the Dakota, the settlers fled into a slough but when a Dakota man grabbed the settler's horses, a settler shot and killed Lean Bear. This ignited a four hour firefight leading to the death of 12 settlers. This area is now known as Slaughter Slough. Laura Duley and the three surviving children were taken captive along with Christina Koch, however Laura’s young baby was killed while in captivity. The actual means of escape for the captive settlers is told in two different versions on the information signs. One reads that the captives were rescued and released in November by a group of Teton Lakota men (nicknamed the Fool Soldier Band for their foolish attempt) who wanted peace. Another states a sympathetic Dakota woman helped them escape after 10 days where they fled to Camp Release near present day Montevideo, Minnesota.
Shetek Monument, dedicated on August 2, 1925
Andreas Koch was found two months after the battle near his cabin and was buried with the others at the slough. All the settlers laid where they died for nearly two months until a military detail arrived to bury them at the slough in a shallow grave. William Duley Sr. was able to escape and returned a year and two months later in October 1863 to move the human remains from their temporary grave at the slough to the present site at the Shetek Monument with the help of Thomas Ireland, Charlie Hatch, Henry Watson Smith and a military detail. A total of six adults and eight children killed that day are interred at the monument site. The monument wasn't installed until 1924 and was dedicated on August 2, 1925.
Little remains from that time period to tell the story. The Wright Cabin was dismantled for firewood in 1880 and the Duley cabin was torn down in 1892. The Koch cabin is all that remains, having been moved to its current location in the state park in 1961. It is the oldest standing building in Murray County and the only remaining structure from the early settlement. The furniture inside are replicas of items the Koch family would have owned.
The informational signs at the park ask the question "Why did the Dakota attack the Shetek settlers?" The answer according to one is that the Dakota tribe, who inhabited this part of Minnesota originally, were essentially pushed too far by the failure of the U.S. government to fulfill the terms and conditions of the treaties with the tribe after occupation of their homeland. Their "anger and resentment exploded in a violent but unsuccessful attempt to drive settlers out of their homeland." Another sign stated the 40 Dakota soldiers who attacked the Shetek settlers were not participants to the Treaties in 1851 and 1853 that took their land and viewed them as invalid.
A more accurate understanding from the Minnesota Historical Society is that American's, after having moved the Dakota to a reservation with poor wild game, were continuing to chip away at their property. A poor harvest in 1861 led to widespread hunger throughout Dakota lands, but the government agent's responsible for ensuring they were paid fairly cut off their credit and refused to distribute food. This led to a tipping point on August 17, 1862 when Four Dakota hunters killed five white settlers at Acton Township, Meeker County. This set off a series of bloody events, including the Lake Shetek massacre, that continued through the end of September which is now known as the U.S.-Dakota Conflict.
The events that transpired led to the hanging of 38 Dakota on December 26, 1862 who were convicted of participating in the events of the U.S.-Dakota Conflict. According to one of the interpretive signs, it was the largest mass execution in American history. Following the war, hundreds of Dakota were sent to an internment camp at Fort Snelling or were expelled from Minnesota after all treaties with the Dakota were revoked by Congress. Peaceful tribes such as the Ho-Chunk who had no involvement in the war were treated the same. Families were broken up and sent to a number of different reservations in Missouri. The government spent the remainder of the decade pursuing the remaining Dakota, offering bounties for Dakota scalps. The violence eventually ended in the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre.
“Just being Dakota means that you were guilty before any consideration of being innocent.”
Knowing the full history of the area, not just the one-sided story told through a dozen or so interpretive signs in the park, makes me wonder if it isn't time to update these signs. The park draws thousands of visitors each year to enjoy the lake, the trail, and the historic structures, but is missing an opportunity to right a wrong committed nearly 160 years ago. The story of the Dakota’s mistreatment is well told on the Minnesota Historical Society website, but to those casually reading the signs as they bike into Currie, they are not conveyed the full scope of the injustice, just as I had not until I chose to research it at home.
