Ft. Snelling: Citadel on a Minnesota bluff

Begun in 1819, Ft. Snelling at the time was the remotest military outpost on the American frontier. (Now it's just a mile from the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.) It was built to protect U.S. interests (read: fur trade) in this corner of the Louisiana Purchase and to keep peace among the region's Native American peoples even as the federal government laid claim to their lands. The fort did its job, but not without controversy: The slave Dred Scott based his bid for freedom on time spent here, and after the bloody 1862 U.S.-Dakota War, 1,600 Native Americans were imprisoned on the river flats below.

By Catherine Watson

September 16, 2012