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Fortifying Saint Cloud: Searching For Fort Holes, Charles Peliska

Culminating Projects in Cultural Resource Management

This thesis is about my efforts to locate Fort Holes – a civilian fortification built in September of 1862 in response to the nearby threats of Native American violence. A decade after the western parts of Minnesota were opened to Euro-American settlement, the actions of government agents, traders, and a small group of Native American actors led to violence on the frontier. The citizens of Saint Cloud constructed Fort Holes in a week and it only stood for a couple of years before they removed the lumber for the growing city. Throughout Minnesota, citizens constructed over 50 of these expedient …