Paynesville Fort

Paynesville Fort is a Minnesota historical marker in Paynesville, Stearns County.

Stearns County · Trunk highway 4, 2 blocks south of the Crow River Bridge, Paynesville · location approximate

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In August 1862 during the Sioux Outbreak, home guards built but soon abandoned a sod fort just east of here. On the night of September 13, Indians here surprised a small harvesting party, burned the buildings, and wounded John Boyland, but all the whites finally escaped. Troops garrisoned the fort from October 1862 to May 1864.

Verbatim 1940 text, presented as a historical record, not current interpretation. Minnesota now calls the 1862 conflict the U.S.-Dakota War and has since replaced the wording on some of these signs.

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David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

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under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s

what this marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years here

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Marker data: Minnesota Historical Records Survey Project, Work Projects Administration, Guide to Historic Markers Erected by the State Highway Department Cooperating with the Minnesota Historical Society (1940)

Paynesville Fort

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