The Otoes were prairie dwellers and hunters who migrated from the Lake Michigan area to Iowa and then to Nebraska in 1700. The Missouria merged with the Otoe Tribe in 1798. Removal to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, began on October 5, with arrival at the present site on October 23, 1881, on 129,113 acres of land purchased from the Cherokees and conveyed in trust by deed in July 1893.