In 1862, settlers near Birch Coolie Creek, many of them recent immigrants, had come to establish new homesteads and seek better lives for themselves and their children, largely unaware of rising tensions between the U.S. government and some of the Dakota Indians. Drawn by fertile soil and natural resources, they were not traders or soldiers and lived without protection, administrative services, or conventional local government. On August 18, 1862, at the outbreak of the U.S. – Dakota War, unarmed men, women, and children were killed and wounded on their homesteads in surprise attacks by some of the Dakota Indians. Many of the dead lay in unmarked graves near where they fell, while others escaped to Fort Ridgely. All were forced from their land, most never returned, and the survivors and their descendants were scattered around the state. Just over 100 people, some military but most civilian, were killed within a 3-mile radius of where Birch Coolie Creek flows into the Minnesota River, making it the epicenter of the U.S. – Dakota War, during which hundreds of settlers were killed.