Near this place on July 23, 1851, the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of the Dakota sold 21 million acres of land to the federal government for $1,665,000, about 7.5 cents per acre. Hoping to ensure a future for their children, the Dakota had little choice but to sign. Besides an annual payment, the treaty promised the Dakota a reservation extending 10 miles on either side of the Minnesota River above the Yellow Medicine River, but the U.S. Senate eliminated this reservation before ratifying the treaty. President Millard Fillmore then decided to let the Dakota live on the proposed reservation until it was needed for white settlement. In 1914, the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution commemorated the treaty site with a bronze tablet mounted on a boulder found near where the document had been signed. Five days before the dedication, the St. Peter Herald reported that the boulder had been used to display presents provided for the Indians at the time of the signing, and other writers repeated and embellished the story until it was widely accepted, yet there is no evidence that this or any other boulder played a part in the treaty signing.