Nicholas Perrot, a daring adventurer, fur trader, and able diplomat, built Fort St. Antoine on the shore of Lake Pepin near here in 1686. Alarmed by English aggressions, the French government believed it necessary to repeat its claims with enough pomp and ceremony to impress the Indians and assure their allegiance. Accordingly, at Fort St. Antoine on May 8, 1689, Perrot formally took possession, in the name of Louis XIV, of the entire region west of the Great Lakes, no matter how remote. When A.W. Miller surveyed this area in 1855, he reported that the fort site occupied a space of about sixty by forty-five feet and stood about seventy feet back from the point of highest water mark on the lake shore.