In 1850 the Minnesota Territory had a white population of about 6000, and by 1858, a year before Minnesota became a state, the population had grown to 150,000. One reason for this enormous growth was the opening of the “Suland,” land belonging to the Dakota Indians. In two treaties, one at Traverse de Sioux (St. Peter) and the other at Mendota, the United States bought Dakota land for three million dollars, about 10 cents an acre. The United States Government allowed the Dakota to keep a strip of land ten miles on each side of the Minnesota River. The eastern boundary of this reservation was a north-south line from the Little Cottonwood River north, crossing the Minnesota River at the mouth of Little Rock Creek. The Dakota people moved into their reservation in 1853, but in 1858 the part of the reservation north of the Minnesota River was sold. In 1858 surveyors marked out the boundaries of the reservation, and when they drew the north-south boundary, the mouth of Rock Creek was about 700 yards east of where it is today.