In 1852, Joseph R. Brown founded the town of Henderson after a 32-year career as a soldier at frontier outposts, fur trader, experimental farmer, justice of the peace, speculator, lumberman, lobbyist and legislator, transportation agent and newspaper editor. Browns Valley and Brown County were named for Joseph Renshaw Brown. Known in the legislature as Joe the Juggler, he also balanced many responsibilities in other parts of his life. To support a large family during the 1850s and '60s, he created a diverse transportation business that moved people and supplies westward by steamboat, ox-drawn wagon and stagecoach. His innovative nature led him to develop a steam wagon to carry even larger amounts of goods across the prairies of Minnesota and Nebraska. Because of his part-Dakota wife, Susan, his life was intertwined with the movement of the Dakota bands out of the Minnesota River valley through treaties, the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War and its aftermath. He moved from fur trader to Indian agent to treaty negotiator to special military agent in charge of the Dakota scouts who patrolled Minnesota's western border.