Brookings County was home to roving Indians until 1862, with the first reliable record of the area left when Nicollet and Fremont visited Oakwood Lakes in July 1838. The region east of the Big Sioux was ceded by the Santee Sioux in 1851 and the land to the west by the Yankton Sioux in 1858. A breastwork was made at Oakwood Lakes in 1859 and occupied again in 1862-63. Nobles Wagon Road was built through the county in 1857, crossing the Big Sioux over an improved ford, and the settlement of Medary existed there in 1857-58 until Sioux pressure forced its abandonment. Permanent settlement began nearby in 1869 with 10 Norwegians, and another colony of 31 settled at Lake Hendricks in July 1873. Brookings County was created in 1862 and named for Wilmot W. Brookings, a pioneer judge and legislator; until 1873 it included parts of Moody, Lake, and Kingsbury Counties. It was organized on July 3rd, 1871, in Martin N. Trygstad's cabin, 4 miles northwest of Medary, and Medary served as county seat from 1871 to 1879. Most towns began in 1879 when the Northwestern R.R. crossed the county, and others followed when roads pushed north in 1884. Medary, Oakwood, and Fountain became ghost towns, while Brookings became county seat. State College was established in Brookings in 1881 and opened in 1884. Moody County was a domain of the Dakota Sioux, with a trading post traditionally at the Great Bend as early as 1763, and with posts certainly kept there by Joseph LaFramboise in 1822 and Philander Prescott in 1832-33. Its land east of the Big Sioux was ceded by the Santee Sioux in 1851 and that west of the river by the Yankton Sioux in 1858. Its first settlement, at Flandreau, was established in 1857 but abandoned in 1858 because of Indian pressure; the place was named for Charles E. Flandrau. Until 1873 its southern half was part of Minnehaha and its northern half part of Brookings County. The county was named for Gideon C. Moody, a territorial legislator and first U.S. Senator. Its first permanent settlers were 25 Christian Santee Sioux Indians who took homesteads in 1869, including Old Flute, All-over-Red, Iron Old Man, Iron Dog, and Big Eagle, along with James Jones and L. M. Hewlett along the river when Eli P. Drake surveyed the county in September 1869. Shortly afterward Charles K. Howard opened a trade store on the Sioux at Flandreau, where the Pettigrew Brothers had the town established by 1872. David Faribault, Harry Stoughton, and Edward Pierce organized the county on August 30, 1873, and Flandreau soon became county seat. By 1880 the county had 3915 people despite grasshoppers, drought, and blizzards. The railroad reached Flandreau on 1 January 1880, and Riggs Institute, founded in 1892, became the Flandreau Indian School, the center of a considerable Indian community whose church building dates back to 1872.