America's westward expansion came at the expense of American Indians as tribes were relocated when European settlement reached their traditional homelands and treaties were seldom long lasting or satisfying to either side. The Winnebago, whose homeland was in what is now southwestern Wisconsin, were given a new reservation in 1832 along the Mississippi River near the present Iowa–Minnesota border to serve as a buffer between the Dakota and Sauk tribes. Only 14 years later they were relocated to the Crow Wing River in central Minnesota, centered around the present-day town of Long Prairie in the area of the Todd County Fairgrounds. There the reservation population numbered over 2,500 people, and more than 150 structures included a headquarters, school, church, convent, stores, and offices. In only nine years the Winnebago were uprooted again and moved to a new location near present-day St. Clair in Blue Earth County. They remained there for seven years until, after the U.S.–Dakota Conflict of 1862, in which they took no part, they were forcibly moved along with the Dakota to Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota. A road built from Little Falls to the Winnebago reservation in the Crow Wing region later served settlers moving into the area, and the reservation headquarters was renamed Long Prairie and eventually became the county seat of Todd County.