Pentoga Park stands at the site of a pre-European Native American settlement, a permanent headquarters where Ojibwe bands congregated, and an Ojibwe burial ground on the southeastern shore of Gaa-namegosikaag, now known as Chicagon Lake in Iron County. The Ojibwe, or Anishinaabe, also called Chippewa, lived throughout the area according to seasonal food source cycles and were linked by marriage and culture to communities at L’Anse, Lac Vieux Desert, and nearby Wisconsin. The main village in Iron County was here, where the first European settlers met the Ojibwe headman Meshkawaanagonebi, better known locally as Chief John Edwards. The park takes its name from his wife, Biindigeyaasinokwe, shortened to Biindige and mispronounced by newcomers as Pentoga. Local tribesmen were peaceful in their relations with settlers and regularly traded with new mining towns, securing provisions and selling venison, blueberries, and moccasins, but as the iron mines developed they began to disperse to more isolated places. In 1891 Chief Edwards disposed of the village lands and eventually settled at Lac Vieux Desert, and descendants of Chief Edwards and Pentoga still live in the area. The county purchased the land in 1924 to create a park and preserve the traditional burial grounds as a tribute to Native Americans. Wooden burial structures protected and marked graves, and when the park land was purchased only five of the original wooden huts remained standing. The cemetery stood on the Badwater-Chicagon Lake Trail and was surrounded by a brush fence. After death, an Ojibwe person was clothed in finest clothes, wrapped in birch bark with earthly belongings and prized possessions, and buried beneath a small shelter built to protect the grave from weather and animals. Food was placed through a small opening to sustain the soul on its way to the hereafter, a family totem was set on a small staff near each grave, and loved ones were buried facing the setting sun because the home of the soul was placed in Bangishimog, in the west where it meets those who had gone before.