The area around the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, known to the Dakota as Bdote and including Wita Taŋka, has been sacred for thousands of years, with Native people coming there as long as 10,000 years ago to hunt, fish, celebrate, and gather seasonally. Over time the rivers themselves changed as the massive Glacial River Warren shrank and the Minnesota River formed, while Native trade along regional waterways continued for thousands of years before French and British traders arrived in the mid-1600s and, by 1823, the American Fur Company controlled much of the trade from nearby Mendota. In 1805, Lt. Zebulon Pike selected land near Bdote for a military post, troops began construction in 1819, and Fort St. Anthony was completed in 1825 and later renamed for Col. Josiah Snelling. Although Minnesota was a free territory, some officers brought enslaved people there, including Dred and Harriet Scott from 1836 to 1840, and the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision became a landmark in the national debate over slavery. After Minnesota Territory was incorporated in 1849 and the Treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota were signed in 1851, the U.S. government acquired millions of acres from the Dakota, drawing settlers and speculators as Minneapolis expanded. Franklin Steele bought 8,000 acres surrounding the fort in 1857, profited by renting the land back to the government during the Civil War, and sold it back in 1870. During the Civil War, Fort Snelling reopened to gather and train recruits, with about 24,000 soldiers passing through, while the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 also drew troops from the fort into fighting against Dakota people. After the war, Fort Snelling became headquarters of the Department of Dakota in 1878, housed the segregated 25th United States Infantry Regiment from 1882 to 1888, sent the 3rd United States Infantry to the Spanish-American War in 1898, added new barracks in 1905, trained officers and operated General Hospital 29 during World War I, organized Civilian Conservation Corps recruits during the Great Depression, and inducted more than 300,000 men and women during World War II while also hosting a military language school. Decommissioned in 1946, the fort's land later helped make possible the expansion of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, while opposition to highway construction helped spur preservation; Fort Snelling became Minnesota's first National Historic Landmark in 1960, restoration began in 1965, and Fort Snelling State Park was dedicated in 1962. The park includes a memorial near the site of the concentration camp built after the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, from which imprisoned Dakota people were exiled from Minnesota on May 4, 1863, and since 2017 Dakota people have gathered there each May to remember their ancestors and reflect on community resiliency. Today, Historic Fort Snelling remains a center of commerce, travel, and military service near many jointly managed public sites.