John A. Samuelson, originally from Sweden, settled a 160-acre tract in what is now this Nature Area in 1869 and became the first pioneer settler in Split Rock Township, Minnehaha County. He and his wife Anna first lived for three years in a dugout in the hillside, where their first child, Anna, was born. In 1873 they moved into a log cabin that still stands on its original site. Built of local, hand-hewn oak timbers, the 17 x 25 foot cabin had two rooms downstairs and a large loft upstairs, and it was later fitted with lap siding, plastered and wallpapered walls, a wood floor, small-paned windows, and a lean-to kitchen at the back, while water came from a well in summer. The couple lived there for 24 years, farming and raising eight children; besides Anna, Celia, John, August, Christina, Carl, Emil, and Martin were born in the cabin, and their second daughter, Greta O'Celia, was born there but died shortly afterward. The homestead remained occupied by family members or other tenants who farmed the land until the South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Department purchased it as a Nature Area in 1967. John died in 1927 and Anna died in 1905, and both are buried in Riverside Cemetery in Pierre.