This log house served as a meeting place and general headquarters for scouts employed by the U.S. Army at Fort Wadsworth in Dakota Territory after the U.S.-Dakota Conflict of 1862, and in its early years it sheltered people from summer rains and winter storms. Indians and scouts under the direction of Major Joseph R. Brown built it of hand-hewn oak logs harvested in 1863 from the shores of Kettle Lake in South Dakota, where it originally stood about a mile east of Fort Wadsworth, now Fort Sisseton. Samuel J. Brown began from this building the ride that left him permanently disabled, Gabriel Renville, chief of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Indians, died here on August 26, 1892, and James J. Hill traded furs here before becoming a railroad tycoon. After Fort Wadsworth closed and the scouts' service was no longer needed, Joseph R. Brown bought the house in the summer of 1866, had it dismantled, moved by ox cart to the Lake Traverse area east of the Little Minnesota River, and rebuilt in its original form. There it served as a residence, trading post, stage stop, boarding house, and post office, before being dismantled again in 1871 and reconstructed on this site. Samuel J. Brown and his wife Phoebe Brown lived here and operated the post office until 1896. As a young man, Sam Brown served as post interpreter, scout, chief of scouts, and inspector of scouts for the U.S. government at Fort Wadsworth from late 1862 until early 1866. He became best known for his ride on the night of April 19, 1866, when he rode 55 miles west to Elm River to warn scouts and settlers of a supposed Indian attack, found the report false after about five hours, then turned back on a fresh horse to stop a warning letter he had sent to U.S. Army headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota. Caught in a spring blizzard on the return, he lost his way but reached the fort on the morning of April 20 in time to stop the letter; the ordeal left him permanently injured and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Influenced by his father Joseph R. Brown and by his own scout service, he came to understand the Dakota people's difficulties in adjusting to a new way of life and later tried to right wrongs committed by the government in its dealings with Indians. Sam Brown died at age 80 on August 29, 1925, in Browns Valley and was buried with his wife and infant son in Plateau Cemetery there.