Early European Explorers

Early European explorers were drawn to the Minnesota River Valley for its distinctive qualities, following Native Americans who had long known the region. French fur trader and explorer Pierre Charles Le Sueur was the first recorded European explorer of the Minnesota River Valley, exploring the area in 1683 and returning in 1700 to build Fort L'Huillier near the junction of the Blue Earth and Le Sueur rivers. The post served as a trading post and as a place to mine copper ore from blue-green clay along the riverbanks, but after two tons of clay were sent to France, it proved to contain no copper. Even so, the post was profitable through the acquisition of nearly 500 beaver pelts, which were sent to France to make top hats and fur coats, before the fort was abandoned in 1702. In 1835, English geologist and geographer George Featherstonhaugh conducted a geological survey of the Minnesota River Valley by canoe and praised the Minnesota River's transparent waters, white sand riverbeds, gracefully sloping banks, and abundant wildlife. His journals were later published in 1847 as A Canoe Voyage Up the Minnay Sotor. French cartographer Joseph Nicollet also explored and documented much of Minnesota, including the Minnesota River Valley, and in 1843 published Hydrographical Basin of the Upper Mississippi River, the first comprehensive depiction of Minnesota's landscape and a work widely used for the state's geography and place naming.

Mankato, Minnesota · United States