After the forced removal from their homeland in the southeastern United States in 1839, the Cherokee people began settling in Indian Territory, and a few years later chose Tahlequah as the capitol city of the Cherokee Nation. Early meetings of the chief and council were held in an open-sided log shelter, and later four log cabins were built in the center of town for government use. In 1843, capitol square hosted the International Indian Council, where representatives of at least eighteen Indian tribes in the West pledged peace and friendship among themselves and with the Cherokees; historians have called it the most important Indian council ever held on the North American continent. For several years Tahlequah remained little more than a campground until the town was platted in 1844, when a modest brick building built by James S. Pierce rose on the southeastern corner of the square for the Cherokee National Supreme Court. Its bricks were made near the site, much of its interior wood came from area trees, and it also housed sessions of the Supreme and District courts and the printing press of the Cherokee Advocate, the official publication of the Cherokee Nation and the newspaper in Indian Territory. In 1863 during the Civil War, Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie, a Cherokee citizen and signer of the Treaty of New Echota, burned the Council houses down. After the war, the tribal council provided for a new two-story brick Capitol Building designed by architect C.W. Goodlander, completed in 1869 at a cost of over $17,000 and dominating the center of Capitol Square. In 1875, the Cherokee National Penitentiary was added to the square; from 1875 to 1901 it was the only prison in all Indian Territory and held both sentenced and accused prisoners while aiming at rehabilitation as well as punishment. Around the square at various times stood taverns, cabins, hotels, cookhouses, blacksmiths, and mercantile stores, and after a devastating fire in 1895 destroyed many stores and homes, an ordinance required all new buildings to be made of brick. A winter 1904 fire destroyed the Capitol Building's interior, but it was quickly refurbished. The Capitol housed the Nation's executive and legislative offices until 1906, when the Five Civilized Tribes began dismantling their tribal judicial system under the Curtis Act of 1898; final treaties with the U.S. Government in the late 1800's were ratified there, and the last principal chiefs serving under the 1839 Cherokee Constitution took oath of office there. The building was damaged again by fire in 1928 and rebuilt soon afterward, though its original cupola was lost, and other exterior changes included removal of rear sandstone steps and of chimneys when dormers were added in 1907. After statehood, Cherokee County acquired the Capitol Building and grounds for county offices for many years, and the Cherokee Nation reacquired the Capitol Building, the Supreme Court Building, and the National Penitentiary in 1979. The Capitol Building is now known as the Cherokee National History Museum.