The city 575 feet below this bluff was founded in 1851 by Captain Orrin Smith on the site of Keoxah, the village of Sioux Indian Chief Wapasha and his band. First called Wabasha’s Prairie, it was later named Winona, from the Sioux word Wenohan, meaning first-born daughter. Probably the first explorer to pass this way was Father Louis Hennepin, who arrived in 1680. Situated on the mighty Mississippi, Winona became a lumber-producing and wheat exporting center during the nineteenth century. This park was developed and donated for public use in 1922 by Herbert C. Garvin, a prominent Winona citizen.