The Excelsior area was longtime hunting and fishing grounds for the Dakota people until 1851, when it was opened for settlement after the treaty of Traverse des Sioux and the Dakota were relocated close to the Minnesota River. As settlers began moving west, New Yorker George Bertram toured the Lake Minnetonka area and in 1852 formed the Excelsior Pioneer Association. He selected a site for a village and farming country that he praised for its healthy climate, fertile soil, beautiful scenery, nearness to markets, and frontage on a lake navigable for steam and other boats over forty-one miles. Excelsior was founded in 1853 and became the first village on Lake Minnetonka. Its name means "Ever Upward" in Latin, is the state motto of New York, and is the title of a popular poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow written in 1841, though the exact reason the name was chosen for the new town is unknown.