The Amidon Affair

In 2025 the Minnehaha County Historical Society dedicated a new marker at this overlook, The Dakota War of 1862, and it opens by saying the 1991 marker reflects understandings of that era. It calls the Amidons' deaths tragic but part of a greater tragedy: by 1862 broken treaties had brought starvation to the Bdewakantonwan, and Taoyateduta, Little Crow, had bargained away land because settlers held the upper hand. Only Dakota people were held to account, it says, with 303 condemned and 38 hanged at Mankato on December 26, 1862.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Falls Park — 1.1 mi
  The falls a town company came for in 1856, abandoned in 1862, and tried to make pay with a seven-story quartzite mill that ran for barely two years.

More markers nearby

• Memorial to the Pioneers of Minnehaha County — steps away
• The Sioux Quartzite — 1.4 mi
• The Hanging of An Innocent Man — 1.8 mi
• In Memory of Makana Na Ota E 'En (Among Little Trees) — 1.9 mi