Cultural History
Archaeological evidence found outside the park confirms that prehistoric Native Americans inhabited the Cottonwood River valley. A few sites were as much as 7,000 years old, though most were 2,000 years old or less. At the time of European contact in the mid-17th century the area was home to the Dakota. Pioneers began settling the Cottonwood Valley in the 1830s. In less than a century, though, the valley floor was largely abandoned due to the periodic flooding.
Read more about this topic: Flandrau State Park
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or history:
“They’re semiotic phantoms, bits of deep cultural imagery that have split off and taken on a life of their own, like those Jules Verne airships that those old Kansas farmers were always seeing.... Semiotic ghosts. Fragments of the Mass Dream, whirling past in the wind of my passage.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)