Prairie Island Indian Community (Dakota: Tinta Winta) is a Mdewakanton Sioux Indian reservation in Goodhue County, Minnesota, along the Mississippi River, in and around the city of Red Wing. It was created in 1889, with boundaries modified after that time. Much of the reservation land was lost following construction of Lock and Dam No. 3 along the river by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to improve navigation. Later, the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant was built nearby. The community has grabbed headlines because of the decision to store radioactive waste in above-ground steel casks. The main reservation lies within the city of Red Wing, but there are off-reservation trust lands both within Red Wing and in Welch Township in northern Goodhue County, as well as in Ravenna Township in eastern Dakota County which nearly doubles the size of the reservation's territory. The reservation had 199 residents as of the 2000 census, including its trust lands. Its total land area is 1.6689 sq mi (4.3225 km², or 1,068.1 acres). The tribe operates Treasure Island Resort & Casino near the Mississippi River north of Red Wing.
Famous quotes containing the words prairie, island, indian and/or community:
“To the cry of “follow Mormons and prairie dogs and find good land,” Civil War veterans flocked into Nebraska, joining a vast stampede of unemployed workers, tenant farmers, and European immigrants.”
—For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The shifting islands! who would not be willing that his house should be undermined by such a foe! The inhabitant of an island can tell what currents formed the land which he cultivates; and his earth is still being created or destroyed. There before his door, perchance, still empties the stream which brought down the material of his farm ages before, and is still bringing it down or washing it away,—the graceful, gentle robber!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I confess what chiefly interests me, in the annals of that war, is the grandeur of spirit exhibited by a few of the Indian chiefs. A nameless Wampanoag who was put to death by the Mohicans, after cruel tortures, was asked by his butchers, during the torture, how he liked the war?—he said, “he found it as sweet as sugar was to Englishmen.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What I wanted was to create thoughtful citizens—people who believed they could live interesting lives and be productive and socially useful. So I tried to create a community of children and adults where the adults shared and respected the children’s lives.”
—Deborah Meier (b. 1931)