IOWA GREAT LAKES

leading resort area in northern Iowa, U.S., embracing Spirit, West Okoboji, East Okoboji, and Silver lakes, in Dickinson county, just south of the Minnesota state line. All four lakes are of glacial origin. Spirit Lake, the largest (4 miles long by 3 miles wide [6.4 km long by 4.8 km wide]), lies just north of Spirit Lake town, which is the chief community of the region. West Okoboji Lake is noted for its crystalline clarity. A number of state parks, including Mini-Wakan, provide public access to the lakes, which have swimming, boating, and fishing facilities. Rich in Indian lore, the region was the scene of the so-called Spirit Lake Massacre (March 1857) of more than 30 white settlers by a band of Sioux led by the renegade Inkpaduta. The incident, commemorated by several historical cabin sites including the Gardner Log Cabin-Museum in Arnolds Park, provided the background for MacKinley Kantor's novel Spirit Lake (1961). The Spirit Lake Fish Hatchery is in Orleans just north of the town of Spirit Lake, and Ocheyedan Mound (1,675 ft ), 25 mi west, the highest point in the state, is where the Indians mourned their dead (its name means spot where they weep). History Prehistory The earliest inhabitants of what is now Iowa (Paleo-Indians) probably occupied ice-free land during the time when the Des Moines lobe was covered by glaciers. The earliest archaeological evidence of settlement, however, dates from around 8,500 years ago. The hunters and food gatherers of this period existed at the subsistence level, enduring the periodic droughts that continue to plague the region today. Even after the advent of sedentary agriculture in western Iowa around AD 800, entire villages occasionally disappeared. In eastern Iowa, effigy mound builders occupied settlements from about 300 to the 17th century. Most of the early Indians were of the Siouan language family, although Algonquian-speaking tribes were important in eastern Iowa after the 17th century, often displacing the western tribes in bloody conflicts. The Iowa (Ioway) tribe was virtually annihilated shortly before the advent of dense white settlement. All the Indian tribes ceded their lands through treaty and purchase in the 1830s and '40s. The last purchase was of Dakota (Sioux) lands in northern Iowa in 1851. From territory to statehood The first Europeans to reach Iowa were probably the French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette in 1673. Permanent white settlement, however, did not take place until the early 1830s, though Spanish land grants were occupied in the late 1700s, principally to exploit the lead-mining potential around the site of Dubuque. In the interim, both pioneers and Indians moved through the area exploring or hunting. The combined French and Indian history can be seen in geographic names throughout the state: for example, Des Moines, Dubuque, and Le Mars; Ottumwa, Keokuk, and Onawa. The area that includes the modern state of Iowa was included in the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, and during the War of 1812 a U.S. garrison was driven from Fort Madison on the Mississippi River. Following the purchase of eastern Iowa from the Sauk and Fox Indians in the 1830s, U.S. settlers rapidly moved in to till the land. The Territory of Iowa was established in 1838, with a population of 23,242. In 1846 Iowa was admitted to the Union as part of a compromise between the slaveholding South and the free North. By 1860 there were nearly 675,000 people in the state, and with the construction of railroads the frontier was pushed farther westward. The population of Iowa more than tripled during the 1850s, and the Spirit Lake Massacre in 1857 marked the final instance of Indian hostility in the state. The years immediately prior to the Civil War were Iowa's frontier days, however, with lawlessness, vigilantes, and lynchings accompanying the unsteady beginnings of a settled society. Iowa was deeply involved on both sides of the issues that led to the Civil War, to which the state contributed more troops in proportion to its population than any other state. No battles were actually fought in Iowa, though a Confederate guerrilla raid from Missouri occurred in 1864.