In the Feb. 1 StarTribune: Land purchase saves a slice of state’s past: Pilot Knob now has 25 acres of land preserved as a permanent natural resource.
Eighteen acres of Pilot Knob, a cherished tract of Minnesota history that was under threat of townhouse development just a few years ago, will be preserved as open space in a deal completed Thursday.
The nonprofit Trust for Public Land conveyed the land to the city of Mendota Heights, which will manage that tract and 8 1/2 acres purchased two years ago. The land will be returned to its natural state with prairie grass and oak trees for use as a passive-use park, said Bob McGillivray, the TPL’s senior project manager.
Riverboat pilots hauling supplies to nearby Fort Snelling gave Pilot Knob its name. The Mdewakanton and Wakpehkute Dakota tribes named it Oheyawahi, meaning "the hill much visited," and consider the land sacred ground because they buried their dead there. It’s also where they signed the Treaty of 1851 that ceded 35 million acres of Dakota land to the U.S. government.
I took some photos of Pilot Knob on Feb. 2. Click thumbnails to enlarge.
The sign says that "the City of Mendota Heights is undertaking a 9 year plan to restore the native prairie and oak savannah that once covered this site."
It also mentions the Pilot Knob Preservation Association as a major partner in protecting the site. The don’t have anything on their home page but they do have a page titled the Oheyawahi/Pilot Knob Burial Register, last updated on Feb. 17, 2004.
