*Water is Life

The Blue Earth River (Dakota: Makhátho Wakpá) is a tributary of the Minnesota River, 108 miles long, in southern Minnesota in the United States. Two of its headwaters tributaries, the Middle Branch Blue Earth River and the West Branch Blue Earth River, also flow for short distances in northern Iowa. By volume, it is the Minnesota River's largest tributary, accounting for 46% of the Minnesota's flow at the rivers' confluence in Mankato. Via the Minnesota River, the Blue Earth River is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River, draining an area of 3,486 square miles in an agricultural region. Ninety percent of the river's watershed is in Minnesota.

The river was named for former deposits of bluish-green clay, no longer visible, along the banks of the river. The stream was called Makato Osa Watapa by the Dakota Indians, meaning "the river where blue earth is gathered." The French explorer Pierre-Charles Le Sueur established Fort L'Huillier near the river's mouth in 1700 for the purpose of mining the clay, either in the mistaken belief that the clay contained copper, or as a ruse to secure funding from his patrons for his fur trading activities. The fort was abandoned the following year after an attack by the Fox tribe. In the 19th century, the geographer Joseph Nicollet found cavities from which the clay had been dug by Native Americans in the region, who used it as body paint; he found no evidence of Le Sueur's mines, nor of the fort.

© All Rights Reserved

Sept. 30, 1700 * June 17, 1926

Near this spot stood Fort Le Hillier
This Fort was erected by Pierre Charles Le Sueur who with twenty seven men here spent the winter of 1700.
Placed by Anthony Wayne Chapter
Daughters of the American Revolution

*
Fort L'Huillier (sometimes spelled Le Hillier) was a short-lived fortification in New France located near the confluence of the Blue Earth and Le Sueur Rivers in what is now Minnesota.

The garrison, which originally held about 30 men, was built beginning in the autumn of 1700 under the direction of Pierre-Charles Le Sueur, a French trader and explorer interested in mining a blue clay that he thought was copper ore. It was named in honor of a metallurgical assayer, Remy-François L'Hullier. Le Sueur left the fort in 1701 to take samples to New Orleans for further analysis. While he was gone, however, the fort was apparently attacked and abandoned by 1702, and no more was heard of the remaining men. In addition, the blue clay was found to be worthless, not the copper ore Le Sueur had hoped.

The fort was southwest of the present city of Mankato (from "mah kato: "blue earth" in the Sioux language). Its exact location is unknown, although attempts have been made to find it.

© All Rights Reserved