Old Government Road
This marker locates a part of the original trail which was cut out of the forest by the U.S. Army in 1868 to facilitate travel from Leech Lake to White Earth. Soldiers accompanied the paymasters along this road in the early days to provide protection when periodic payments were made to Chippewa tribal members. All these lands were included in the White Earth Indian Reservation in 1867. In 1889 Congress passed the Rice Treaty which assigned allotments of land within the reservation to individual Indians. The passage of the Clapp Act in 1906 permitted Indians with mixed blood to dispose of their allotted lands. Thereupon, most of the Indian landowners quickly sold their lands - many of the tracts holding valuable stands of virgin white and red pine. Logging companies proceeded to remove the valuable timber and then allowed many of the tracts to revert to the county for delinquent taxes. In 1936 the government selected this area for development as a national wildlife refuge. Since that time, the area has been consolidated by further land acquisition and is now managed as a multiple-use conservation area.
Marker is on County Route 143 0.7 miles west of Egg Lake Trail.
Courtesy hmdb.org
