Shakopee City

Scott County, Minnesota

Home | Whats New | Site Index | Contact | Search

Shakopee City Hall is located at 129 South Holmes Street, Shakopee MN 55379.
Phone: 952‑233‑9300.

Neighborhoods

Beginnings [1]

Shakopee, the county seat, was founded by Thomas A. Holmes in 1851 as an Indian trading post, to which he gave this name of the chief of a Sioux band living here. The village, platted in 1854, was incorporated as a city May 23, 1857, but surrendered its charter in 1861, returning to township government. It again received a city charter March 3, 1870, and the former township of Shakopee, excepting the city area, was renamed Jackson, as before noted, January 17, 1871. The Sioux name of their village here was Tintonwan, signifying "the village on the prairie;" and Rev. Samuel W. Pond, who settled as their missionary in the adjacent edge of Eagle Creek township in 1847, translated the native name as Prairieville.

Shakopee (or Shakpay, as it was commonly pronounced), meaning Six, was the hereditary name, like Wabasha, of successive chiefs, in lineal descent from father to son. The first of whom we have definite knowledge is the Shakopee who was killed when running the gauntlet at Fort Snelling in June, 1827, as related by Mrs. Charlotte O. Van Cleve ("Three Score Years and Ten," 1888, pages 74-79). The second, who is commemorated by the name of this city, characterized by Samuel W. Pond, Jr., as "a man of marked ability in council and one of the ablest and most effective orators in the whole Dakota Nation," died in 1860. His son, who had been called Shakpedan (Little Six), born on the site of the city in 1811, became at his father's death the chief of the band, numbering at that time about 400. He was hung at Fort Snelling, November 11, 1865, for participating in the massacres of 1862.

  1. Upham, Warren, Minnesota Geographic Names; Minnesota Historical Society Collection, Volume XVII, 1920, Minnesota Historical Society, Saint Paul

Home | Whats New | Site Index | Contact
Privacy | Disclaimer

Copyright © 1997-2024, The Gombach Group