' PUBLIC PARKS OP IOWA 163 



Wabash railroad through this region. The stone in quantities was once 

 quarried and marketed, and is the red stone observed in structures 

 in central Iowa cities, notably in the old J. S. Polk residence and the 

 old Y. M. C. A. building of Des Mioines. 



The undisturbed original soil, partly shaded by trees and rocks, sloping 

 respectively to the south and to the north affords an extraordinary exhi- 

 bition of the original plant growth. The writer has observed and 

 identified in their season on stream and slough, on the ground and in 

 trees, every variety of bird he has seen nesting in Iowa timbered sec- 

 tions, while he has observed the neists, dens, tracks, paths and living 

 specimens of a greater variety of game and fur bearing animals than 

 in any other equal area. 



After the Sa^c and Pox Indians' defeat in the Black Hawk war in 1832 

 and their expulsion across the Mississippi river to that region forty 

 miles west of its west bank, ithey continued their permanent homes in 

 the Des Moines or Keosauqua Sepo valley, above Eldon and below Fort 

 Dodge. Title to this region was by them relinquished in 1842 on the in- 

 sistent demand of the encroaching white home makers, government en- 

 gaged to repay them for their lands by granting the Indians other lands 

 and certain annuities. Exactly what lands should be their future homes 

 remained, at the time of the treaty in 1842, still uncertain. But they 

 engaged with the government that they would at once give up the 

 eastern part of the great region if they might 'be left in aboriginal enjoy- 

 ment of the western part. The duration of this arrangement, it was 

 agreed, should be until the government found new homes for them 

 elsewhere. 



The Indians proposed as a boundary between the eastern portion 

 they gave up and the western part they continued to occupy, a land mark 

 known to white and red men alike, namely, "The Red Rock of the 

 White Breast." 



In 1843 George Harrison, for the government, met a delegation of the 

 Indians and fixed upon a mound on one of the high red stone ledges north 

 of the river, ran a meridian north and south from thence through the 

 Indian country, and the Indians at once removed 'west of the Red 

 Rocks" as agreed. 



This boundary line, then, became the west boundary of the white 

 settlement and the east limit of Indian rights of possession. The Des 

 Moines river formed the main artery of travel and access, a settlement 

 naturally sprang up on its banks and became the old trading town of 

 Red Rock. To secure the Indians against encroaching white hunters 

 and meddlers, the government established a military post among them 

 and Lieutenant Allen and his detacihment of the United States First 

 Dragoons marched to and erected "Fort Des Moines" at "The Raccoon 

 Forks." Here the soldiers remained not to protect the whites and sup- 

 press the Indians, but the exact reverse. When Indian lands in the 

 "Kansas country" were decided upon for these Indians, the First Dragoons 

 gathered them out of the reaches of the country "west of the Red 

 Rock line" and in 1846 marched away bag and baggage with their 

 proteges, their cabins and the Indian lands were entered upon by the 

 first of our white predecessors. 

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