Mississippi Historical Marker

During the Fall of 2018, Darlene St. Clair, a professor at St. Cloud State University (SCSU), was introduced to the City of St. Cloud's Mayor, Dave Kleis, who informed her that he was interested in erecting a monument along the Mississippi River near Riverside Park to honor the Dakota and Ojibwe people. In the months following, four students and Dr. St. Clair talked about the opportunity of writing this memorial for the City of St. Cloud.

On December 11, 2018, a meeting with Mayor Kleis confirmed that this was a project he was moving forward with and that he would like it to be unveiled in the Spring of 2019. In this meeting, the group talked about the location, types of markers (bronze vs granite) and the size and encompassing information that could be included on the marker. Mayor Kleis reiterated that he wanted to honor the Ojibwe and Dakota people of Minnesota. He said he was excited for this project to come to fruition. Mayor Kleis tasked his Director of Park & Recreation, Scott Zlotnik, to work directly with the SCSU group on this project.

On December 13th, 2018, the SCSU group met with Mr. Zlotnik to discuss ideas for this marker. It was proposed by the group that they would like to see a granite monument with two bronze plaques for this marker. One plaque would contain an English passage honoring the significance of the river and the second plaque would contain both Ojibwe and Dakota language passages. The proposed text for the English portion of the marker is:

"The Mississippi River's name is derived from the Ojibwe work Misi ziibi, which means "Great River". The Dakota also have a name for this river, Haha Wakpa, or "River of the Waterfalls". This river and the land surrounding it have been used by the Dakota and Ojibwe ancestors for longer than any source of documention can recall. The spiritual, cultural, and sustaining qualities of this river were important to the Dakota and Ojibwe historically and they remain important to descendants today, and always"

The passages in Ojibwe and Dakota have yet to be decided or translated.

As this project progresses, updates will be added to this page.