e not transferred until the
summer of 1853, but in the fall of the previous year the need of a post
among so many half civilized people, placed in a small territory, was
obvious. Accordingly, Colonel Francis Lee, commandant at Fort Snelling,
and Captain Dana of the quartermaster's department, escorted by a troop
of dragoons, selected a suitable site on the north side of the Minnesota
River, a dozen miles upstream from the town of New Ulm.

On February 24, 1853, seven privates of Company D of the First Dragoons,
and two sergeants and thirteen privates of the Sixth Infantry were sent
to the location to begin the erection of the fort. In April the dragoons
were ordered to return to Fort Snelling and Companies C and K of the
Sixth Infantry went up the river under the command of Captain James
Monroe and became part of the permanent garrison of newly-founded Fort
Ridgely. One other company came up from Fort Dodge--the post in Iowa
which was abandoned with this withdrawal.[135]

Colonel C. F. Smith, who led the expedition from Fort Snelling to the
Red River during the summer of 1856, was instructed to recommend
a site for a post. His choice of Graham's Point on the Red River was
accepted; and here, in the fall of 1857, Colonel John J. Abercrombie
constructed the fort which was named in his honor. Colonel Smith,
writing from Fort Snelling, gave among his reasons for the choice of
Graham's Point "the additional advantage of greater facility for
receiving stores from the depot here".[136]

With the building of these posts, Fort Snelling lost much of its
importance. The garrison was small and the fort was almost nothing more
than a depot for supplying the more advanced forts with food, clothing,
and ammunition.[137] With the decline of its military position, the idea
became prevalent that some day it would be abandoned entirely, and the
land thrown open to settlement.

The neighboring cities of St. Paul, Minneapolis, and St. Anthony were in
the throes of real estate speculation. There were some who saw in Fort
Snelling a site more advantageous than any of these. "It is a position
which has attracted also a good deal of attention on account of its
superior beauty of location, its agricultural advantages, and its more
notable advantages for a town site", said Mr. Morrill during a debate on
the floor of the House of Representatives. "Whatever witnesses in this
case may have differed upon as to other matters, they nearly all agree