State park closing as Minnesota set to give land back to tribal community

GRANITE FALLS, Minn. – Upper Sioux Agency State Park in southwestern Minnesota will close on Feb. 16, the final step in a plan to transfer the historic land back to the Upper Sioux community. 

Department of Natural Resources commissioner Sarah Strommen says the land has special historical and cultural meaning to the Upper Sioux community. 

It is the site of starvation and death of Dakota people during the summer of 1862 when the government did not provide food promised to the Dakota tribe by a treaty.