The History of Winona, Minnesota as a settlement begins with the foundation in 1851 in what was then Minnesota Territory on the West side of the Mississippi River. The site was of the village of Keoxa of Dakota people. The name "Winona" (Wee-no-nah) was noted to be the name of a first-born daughter in the local Dakota language. The original plat of the city is located on a sand bar of the Mississippi River and surrounded by river bottoms and wooded bluff lands. Evidence gathered by archaeologists indicates that people lived in the valley as early as 9500 B.C. The earliest evidence of human habitation in Winona County is based on the discovery of a Woodland period site (circa 800 B.C.-900 A.D.). Winona was platted and settled in 1851. The railroad crossing of the Mississippi by bridge happened in 1871. Industrial development and the growth of the port of Winona continued through the 19th and 20th centuries. Early geology and the Mississippi River The Glacial River Warren drained Lake Agassiz in central North America between about 13,500 and 10,650 BP calibrated (11,700 and 9,400 14C uncalibrated) years ago. The river valley became too wide for the stream, and filled with glacial sediment to form the floodplain. The Trempealeau River empties into the river just below the Winona plain. Native Americans The present-day city of Winona was founded on the village of Keoxa. As the seat of the Wapasha dynasty, it was home to a Mdewakanton band of the eastern Sioux. The summer homes of the Keoxa natives were made of bark supported by a framework and poles. Their winter residence was a teepee made of about 8 buffalo hides sewn together with deer sinew, typically about 12 feet (4 m) high and 10 to 12 feet (3 to 4 m) in diameter, with a fire in the middle to keep the temperature inside the dwelling tolerable even in the coldest weather. European American settlement Lieutenant Zebulon Pike left Fort Bellefontaine on August 9, 1805 with orders to find the source of the Mississippi. On September 14, 1805, he reached the Mississippi River near island number 72 (on his map), which would one day be Winona and recorded his impressions in his log. Pike's journal has the first mention of the legendary Winona, a young Dakota woman who chose death over an unwanted suitor. The name derives from the Dakota word