The fossilized cycad beds were discovered in 1892 by F. H. Cole of Hot Springs, South Dakota, in the 120-million-year-old Dakota Sandstone Formation, near Minnekahta.
In 1920, Yale paleobotanist George Reber Wieland obtained the fossil cycad-rich land under the Homestead Act "in order that the cycads might not fall into unworthy hands".