The establishment of trade between the Red River settlements in Canada and the emerging City of Saint Paul led to the development of three Red River Trails on the 1840's. The "woods" trail passed over this point enroute from Crow Wing on the Mississippi and Wadena Trading Post on the Crow Wing, to Otter Tail Lake and northerly into the Red River Valley. The "woods" trail was cut in 1844 to avoid the hostile Sioux who menaced the two prairie trails to the southwest.

The two-wheeled Red River cart built wholly of wood fastened together with rawhide thongs and drawn by an ox carrying up to a half ton burden, rumbled over the trails in trains of 100 or more. From the middle 1840's until the coming of the railroads, the cart hauled supplies and liquor north and returned with fur, buffalo robes and dried meat. The plowshare has obliterated its once deeply marked triple track, but the course of the trail can still be viewed at Old Wadena Historic Site on the Crow Wing River.

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Former Northern Pacific Railway Water Tower

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