Dunn House and the Ox Cart Trail
Near Minneapolis St Paul, Minnesota
At this corner in what is now Coon Rapids stood the Dunn House, remembered as a stopover on the historic Ox Cart Trail. Before roads and railroads reached the upper Midwest, Red River ox carts traveled this route annually, connecting the Red River Valley settlements in present-day Minnesota and North Dakota to Saint Paul. The carts were famous for the screaming noise their ungreased wooden wheels made, a sound travelers said carried a long way across the prairie.
The route was also used for military travel between frontier posts. The Dunn House served travelers making that journey, offering food, lodging, and a place to rest before or after crossing the difficult terrain of the upper Mississippi watershed. By the railroad era the trail and its stopping points had faded from everyday use, leaving the landscape behind.
