In about 1855 Mr. W. H. Grimshaw came to live in Minneapolis where the
Plaza Hotel now stands. Then Loring Park and the vicinity was farm
land, and an Indian named Keg-o-ma-go-shieg had his wigwam at the
corner of Oak Grove and Fifteenth streets. Mr. Grimshaw learned from
him that Indians had lived on this spot for generations, but that
since the land had come under government control, most of the Indians
had gone. Keg-o-ma-go-shieg, because he loved so much the spot where
he was born, returned every summer to fish in the lakes and hunt in
the woods of his beloved birthplace. There is no tablet or monument to
this last Indian in Loring Park, but there is one to Ole Bull facing
Harmon Place. Would it not be more fitting to have a statue of Sitting
Bull?
Also there used to be an old, well-traveled Indian trail through the
Park, of which there is no trace now, although some people have
searched carefully for it. According to Mr. Grimshaw there used to be
countless passenger pigeons, which in the migratory season roosted in
the trees of Loring Park. At noon the sky would be darkened by a cloud
of these birds, the air would be filled with the sound of their wings,
and they would alight on the branches of the trees, nearly breaking
them down by their great weight.
Then there was the old brook that flowed out of Loring Park lake,
across Harmon Place, under the present automobile buildings, and
emptied into Basset's Creek. The old military road from Minnehaha
Falls to Fort Ridgley ran through this section, roughly along Hennepin
Avenue.
West of Hennepin Avenue was Ruber's pasture, where cows and horses
used to graze, and where the Parade Grounds, the Armory, the
Cathedral, and Northrop School now are. Mr. J. S. Johnson was the
first white settler in this part of Minneapolis. In 1856 he bought one
hundred and sixty acres, of which a part is now Loring Park, for one
dollar and twenty-five cents per acre.