The whole chapter is on the Iowa History Site. STORIES OF IOWA FOR BOYS AND GIRLS CHAPTER XXI THE SPIRIT LAKE MASSACRE In July, 1856, a number of white people came to the shore of West Okoboji Lake. Their good were loaded on wagons drawn by oxen. They had travelled very slowly across the prairie to their new home. Sometimes the oxen could hardly pull the wagons through the mud. There were no roads or bridges. These people were Mr. and Mrs. Rowland Gardner, their five children, a son-in-law, named Harvey Luce, and two little grandchildren. They built a log cabin on the southeastern shore of West Okoboji and there they spent the winter. A number of other families came to West and East Okoboji, and to Spirit Lake during the fall and built cabins several miles apart. Soon the winter came - a cold winter, too. How the wind blew across the prairies! The snow was piled in great drifts, often from fifteen to twenty feet deep in the hollows. Now the Indians had all given up their lands in Iowa before these people came to this region, but some of the Sioux were still living in the woods near the lakes. The Gardners and the other settlers did not think the Indians would hurt them. But early in the spring of 1857 a band of Sioux Indians came to the region around these lakes. Their leader was named Inkpaduta and he hated the white people. Indeed he was feared by his own people. Wherever these Indians went they quarrelled with the white people they met. They were cold and hungry, and they were angry when they saw white people living on their old hunting grounds. It is said also that they were angry because a white man had killed Sidominadota, one of their chiefs. Debbie Clough Gerischer Iowa Gen Web, Assistant CC, Scott County _http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/_ (http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/) IAGENWEB: Special History Project: http://iagenweb.org/history/index.htm Gerischer Family Web Site: _http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/_ (http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/)