Camp Coldwater

Coldwater Spring is a spring in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, that is considered a sacred site by the local Dakota, and was also the site of Camp Coldwater, an early European settlement in the state of Minnesota. Coldwater Spring is located adjacent to the Mississippi River directly south of Minnehaha Park, and is currently managed by the National Park Service as part of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area.

There is some disagreement as to how the local Dakota people used the spring prior to European settlement. The community at the Lower Sioux Indian Reservation has designated Coldwater as a traditional cultural property, making an official statement that the area "has been used for traditional, spiritual, religious and cultural ceremonies by the MN. Mdewakanton and their hereditary descendents [sic] for thousands of years" and that "the water of Coldwater Spring has been traditionally utilized for healing of Dakota people and others." However, according to the National Park Service, although there were significant Dakota settlements in the area surrounding the Mississippi-Minnesota confluence, there is little evidence that the spring area itself was used as a sacred site.

The camp was explored by early European settlers who were in the process of building Fort Snelling. On May 5, 1820, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Leavenworth moved his troops to the area because their former encampment, on the Minnesota River, was causing unhealthy conditions.

Leavenworth was succeeded by Colonel Josiah Snelling in August of that year. The soldiers lived in tents and huts on the site during three summers while they built the permanent stone fort south of the location. The spring continued to supply water to the fort, first via water wagons and then via a stone water tower and underground pipes.

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