Old Wadena Historic District
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Old Wadena Historic District
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Signs marking features of Old Wadena
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| Location | Old Wadena County Park, Thomastown Township, Minnesota |
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| Coordinates | 46°25′18″N 94°49′47″W / 46.42167°N 94.82972°WCoordinates: 46°25′18″N 94°49′47″W / 46.42167°N 94.82972°W |
| Built | 1782, 1792, 1825, 1856 |
| NRHP Reference # | 73000997 |
| Designated HD | October 9, 1973 |
The Old Wadena Historic District is a concentration of historical archaeology sites now largely contained within Old Wadena County Park in Thomastown Township, Minnesota, United States. Features include the sites of four successive trading posts established in 1782, 1792, 1825, and 1856; the original townsite of Wadena on the Red River Trails; and the county's first farm. The town was later moved 3.5 miles (5.6 km) south to its present location. The historic district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 for having state-level significance in the themes of agriculture, non-aboriginal archaeology, and transportation. It was nominated for its archaeological potential at the seminal site of Euro-American activity in Wadena County, Minnesota.
The woods and rivers of what became Wadena County offered ample food resources, habitable areas, and well-situated water transportation routes. However as the first Euro-Americans entered the region it was on the hotly contested border between the Ojibwe and Dakota people. Métis historian William Whipple Warren recorded Ojibwe stories of a French-Canadian fur trader, known to them only as Ah-wish-to-yah ("Blacksmith"), who led a party of 20 into the area in 1782. They selected a site for a trading post at the confluence of the Crow Wing and Partridge Rivers which they dubbed Wadena ("Little Round Hill" in the Ojibwe language). Knowing they were in hostile territory they erected a wooden palisade or fence around the post, within which the Ojibwe party members erected their wigwams.
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