Historic Message and Content Improvements for the Minnesota River Valley National Scenic Byway
To strengthen a large partnership, including American Indian partners, as they improve and make available more historic information about the Minnesota River Valley.
Partners: City of Appleton, Lower Sioux Indian Community Tribal Historic Preservation Office, Chippewa County Historical Society, Redwood Area Chamber & Tourism, Nicollet County Historical Society, City of Granite Falls
This project developed a stronger partnership between the Byway members and the Tribal Preservation Officers from both the Upper Sioux Community and the Lower Sioux Community. Creating examples of positive experiences and develop relationships, help increase trust within the partnership which will help enable the Byway Alliance to work with the tribes on future projects as they improve and make available more historic information about the Minnesota River Valley and add Dakota perspectives and content to their website and marketing materials.
The improvement and addition of Dakota language and Dakota history content to the Byway website will strengthen the broader Minnesota history network by the access to new, rich content, by the new relationships formed through this program, and by serving as a strong model for a thoughtful and effective approach to including Dakota history.
$2,500,000 each year is for history partnerships involving multiple organizations, which may include the Minnesota Historical Society, to preserve and enhance access to Minnesota's history and cultural heritage in all regions of the state.
Available upon request. Contact:grants@mnhs.org
Short-Term Impact: Byway Alliance is better aware which Byway Discovery Sites descriptions are inadequate.
This was reached, and the review has been completed.
Intermediate Impact: Communication and collaboration between Byway Alliance members and Dakota communities increases.
This impact was reached, and there is a high interest in the byway work from all partners.
Intermediate Impact: The public has access to Discovery Site descriptions that offer accurate, culturally sensitive, and significant content, as well as a broader valley-wide history of the Dakota Homeland.
This was partially reached. The public does not yet have access to the new Discovery Site descriptions, but we have started the process and hope to finish in the next few months.
There is a Dakota homeland story that is completed.
Long Term Impact: Collaboration, trust, and partnership efforts between the Byway Alliance and individual Byway partners and the Dakota communities in the Byway increase.
Long Term Impact: The public has a greater appreciation for the intrinsic values of the Minnesota River, particularly the historic ones.
While we cannot determine the long term impact, we have laid a good foundation for success in our long term goals. We will be able to see this in meeting attendance and website hits in future months. We also believe we will have future projects that will be a result of this partnership.
We reached these outcomes because of the open communication and understanding of all the partners in working together. All partners were patient, responsive and engaged. We now have a strong partnership between the Byway members and the Tribal Preservation Officers from both the Upper Sioux Community and the Lower Sioux Community.
The outcome we did not reach (discovery sites update published) was because we underestimated the scope of work and the amount of review needed in order to update the content of the discovery sites. We do have a start of something we hope to complete in coming months.
Available upon request, grants@mnhs.org
Appleton City Clerk/Treasurer: Roman Fidler
Appleton City Council Members:
Lindsey Knutson, Amber Molden, David Raddatz, Al Smith