Totten Trail Inn

Story

Fort Totten State Historic Site is a historic site in Fort Totten, North Dakota.HistoryEstablished on July 17, 1867, the fort was first built to watch over the surrounding Indian Reservation after a group of the Dakota tribe moved to the area after 1867. The soldiers were stationed to enforce the peace and guard transportation routes. The Fort was also the gathering point for an expedition to survey the border between the United States and British Canada in the 1870s. The fort was decommissioned in 1890. It was then turned over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs where until 1959 it was used as a Native American boarding school. Fort Totten became a North Dakota State Historic Site in 1960 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.It was named for United States Army Corps of Engineers head Joseph Gilbert Totten, who also has forts named for him in Washington, DC and New York.TodayVisitors can access an interpretive center, take a walking tour of 16 original buildings, visit the Pioneer Daughter's Museum, take in a show at the Fort Totten Little Theatre, and stay at the Totten Trail Historic Inn bed and breakfast. School children often attend the "Fort Totten Living History Field Day" in September.