Sibley Site Tours

About

Visit the oldest Euro-American settlement in Minnesota where four distinctive limestone buildings grace the Minnesota River bluff across from Historic Fort Snelling. These buildings mark the American Fur Company's control over the region's Dakota trade between 1825 and 1853, when Mendota was a major center of the region's fur trade. The Sibley Historic Site is on the southern bluff of the Minnesota River upstream from its confluence with the Mississippi, an area called Bdote by the Dakota people. The site includes four of Minnesota's oldest buildings, including the homes of Henry Hastings Sibley and Jean-Baptiste Faribault. The Sibley Historic Site offers events, seasonal guided tours, and a museum shop. 

Born on Feb. 20, 1811, in Detroit, Henry Hastings Sibley came to the junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers in 1834 as the regional manager of the American Fur Company. Sibley went on to become one of the most influential figures in Minnesota history. His career included working as the region's most prominent fur trader; serving as a politician and territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress; election as the first governor of the state of Minnesota; and serving as a general during the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. 

The site of Sibley's Mendota home (and eventually those of Jean Baptiste Faribault and Hypolite Dupuis) became the state's first designated historic site, with restoration undertaken by the Minnesota district of the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) in 1910. The site is owned by the State of Minnesota and operated by the Dakota County Historical Society in partnership with the Minnesota Historical Society.

Tours include the Ice House, Sibley House, and Faribault House as well as some of the grounds. The first level of the Dupuis House can be explored before or after your tour time.

Tours run at 10am, 11:30am, 1pm, 2:30pm, and 4pm

Register in advance at https://dakotahistory.org/sibley-historic-site#register-for-a-sibley-site-tour. Pre-registrations close at 3pm the day prior to the tour. Walk-ins are welcome depending on tour capacity!