Location
Shakopee is in Scott County SHAKOPEE, a city in Jackson and Eagle Creek Townships, the county seat, was founded by Thomas A. Holmes in 1851 as a trading post, to which he gave this name of the leader of a Dakota band living here. The village, platted in 1854, was incorporated as a city May 23, 1857, but surrendered its charter in 1861, returning to township government. It was incorporated as a village on March 1, 1866. It again received a city charter March 3, 1870, and the former township of Shakopee, excepting the city area, was renamed Jackson, as before noted, January 17, 1871. Holmes, born in Pennsylvania in 1804, is considered the "father" of Shakopee; he served in the 1849 territorial legislature and was influential in the community; he moved to Cullman, Ala., in 1878, where he died in 1888. The post office began in 1853 and was spelled Shah-k'pay until changed to the present spelling in 1857; Holmes was the first postmaster. The village had a station of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul and Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railroads.Shakopee (or Shakpay, as it was commonly pronounced), meaning Six, was the hereditary name, like Wabasha, of successive leaders, in lineal descent from father to son. The first of whom we have definite knowledge is the Shakopee who was killed when running the gauntlet at Fort Snelling in June 1827, as related by Charlotte O. Van Cleve (Three Score Years and Ten, 1888, pp. 74-79). The second, who is commemorated by the name of this city, characterized by Samuel W. Pond, Jr., as "a man of marked ability in council and one of the ablest and most effective orators in the whole Dakota Nation," died in 1860. His son, who had been called Shakpedan (Little Six), born on the site of the city in 1811, became at his father's death the leader of the band, numbering at that time about 400. He was hanged at Fort Snelling, November 11, 1865, for his actions in the Dakota War of 1862. Hear Shakopee pronounced in Dakota. From: Upham, Warren. Minnesota Place Names: A Geographical Encyclopedia. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, First edition 1920. Third Edition 2001. Print.
