Jeffers Jeffers .mnhs.org 160 County Road 2, Comfrey Road 160 County Jeffers Petroglyphs Jeffers 27 Co. 71 on Cottonwood Hwy. of U.S. miles east (three Rd. 2.) one mile south on Co. Rd. 10, phone: 507-628-5591 www People may have chosen to record images here record chosen to have People may the sun south and is lit by faces because the rock the carvings seem to However, the day. throughout and visible at dawn most are They disappear at midday. deep shadows dusk when the angle of sun casts the rock. the images from raise that seem to Prairie oped Paths R Grass Paths Grass Gravel Paths Gravel Virgin Map Key isitor Center isitor V

ock, prairie and people define Jeffers Petroglyphs. We hope the information in this guide, our exhibits and our our exhibits in this guide, hope the information We Petroglyphs. and people define Jeffers ock, prairie

Jeffers Petroglyphs Jeffers R place. of this revered understanding a better achieve help you programs

C ounty Road 2 Road ounty ask for your help in preserving the carvings and help in preserving your ask for lease do not touch the images, make tracings or tracings the images, make lease do not touch

otherwise disturb the rock surfaces. surfaces. the rock otherwise disturb paths. or mowed gravel on the rope, Please stay provided. he Visitor Center he Visitor he visitor center offers a multi-media theater offers center he visitor hank you. esource that can never be replaced, and it can take be replaced, that can never esource T T about American Indian and exhibits presentation and restrooms Gift items ecology. and prairie culture and interpreters convenience, your for provided are the experience and hands-on activities can help you landscape of the site. and cultural natural Information Important Trail We a cultural carvings are The environment. their fragile r naturally. be restored to a prairie for 500 years up to •P • • or other plants. Please do not pick the wildflowers • in the garbage cans Please deposit all litter • on the trails. Please do not smoke • poison ivy. for Please watch T Jeffers_03 5/25/05 1:12 PM Page 1 Jeffers_03 5/25/05 1:12 PM Page 2

The Trails Rock Prairie People

Viewed from the south, a pink rock face floating on from the earth provide a link between the physical is at the northeastern edge of a tallgrass purpose by people to draw buffaloes to the For thousands of years, American Indians traveled A rich natural and cultural history is found along a a sea of green greets the eye. Fifty yards wide and and spiritual worlds. Such places are chosen to prairie that once covered 400,000 square miles of renewed, richer, shorter, tender grass that follows a with buffalo herds, collected plant foods as they 1.2-mile trail in 80 acres of prairie. Signs guide 300 yards long, this rock emerges from native and record visions, events, stories or maps. North America. Today, less than fire. During wet years, these fires kept water-hungry ripened, and fished in the rivers and lakes. In time, visitors on trails recreated . The rock is part of a 23- one percent of that prairie trees from taking over the grasslands. they lived in hide-covered houses when following the through both Jeffers Petroglyphs is a special place, both for mile ridge that extends across Cottonwood County. remains. Of the 80 acres at herds of buffaloes, and in sturdy bark-and-post short and tall visitors and American Indians. To the contemporary Although the diet of American Indians consisted of Called Red Rock Ridge, it is a series of quartzite Jeffers Petroglyphs, 33 are structures in their summer planting villages. grass prairies American Indians who reside in and around the a variety of plants, fish, insects, reptiles and outcroppings that intersects the southeastern edge native prairie and 47 contain teeming with state, it is a very spiritual place — one where mammals, buffaloes provided the essential dietary Although we don't know which cultural group of of what French explorers one of the first prairie cactus, Grandmother Earth speaks of the past, present and and raw materials needed to survive. They supplied American Indians made the earliest carvings called the “Coteau des recreations in Minnesota. Like all blossoming future. Modern day descendants of those who left food, clothing, bedding, shelter, fuel, tools, thousands of years ago, we do know from historical Prairies.” The Coteau, meaning prairies, this landscape is a flowers and rare these markings continue to believe that this is weapons, household utensils, personal or records which groups inhabited this area during the hill, extends from Rutland, mixture of flowers and grasses. plants, songbirds, indeed a place of worship, a prayer place no ceremonial adornment, and symbols of worship. last 350 years. This region was home to Ioway and N.D., to Jackson, Minn. More than 100 species of prairie burrows of different than that of church, synagogue or mosque. Otoe tribes until around 1650. Cheyenne were here One buffalo provided hundreds of pounds of meat. plants are found here, some of which are very rare. pocket gophers The Red Rock Ridge is about until about 1750, when the Dakota began to live in Based on nearby archaeological evidence, scholars Its tough, impermeable skin was ideal for making A federally threatened species, prairie bush clover, and other wildlife. A roped trail that crosses the 250 yards wide and up to 50 this area. Today, the Dakota live in Minnesota, North believe that ancestors of American Indians first the mobile tipi, capes and bedding, rope, shields, thrives at Jeffers Petroglyphs. rock face allows visitors to view the carvings feet higher than nearby fields. Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Canada. They, made rock carvings, or petroglyphs, on this boats, meat bags, pipe holders and parchment for without walking on them. The trail from the visitor The rock that is located at This grassland is unique in other ways. Prairies are along with the Ioway, Cheyenne and Ojibwe, are outcropping about 5,000 years ago. Some of these painted records. Tools were made from bone. center to the end of the rock face is .4 of a mile, Jeffers is called quartzite; it is part of the classified as wet, mesic or dry. Because of the rock helping the Minnesota Historical Society and its carvings may have been created as recently as 250 Thread was made from sinew. Cups were made and it continues another .8 of a mile through the quartzite deposit found near the western border of formation, all three types are found at Jeffers visitors understand this sacred place. years ago. Among the earliest carvings found here from the horn. The stomach was used as a prairie before returning to the visitor center. Minnesota at Pipestone National Monument. The Petroglyphs. Wet prairies have considerable water are images of buffaloes and atlatls, or throwing container for water and, when propped upright with In the mid-19th century, European and American quartzite at Jeffers is one of the oldest bedrock in the soil, dry prairies have little moisture, and the Almost two billion years of history are recorded on sticks. Atlatls and four sticks, it became a pot for settlers arrived, and their farming altered the formations in Minnesota, deposited as sand more amount of moisture in mesic prairies falls between the rocks at Jeffers Petroglyphs. Visitors will see darts were used to cooking with heated stones. landscape. Along the northern border of the site is a than 1.6 billion years ago. It is a metamorphic rock, the other two. Near the rock outcropping, the soil is fossilized sand ripples and mudflats that turned to hunt buffaloes The bladder was used as a wagon trail created in the first years of settlement. meaning it was formed by enormous heat and shallow and dries out quickly, creating an pink quartzite 1.6 billion years ago and deep scars before the bow water container and as a bag The settlers plowed the prairie, and introduced exotic pressure from deep in the earth. The outcropping environment perfect for plants adapted to the drier left by a mile-thick glacier as it scraped the rock and arrow were to store food. Buffaloes were plants from Europe, Asia and Africa. The native was exposed by the wearing action of time. Its plains of the American West. Here you will find outcropping on its way south 14,000 years ago. The developed 1,200 grocery stores, hardware stores prairie that surrounds the rock face survived because color varies from white to red to lavender-brown or prickly pear cactus, buffalo grass and little buffaloes, too, have left their marks on the rock. By years ago. These and clothing stores for the the soil was too shallow to plow. On the horizon you reddish purple. All these colors are caused by an bluestem. Because the rock face sheds water and rubbing against the rock’s edges to shed dense symbols, along people on the prairie. see the fields, houses, barns and grain silos of iron oxide film surrounding grains of quartz sand. concentrates it into a single area, a wet prairie winter hair, the buffaloes may have polished its with other images contemporary farmers. In addition to providing direct environment dominated by cordgrass and sedge is surface. Beginning 5,000 years ago, ancestors of Part of the rock face appears to be covered with a carved on the rock, such as thunderbirds and sustenance for the buffaloes, In the 1960s, local residents recognized the cultural also present. However, the prairie at Jeffers is American Indians began carving symbols in the thick coat of green, gray or black paint. This turtles, remain important in American Indian culture. the prairie offered American and environmental value of the site. They cleaned it primarily a mesic prairie, ruled by big bluestem and rock, until finally, from 1875 to 1968, settlers and material is a living organism called lichen. Lichen The carvings of deer, buffaloes, turtles, thunderbirds Indians foods such as prairie turnips, grass seeds of fieldstones and refuse, identified and recorded the Indian grass that grows up to eight feet high. their descendants added their names. consists of an alga that provides food through and humans are more than art or mimicry of the and rose hips, the same foods eaten by early carvings and plant life, and urged the Minnesota photosynthesis, and fungus with root-like structures The prairies in this region developed during a warm natural environment. They are powerful cultural settlers of the 19th century. In the 20th century, Historical Society to acquire the site. In 1966, the that anchor it to the rock. and dry period 9,000 years ago, a few thousand symbols of the complex communities that inhabited prairies produced hay to fatten cattle, milkweed Society purchased the site with years after the last glaciers receded from the area. Around the world, certain landscapes and the prairies of southwestern Minnesota and still pods for food during the droughts of the 1930s, and the hope of providing Americans Indians continue to hold this place sacred Prairie grasses and flowers adapt to these geological formations have special qualities that thrive today. milkweed seeds to fill life preservers during World knowledge of and appreciation conditions by forming extensive underground root and continue to conduct religious prayers and make them stand out from their surroundings. Many War II. for the history of the rock systems. With this adaptation, the prairie was able ceremonies here as their ancestors did thousands of cultures feel such places have spiritual significance. carvings, the environment in to survive fires, which were sometimes started on To American Indians, rock formations emerging which they are found, and the years ago. Please respect this place in the same manner people who made them. that you respect your own place of worship.