Page "Winona, Minnesota" Paragraph 17

Less than fifty years later, Pike's island 72 was selected by Captain Orrin Smith as a townsite on the west bank of the Mississippi River.

For over twenty-five years, Smith had sailed the river between Galena, Illinois and Fort Snelling, Minnesota as owner and pilot of the river packet Nominee.

In 1851 Smith learned that the treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota would establish a reservation in the interior of the state, and realized that there would be a rush to develop townsites on the Minnesota side of the river.

On October 15, 1851 Orrin Smith became the founder of Winona, by landing his ship's carpenter, Mr. Erwin Johnson, and two other men ( Smith and Stevens ) with the purpose of claiming title to the riverfront and surrounding prairie land.

When the town site was surveyed and plotted by John Ball, United States deputy surveyor, it was given the name of " Montezuma ", as requested by Johnson and Smith.

Henry D. Huff bought an interest in the town site in 1853.

With the consent of Capt.

Smith, Huff erased the name of Montezuma and inserted the name of Winona on the plot, a name derived from the Dakota Indian word " We-no-nah ", which translates to " first-born daughter ".