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• Many Oneota groups settled on flood plains along rivers, and the Blood Run site eight miles southeast of Sioux Falls is likely the largest of the Oneota sites. The area was occupied in later times by the Omaha, Ponca, Ioway and Oto, and it's believed that many tribes can trace their lineage back to the Oneota.
• Blood Run is believed to have received its name from white settlers, perhaps because the iron-rich rocks leached into the stream on the Iowa side to give it a reddish tint.
• Iowa's Blood Run National Landmark Site across the Big Sioux River is managed by the State Historical Society of Iowa and the Lyon County Conservation Board. People can visit the site by booking guided tours through the county. It is home to Blood Run Creek and features numerous burial mounds. There are several pink granite boulders whitened from weathering and adorned with 2-inch cup-shaped in

dentations that have a symbolic or spiritual purpose.
• The entire Blood Run site could eventually encompass some 1,400 acres in South Dakota and Iowa.
• South Dakota began its quest to preserve the land in 1995 when it partnered with Forward Sioux Falls and the city's chamber of commerce to acquire 200 acres on what will be the southern end of the state park.
• The state bought another 10 acres in December before teaming with the South Dakota Parks and Wildlife Foundation and The Conservation Fund later that month to buy the 324-acre Buzz Nelson farmstead for $3.5 million. Officials are now looking at buying 80 acres to the west of the Nelson farm that would serve as a permanent park entrance and another 60 acres of flood plain south of the property that sits just across the river from the Iowa site.
• Nearly all of the money is expected to come from federal grants and fundraising, and the title holders of the acreage are still changing hands.
• The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department plans to seek state park status when the Legislature convenes in January.
• The department's master plan eventually calls for entrance roads, a visitor center, historic preservation and interpretation, group and rustic camping areas, ceremonial sites and a pedestrian bridge linking the South Dakota and Iowa sides.
• In the meantime, officials have added parking, a drinking fountain and a small picnic area so people can take advantage of the site before it's an official park, Vander Stouwe said.
• "People are excited," he said.
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