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• The acreage along the Big Sioux River bordering Iowa was used by thousands of Oneota Indians into the early 1700s, and its diverse landscape boasts a large oak forest, rolling hills, flood plains and riverside bluffs. The site has a story to tell, holding historically rich burial mounds, refuse pits and artifacts.
• "Long before white settlers came to what is now South Dakota, a number of Native American tribes gathered along a winding, wooded creek to trade, bury loved ones and establish bonds of peace and friendship," Daugaard said in his address last week. "Rolling hills, broad floodplains, rock-covered burial mounds and steep riverside bluffs mark the area, one of the oldest sites of long-term habitation in America."
• The $2 million in state funds will be matched with $2 million in private donations being raised by the South Dakota Parks and Wildlife Foundation. The department is also shifting $1 million from its budget to the project.
• Foundation fundraiser Dick Brown said the effort commitment will help turn Blood Run into a destination location for eastern South Dakota on par with what Custer State Park does for the Black Hills.
• "It really will become the premier state park of the east, similar to what Custer is out here," Brown said.
• Blood Run, which was designated a national historic landmark in 1970, will be the first new property to become a South Dakota state park in more than 50 years. South Dakota added Bear Butte State Park in 1961, and legislators re-designated Palisades Recreation Area as Palisades State Park in 1973.
• 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 2011 before teaming with the wildlife foundation and The Conservation Fund that month to buy the 324-acre Buzz Nelson farmstead for $3.5 million. This summer, the foundation bought another 60 acres of flood plain south of the property that sits just across the river from the Iowa site.
• "Now we have a contiguous parcel of land on the South Dakota side that's just over 600 acres," Hofer said.
• Officials are also looking at buying 80 acres to the west of the Nelson farm that would serve as a permanent park entrance.
• The Oneota culture wasn't a single tribe but conglomerate of groups with similar characteristics dating back to 1200 or earlier. The Oneota grew corn and other staples, hunted bison, made pottery, built circular lodges and stored perishable food

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