Editing Renville County, Minnesota (section)

==History==
The [[Minnesota Territory]] legislature created the county on February 20, 1855. It was named for [[Joseph Renville]], a fur trapper, trader, British officer in the [[War of 1812]], and interlocutor with local Native American groups. Organization of the county's governing structure was completed on November 8, 1866, with [[Beaver Falls, Minnesota|Beaver Falls]] as county seat. Beginning in 1885, citizens in and around Olivia began pressing for the seat to be moved to Olivia, which happened in 1900.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/collections17minnuoft/page/n10 Upham, Warren. Minnesota Place Names (1920) p. 455 (accessed April 5, 2019)]</ref>

=== 1862 Dakota War ===
Renville County, located directly across the Minnesota River from the [[Lower Sioux Agency]], was the site of extensive combat during the [[Dakota War of 1862]]. The U.S. army's defeats at the [[Battle of Redwood Ferry]] and the [[Battle of Birch Coulee]] at the hands of the Dakota both occurred in [[Birch Cooley Township, Renville County, Minnesota|Birch Cooley Township]], in addition to numerous Dakota raids on white homesteads in the county. The burned-out [[Joseph Brown House Ruins]] still stand, and various monuments throughout the County memorialize [[settlers]] killed in the conflict.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Historical Markers and War Memorials in Renville County, Minnesota |url=https://www.hmdb.org/results.asp?Search=County&FilterState=Minnesota&County=Renville%20County |access-date=May 11, 2023 |website=www.hmdb.org |language=en}}</ref>
{{Stack|[[File:Birch coulee battlefield.jpg|thumb|[[Birch Coulee Battlefield]] near [[Morton, Minnesota|Morton]]]]}}