Bemidji State University sits on land occupied first by the Dakota and later by the Ojibwe, long before the first white settlers arrived in northern Minnesota. The Treaty of 1855 created a dozen American Indian reservations and reclassified much of northern Minnesota’s remaining Indigenous land to be shared with white settlers.

An influx of white settlement soon ensued, and despite the existence of treaty agreements, many Ojibwe were denied their right to share and access much of this land. Some Indigenous people continued to live in Bemidji, but many others moved to what is now nearby Cass Lake.

In 1863, the Leech Lake Reservation east of Bemidji expanded to accommodate the many Ojibwe people who could not easily consolidate on the reservation. It was expanded again in 1864 to include the town of Bemidji and the land on which the BSU campus now sits.

In 1867, a new treaty established the White Earth Reservation and reduced the size of the Leech Lake Reservation. Bemidji once again found itself outside the Leech Lake Reservation’s borders and in the hands of the United States government and, later, the White and Street Townsite Company.

Starting in 1858, Minnesota began establishing state-supported higher education institutions called Normal Schools. As white settlers moved into the north-central region of the state, legislative leaders determined that a school should be built to accommodate the population.

In 1909, a number of northern towns began lobbying to host the school, including Bemidji, Thief River Falls and Cass Lake. On July 15, 1913, Bemidji was selected as the home of Minnesota’s sixth normal school, and a deed for the land on which the school would be built was transferred from White and Street Townsite Company to the city of Bemidji on Sept. 30, 1913.

With funding from the legislature, construction began in April 1918 to clear the thickly wooded school site a mile north of town on the west shore of Lake Bemidji. The Bemidji Normal School opened June 23, 1919.