History of Fulton
The neighborhood takes its name from Robert Fulton, the engineer and artist who invented the steamboat in the 19th century. The original housing stock was built mostly in the 1920s and 1930s, but Fulton has seen a lot of redevelopment of older homes into new construction over the past decade.
Fulton is one of the few neighborhoods in the city in which the park is not named after the neighborhood. Our park, officially called Pershing Field Park, was named after General John J. “Blackjack” Pershing, commander of American forces in World War I.
Fulton has strong indigenous roots. We are in the homeland of the Dakota, just a stone’s throw from Bdote, where the waters of the Mississippi and the Minnesota rivers converge. The Dakota people considered the confluence of these two mighty rivers to be a sacred place, filled with deep energy and history of their people. At the same time, a village flourished at Bde Maka Ska where local historian Kate Beane’s ancestor, Cloud Man, ran an experimental farm and language school until 1839. This was only one of many groundbreaking and artisanal activities in this area as Native farmers hybridized corn, beans, and manoomin (wild rice).
To this day, when Fulton residents come across a patch of berry bushes, especially near a grove of fruit and nut trees, they are most likely encountering the fruits of labor of a Native gardener who tended these spots generation after generation.
