Issued in 1949, U.S. #981 pictures a settler with an ox-cart to commemorate the centennial of the founding of the Minnesota Territory. The image highlights the Territory’s rapid expansion. From 1849 to 1857, the population grew from 6,000 to over 150,000, as settlers poured into the region to take advantage of the vast natural resources. Minnesota Becomes 32nd State Minnesota was admitted to the Union on May 11, 1858. When the first Europeans arrived in Minnesota in the second half of the 1600s, the Sioux Indians dominated the northern portion of the state. By the mid-1700s, Chippewa Indians moved into the area from the east, pressured by the expanding population of Europeans, and displaced the Sioux to the south. The Sioux were forced into a nomadic lifestyle, wandering the southern plains.