Wheat farming had its start in this area in 1853 with two acres of crop, and by 1859 riverboats shipped 130,000 bushels of wheat from Winona . In 1868 Winona was the nation's fourth largest wheat market. The fertility and productivity of newly broken ground invited the conversion of acre upon acre from forest and prairie into cropland. The newly-broken soil was so rich that farmers planted wheat in the same fields year after year. They overlooked the necessity of using manure and rotation crops to maintain the soil's fertility.

Over time, with the decrease in soil fertility the wheat was attacked by a fungus known as rust, leading to the failure of the crop in 1878.

The wheat failure spurred the transition from wheat to raising corn, oats, barley and dairy cattle.

The Mississippi River was well known by the 1840's. Explorers made maps, traders interacted with the local Indians, and "wood hawks" chopped trees to fuel the river boats. Settlement was limited to the Mississippi river corridor. Until the treaties of 1851, which opened up most of Southern Minnesota to white settlement, there was little known about the interior lands.

During the early years of settlement it was said it was possible to stand on the bluffs overlooking the valley and see fish swimming in the river below. Early settlers said the Whitewater River never left its banks except during the spring break-up. Even after a spring cloudburst, the water would run high but clear. As the years passed, more forest was cut to make room for crops and pasture and plows extended the fields to the bluff edges. Farmers burned the hillsides and turned their cows and sheep out to graze. Continuous cropping had exhausted the organic matter in the soil, reducing its capacity for absorbing and retaining precipitation.

By the 1900 the valley was changing. In less than fifty years the Whitewater River Valley had been transformed from pristine wilderness into a valley of 100 farms and 5 towns. The numbers of native trout plummeted in a now muddy, shallow river. The deterioration and degradation of soils in the upland areas contributed to the valley experiencing its first land use related flood.