 There is some disagreement as to how the local Dakota people used the spring prior to European settlement.The community at the Lower Sioux Indian Reservation has designated Coldwater as a traditional cultural property, making an official statement that the area "has been used for traditional, spiritual, religious and cultural ceremonies by the MN.Mdewakanton and their hereditary descendents [sic] for thousands of years" and that "the water of Coldwater Spring has been traditionally utilized for healing of Dakota people and others."