Pike Island, Dakota name Wita Tanka, is an island at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers in the southwestern part of St. Paul in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota, USA. The island is now part of Fort Snelling State Park. It is a portion of the 100,000 acres (400 km²) of land purchased from the Mdewakanton Sioux Indians by Zebulon Pike in September 1805. Pike's Purchase was later to become Fort Snelling, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. The U.S. government wanted to build a fort to protect American interests in the fur trade in the region, and Pike negotiated the treaty. Pike valued the land at $200,000, but the U.S.