More than 100 prehistoric sites, representing 6000 years of native American habitation, have been located in the Middle Fork Valley. The Collins complex, on the National Register of Historic Sites, is a 1000-year-old ceremonial site located near the mouth of Windfall Creek in Kennekuk County Park. It includes a central mound that was used for winter solstice celebrations, a crematory, and other mounds aligned with the winter and summer solstice sunrises and sunsets. . In historic times, 5 Indian trails are known to have crossed the river, and there is evidence that Potowatomi tribe buried their dead in the Middle Fork in the Middle Fork valley in 1812 after the battle of Tippecanoe, more than 40 miles to the east. Chief Kennekuk and his followers lived until 1832 near the salt springs a few miles to the south, at the confluence of the Middle Fork and Salt Fork, which attracted plenty of elk, bison and other game. After the Kickapoo and other people marched along the Trail of Tears to reservations in Oklahoma, it is said that a few native Americans continued to live along Windfall Creek near the "Indian Springs" area of present-day Kennekuk County Park.