On February 24, 1853, seven privates of Company D of the First Dragoons, and two sergeants and thirteen privates of the Sixth Infantry were sent to the location to begin the erection of the fort. In April the dragoons were ordered to return to Fort Snelling and Companies C and K of the Sixth Infantry went up the river under the command of Captain James Monroe and became part of the permanent garrison of newly-founded Fort Ridgely. One other company came up from Fort Dodge--the post in Iowa which was abandoned with this withdrawal.[135] Colonel C. F. Smith, who led the expedition from Fort Snelling to the Red River during the summer of 1856, was instructed to recommend a site for a post. His choice of Graham's Point on the Red River was accepted; and here, in the fall of 1857, Colonel John J. Abercrombie constructed the fort which was named in his honor. Colonel Smith, writing from Fort Snelling, gave among his reasons for the choice of Graham's Point "the additional advantage of greater facility for receiving stores from the depot here".[136] With the building of these posts, Fort Snelling lost much of its importance. The garrison was small and the fort was almost nothing more than a depot for supplying the more advanced forts with food, clothing, and ammunition.[137] With the decline of its military position, the idea became prevalent that some day it would be abandoned entirely, and the land thrown open to settlement. The neighboring cities of St. Paul, Minneapolis, and St. Anthony were in the throes of real estate speculation. There were some who saw in Fort Snelling a site more advantageous than any of these. "It is a position which has attracted also a good deal of attention on account of its superior beauty of location, its agricultural advantages, and its more notable advantages for a town site", said Mr. Morrill during a debate on the floor of the House of Representatives. "Whatever witnesses in this case may have differed upon as to other matters, they nearly all agree that, as a point for a town site, it possesses superior advantages over any other in that part of the country."[138] Successful efforts were made to secure this site. On June 6, 1857, Mr. William King Heiskell, a commissioner appointed by the Secretary of War, sold to Mr. Franklin Steele, who was acting for himself and three others, the entire reservation for $90,000. The President approved the act on the second of July. Other parties who were interested in securing the site were not aware that the sale was to be made until everything had been accomplished.[139]