Beyond the Markers: Territorial Days of Minnehaha County, South Dakota
Learn about South Dakota before statehood--when it was the Dakota Territory.
Follow this journey northward to a paper town, a fur trapper ambush, and early settlers. The first stop south of Brandon in the late 1800s is the town site of Eminija, were officials planned a prosperous town that was no more than a name on a piece of paper. Running with the river north, in the 1850s we follow the story of fur trappers caught in a Native American ambush. Finally, head north towards Baltic to learn about the Norwegian pioneers who decided to call Minnehaha County their home.
Follow this territorial experience to explore a fraction the state we know today.
Ben Clare, Dakota Territory and the Story of a Vanished Town
In the late nineteenth century, railroad towns across Dakota Territory rose quickly on hopes of growth and new opportunities. Ben Clare, founded in 1888 near the Big Sioux River, was one of the many once-booming towns that vanished just as quickly as they appeared.
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The Townsite of Eminija, Minnesota Territory
Boom and Bust on the Plains
On the midwestern prairie near Split Rock Creek, there was once an idea of a prosperous town, Eminija. In the late 1850s, land speculators and boosters promised that it would become a center of trade, politics, and opportunity on the edge of the Minnesota Territory. The maps were drawn, the land was surveyed, but the town itself never appeared. Today, Eminija survives only through faint traces on…
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The Fur Trapper Folly
Steamboats and Smallpox
In the 1850s, three white trappers traveled down Split Rock Creek with a load of furs when they were attacked by Native peoples, resulting in the death of one trapper, Morgan. However, two decades earlier, the Upper Missouri fur trade was distinguished by amicable relationships between Indigenous communities and settlers rather than violence. This shift prompts an examination of the factors that…
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John and Kirsti Thompson, Minnehaha County's First Settlers
From Norway to the Dakota Territory
Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Dakota Territory has been a hub for Norwegian immigrants with Minnehaha County having the largest concentration. John and Kirsti Thompson’s experiences as Norwegian immigrants and pioneers are exemplary of the experience of Norwegians in South Dakota.
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