A History of South Dakota

• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Lay of the Land: Geology and Prehistoric Life
• Chapter 2 First Peoples: The Paleo-Indian and Archaic Periods
• Chapter 3 The Rise of the Village Farmers: The Woodland and Great Oasis Cultures
• Chapter 4 The Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa: Life on the Missouri River
• Chapter 5 The Arrival of the Lakota and Dakota Sioux
• Chapter 6 The Fur Trade and Early European Contact
• Chapter 7 The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Charting the Territory
• Chapter 8 Conflict and Coexistence: The U.S. Army and the Plains Tribes
• Chapter 9 The Dakota Territory: Settlement and Early Governance
• Chapter 10 The Black Hills Gold Rush and the Great Sioux War
• Chapter 11 The Wounded Knee Massacre and the End of an Era
• Chapter 12 Statehood and the Progressive Era
• Chapter 13 The Dust Bowl and the Great Depression
• Chapter 14 South Dakota in World War II and the Cold War
• Chapter 15 The Missouri River Dams: Taming a Mighty River
• Chapter 16 The American Indian Movement and the Siege of Wounded Knee '73
• Chapter 17 Agriculture and Rural Life in the Modern Era
• Chapter 18 The Rise of Tourism: From Mount Rushmore to the Badlands
• Chapter 19 Economic Diversification: Beyond the Farm
• Chapter 20 Politics and Governance in the Late 20th Century
• Chapter 21 Cultural Heritage: Preserving the Past, Celebrating the Present
• Chapter 22 Education and Innovation in the Rushmore State
• Chapter 23 South Dakota in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities
• Chapter 24 The Ongoing Struggle for Native American Sovereignty and Rights
• Chapter 25 The Future of South Dakota: A Look Ahead
• Appendix Timeline of South Dakota History

To understand the story of South Dakota is to understand a story of the American continent in miniature. It is a narrative written first in stone and ice, then in the footsteps of ancient hunters, and later in the indelible lines of cultural collision, ambition, and endurance. This is a history not of a single people, but of many; not of a placid landscape, but of a dynamic and often demanding one that has shaped, and been shaped by, every generation that has called it home. From the fossil-rich grounds of the Badlands to the granite faces of the Black Hills, the land itself is the first and most enduring character in our story.

Long before any map bore the name "Dakota," the region was a canvas of life. Human beings have inhabited this space for thousands of years, their cultures rising and falling with the climate and the great herds of prehistoric mammals they pursued. They were succeeded by the village dwellers and farmers, the Mound Builders, the Arikara, and others who cultivated the fertile river valleys. The history of this land begins with them—peoples who established complex societies and trade networks, and whose descendants still contribute to the state's cultural fabric. Later came the great Sioux Nation—the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota peoples—whose mastery of horsemanship and warrior traditions would define the northern Plains and set the stage for the dramatic events to come.

The narrative takes a sharp turn with the arrival of outsiders. French explorers, the first Europeans to see the Black Hills, claimed the vast territory for a distant king in the 18th century. But it was the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 that truly opened the floodgates of American interest. The famed expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, navigated the winding course of the Missouri River, documenting the land, its wildlife, and its inhabitants, and forever linking the region to the destiny of the young United States. This journey was not merely one of exploration; it was the beginning of a new era, one that would be fueled by the lucrative fur trade and the relentless westward expansion of a new nation.

What follows is the central drama of South Dakota's history: the story of convergence and conflict. It is the story of treaties made and treaties broken, of settlers seeking cheap land and miners chasing the rumor of gold. The discovery of gold in the sacred Black Hills by an expedition led by George A. Custer in 1874 lit a fuse that could not be extinguished. It led to the founding of iconic, lawless towns like Deadwood and culminated in the Great Sioux War, a desperate and violent struggle for control of the land. This period of conflict would leave deep scars on the landscape and the people, reaching a tragic conclusion at Wounded Knee in 1890.

From these turbulent beginnings, a state was born. Admitted to the Union in 1889, South Dakota entered a new chapter defined by the grit of its pioneers and the challenges of taming a formidable environment. This is a story of homesteaders battling drought, railroads carving paths across the prairie, and the rise of agriculture as the state's economic backbone. It is a tale of political innovation, as South Dakota became the first state to adopt the initiative and referendum, giving its citizens a direct voice in their governance. But it is also a story of profound hardship, marked by the dust-choked years of the Great Depression that tested the resolve of all who remained.

In the 20th century, the state underwent a radical transformation. The mighty Missouri River, for so long a wild and untamed artery of commerce and life, was harnessed by a series of massive dams, fundamentally altering the geography and economy of the state forever. World War II and the Cold War brought new industries and military installations, connecting South Dakota to the wider world in unprecedented ways. The post-war era also saw the rise of a powerful new movement for Native American rights and sovereignty, highlighted by the American Indian Movement's occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973, an event that brought the long-simmering issues of treaty rights and self-determination to the forefront of the national consciousness.

This book will trace these threads from the ancient past to the present day. We will explore how agriculture and rural life have evolved, how the stunning landscapes of the Badlands and the Black Hills gave rise to a vibrant tourism industry, and how the state has worked to diversify its economy beyond its traditional foundations. We will examine the figures who shaped its political landscape, the efforts to preserve its rich cultural heritage, and the ongoing quest for educational and technological innovation.

The history of South Dakota is a story of dramatic contrasts: of vast, open prairies and rugged, forested mountains; of deep Native American traditions and the enduring legacy of the pioneer spirit; of devastating hardship and remarkable resilience. It is a complex, sometimes difficult, but always compelling story. This book aims to tell that story, not as a simple chronology of events, but as the continuing journey of the land and its people, a history that is still being written today.

To grasp the history of human endeavor in South Dakota, one must first appreciate the stage on which it all played out. This is a story that begins not with people, but with rock, water, and immense spans of time. The very ground beneath South Dakota is a chronicle of cosmic violence, continental drift, primordial oceans, and planet-shaping ice. The land is not merely a backdrop for history; its creation is the first, and longest, chapter. Every subsequent event—the migration of great beasts, the establishment of ancient cultures, the rush for gold, and the cultivation of the soil—was dictated by geological forces that unfolded over billions of years. The state we know today is, in reality, two distinct states, cleaved by the great Missouri River, each with a radically different story written in its bedrock.

The tale begins in the unfathomable depths of the Precambrian, more than two and a half billion years ago. At this time, the Earth was a vastly different and more volatile planet. The rocks that form the very foundation of South Dakota were being forged in this ancient crucible. In the west, in the area that would one day become the Black Hills, immense masses of molten rock, or magma, pushed upward from deep within the Earth's crust, cooling slowly to form the granite and other igneous rocks that constitute the region's core. For over a billion years, these rocks remained buried, subjected to unimaginable heat and pressure that transformed them, along with layers of volcanic material and sedimentary deposits, into the schists and quartzites that are among the oldest exposed rocks in North America. The Harney Peak Granite, the very stone from which Mount Rushmore would later be carved, intruded into these older metamorphic rocks about 1.7 billion years ago, a silent testament to the region's fiery birth.

For hundreds of millions of years, the processes of deposition and mountain-building continued, but by the dawn of the Paleozoic Era, some 540 million years ago, this ancient land had been worn down by erosion to a nearly flat plain. It was then that a new force began to shape the region: water. A shallow sea advanced from the west, initiating a long cycle of marine inundation that would define the area for the next several hundred million years. This cycle of advancing and retreating seas left behind a layer cake of sedimentary rock. Sand and mud deposited in shallow coastal waters became the sandstone and shale of the Deadwood Formation, a layer now visible in the deep canyons of the Black Hills. Later, in deeper waters, the accumulated remains of countless marine organisms—brachiopods, corals, and early fish—formed thick beds of limestone, including the Pahasapa Limestone that would one day house the intricate passages of Wind Cave and Jewel Cave.

The Mesozoic Era, the age of dinosaurs, brought dramatic changes. While much of the early part of this era saw the region as a terrestrial plain with extensive red beds, the Cretaceous Period, beginning around 145 million years ago, ushered in one of the most significant geological features of ancient North America: the Western Interior Seaway. This vast, shallow sea stretched from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, effectively splitting the continent in two. For millions of years, what is now South Dakota lay submerged beneath these warm, subtropical waters, teeming with life. The dark mud that settled on the seafloor would become the Pierre Shale, a thick and widespread formation that underlies much of the state.

Life in this Cretaceous sea was both abundant and dangerous. The waters were dominated by enormous marine reptiles. Mosasaurs, some reaching lengths of fifty feet, were the apex predators, their powerful jaws capable of eating almost anything they could catch, including fish, sharks, and even other mosasaurs. Alongside them swam long-necked plesiosaurs, their paddle-like limbs propelling them through the water in search of smaller prey. The sea was also filled with a rich variety of invertebrates, most notably the ammonites, coiled-shelled relatives of modern squid, whose iridescent fossils are still found in the shale deposits of the state. Overhead, giant pterosaurs like Pteranodon soared through the skies, diving to the water's surface to catch fish.

While the sea covered most of the state, the landmasses to the east and west, known as Appalachia and Laramidia, were home to the dinosaurs. The coastal plains of western South Dakota were a lush environment prowled by some of the most famous creatures of prehistory. Fossil evidence from the Hell Creek Formation, which outcrops in the northwestern part of the state, reveals a world dominated by giants. Herds of the three-horned Triceratops, South Dakota's official state fossil, grazed on the vegetation, likely keeping a wary eye out for the most formidable predator of the age, Tyrannosaurus rex. Indeed, South Dakota has yielded some of the most significant T. rex fossils ever discovered, including "Sue," one of the largest and most complete specimens unearthed, which was found on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in 1990.

Towards the end of the Cretaceous, between 80 and 55 million years ago, a powerful mountain-building event known as the Laramide Orogeny began to reshape the continent. This immense period of tectonic compression, which gave rise to the Rocky Mountains, also created the Black Hills as an eastern outlier. The ancient Precambrian granite and metamorphic rocks, buried for over a billion years, were thrust upward, creating a massive dome-like structure that stood thousands of feet above the surrounding plains. As this mass of rock rose, the overlying layers of Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary rock, which had been deposited horizontally, were bent and tilted around the rising core. This process created the distinctive "racetrack" or ring-like formation of ridges, known as hogbacks, that encircle the central granite core of the Hills today.

The Laramide Orogeny marked the end of the age of seas for South Dakota. As the land rose, the Western Interior Seaway retreated for the final time, leaving behind a vast, undulating plain. The uplift of the Black Hills also set the stage for the creation of another of the state's signature landscapes: the Badlands. With the demise of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous, the Cenozoic Era—the age of mammals—began. For millions of years, streams and rivers flowed eastward from the newly risen Black Hills and Rockies, carrying immense quantities of sediment. This sediment, which included significant amounts of volcanic ash blown in from eruptions far to the west in Nevada and Utah, was deposited in thick layers across the plains.

These deposits, known as the White River Group, became one of the world's richest fossil beds. The layers of hardened mudstone, siltstone, and volcanic ash perfectly preserved the remains of the strange and wonderful mammals that inhabited the region between about 37 and 28 million years ago. This was not the stark, eroded landscape we see today, but a lush, subtropical savanna, home to a bizarre menagerie of creatures. There were brontotheres, giant rhinoceros-like herbivores with forked horns on their noses; Poebrotherium, an early, deer-sized camel; and Mesohippus, a three-toed ancestor of the modern horse. Predators included the formidable Hyaenodon, a carnivorous mammal with a massive skull, and nimravids, saber-toothed animals that resembled cats but belonged to a distinct evolutionary line. So complete is this fossil record that the White River Badlands are often called the birthplace of vertebrate paleontology in North America.

As the Cenozoic Era progressed, the climate became cooler and drier. The lush forests gave way to expanding grasslands, favoring the evolution of grazing animals. The ongoing process of erosion, which had begun as soon as the Black Hills were uplifted, continued to strip away the softer, younger sedimentary rocks, exposing the ancient granite core and carving the distinctive spires and valleys of the Hills. At the same time, the forces of wind and water began to dissect the thick sedimentary deposits of the plains, slowly carving the intricate network of canyons, gullies, and pinnacles that we now call the Badlands. This process of erosion is remarkably rapid; the Badlands are wearing away at a rate of about one inch per year, a geological blink of an eye.

The next great geological chapter began much more recently, during the Pleistocene Epoch, commonly known as the Ice Age. Starting around 2.5 million years ago, massive continental glaciers repeatedly advanced and retreated across North America. These colossal sheets of ice, in some places more than a mile thick, never reached the Black Hills, which stood as a bulwark against their advance. The western half of South Dakota remained largely untouched by the ice. The eastern half, however, was transformed. As the glaciers crept south out of Canada, they acted like immense bulldozers, scraping and grinding the landscape, flattening hills, and filling valleys.

The ice advanced in great lobes, or tongues, that were channeled by pre-existing highlands. In eastern South Dakota, the ice sheet split around a highland, with the James River Lobe moving down a pre-existing lowland and another lobe pushing up against the eastern side of the highland. When the climate warmed and the glaciers began to melt and retreat, they left behind everything they had picked up along their journey. This material, a mixture of clay, sand, gravel, and boulders known as glacial till, was deposited in thick blankets, in some places hundreds of feet deep. These deposits created the fertile, gently rolling prairie that characterizes eastern South Dakota today. The glaciers also left behind countless boulders, known as glacial erratics, composed of granite and other hard rocks plucked from as far away as Canada and Minnesota.

The retreat of the ice also shaped the region's water systems. The Coteau des Prairies, a large plateau running along the border with Minnesota, is a massive formation of glacial moraine, material piled up at the edge of the ice sheet. The thousands of small lakes and prairie potholes that dot the landscape of northeastern South Dakota were formed by giant chunks of ice left behind by the retreating glacier, which created depressions that later filled with water. Most significantly, the Missouri River itself is a product of the Ice Age. Before the glaciers, rivers in the west flowed eastward across the state. The advancing ice sheets acted as a massive dam, blocking these rivers and diverting their flow southward along the ice margin, carving a new, deep channel that would become the modern Missouri River. This created the stark geographical and geological divide that defines South Dakota to this day.

The final chapter of this prehistoric story saw the arrival of the Pleistocene megafauna. The landscape, particularly around the warmer, unglaciated Black Hills, supported herds of giant mammals. Woolly and Columbian mammoths, mastodons, giant short-faced bears, American camels, and ground sloths roamed the region. An extraordinary snapshot of this lost world is preserved at The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs. What was once a steep-sided sinkhole filled with warm, spring-fed water became a natural trap. Mammoths and other animals, attracted to the water and vegetation, would venture in but were unable to escape the slippery, steep sides. Over time, the remains of more than 60 mammoths, primarily young males, accumulated and were preserved in the sediment, creating the densest concentration of mammoth fossils in the world. Discovered by chance in 1974 during a construction project, the site is an active paleontological dig, offering a direct window into the world as it existed just before the arrival of humans.

Thus, by the end of the last Ice Age, around 11,700 years ago, the stage was set. The geological forces had sculpted two distinct lands. To the east of the Missouri River lay the prairie, a vast expanse of rolling hills and fertile soil, a gift of the glaciers, dotted with lakes and wetlands. To the west lay a more rugged and ancient land of stark buttes, fossil-rich badlands, and the dark, pine-clad mountains of the Black Hills, a land that had resisted the ice. The river was the great artery and the great divide. The climate was stabilizing, the great ice sheets were gone, and the giant mammals of the Pleistocene were beginning their decline. The land was ready for its next inhabitants, the first people who would walk this ancient ground and begin the human history of South Dakota.