William Coogan - Rapid City, SD
N 44° 05.914 W 103° 09.246
13T E 647749 N 4884476
William Coogan was traveling through this area with gold on his mind when he ran into a band of Sioux who had had enough of encroachment. "Killed by Indians", he is buried here on Edwards St, his final resting place marked by a large stone.
Waymark Code: WM12HWB
Location: South Dakota, United States
Date Posted: 06/01/2020
Views: 4
There is a plaque here, part of an Eagle Scout project carried out by Luke Eisenbraun in 2007, and it provides some background:
In Memory of William Coogan
Watertown, Wisconsin
Killed by Indians May 4, 1876
He was enroute to the new gold discoveries in the
Black Hills when surprised and killed by a band
of Sioux warriors as part of their last stand against
encroachment of their sacred land by the white man.
He was buried on this spot by the citizens of the new
village of Rapid City.
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Mr. Coogan's name is rendered as "Cogan" on the boulder that marks his final resting place, with a stamp that reads "Grave of Wm Cogan". The boulder has a steel beam as a support, and the grave is protected by a chain link fence, to protect against a different type of encroachment, i.e. "development." Besides being within view of a busy Interstate, this area is a center for shopping, restaurants, and lodging. As of this posting, a Comfort Suites is just a minute's walk from the grave site.
Chuck Cecil's "Bull Trains to Deadwood" has a little bit of background, noting that Coogan was killed just weeks before the Battle of the Little Bighorn. He had been traveling with a small group, but with his goal in sight, he decided to pick up his own pace and break away from the slow-moving travelers he had accompanied. This turned out to be fatal, as the band of Sioux that he met killed him with a tomahawk before scalping him and slicing off his ears. The group that he had left found his body and reported it to local authorities, who gave Coogan a decent burial where he had fallen. So many years later, when I-90 was under construction, his remains were moved away from the highway's path, and Cecil notes that both the plaque and boulder were part of Eisenbraun's project.
Mr. Coogan's Findagrave page is here.