This historical marker with two separate sides stands near the 1893 Great Northern Railroad depot at the Dakota Territorial Museum in Westside Park.
The text side of the marker discusses the early history of Yankton, the first city in the Dakota Territory.
On the back, a Historic Highways marker series map shows a vast number of shipwrecks, concentrated just below Yankton at the modern-day site of the 1924 Meridian Highway Bridge, which was built as a Vertical Lift drawbridge in 1924 to accommodate boat traffic along the Missouri River.
The marker reads as follows:
[front]
YANKTON
Mother City of the Dakotas
---...---
Frost, Todd & company, under the guise and license of trade stores along the Missouri and at the Struck by the Ree camp at Yancton, were able to get in on the ground floor of potential community sites, when others could acquire no rights. A rival concern, out of Sioux City, "squatted" C. J. Holman in March, 1858 near the river at Yancton but Frost, Todd soon thereafter erected a post near the foot of present Walnut Street. John Ball surveyed the township in the fall of 1860 and soon thereafter Moses K. Armstrong platted the area up Walnut and on both sides. J. B. S. Todd had an office at 2nd and Broadway and H. C. Ash a hotel at 3rd and Broadway. Downer T. Bramble erected the first store in town near Walnut & Second and on April 17, 1860 was named Postmaster of the town of YANCTON. Charles F. Picotte, who had a land grant at Yancton by the Treaty of 1857 had a house in the east end of the town. Gov. William Jayne arrived in late May, 1861 and set up the territorial capital in a log cabin near Ash's Hotel, with William Gleason, Attorney General, as a water carrying cabin mate. Not long after, on June 6, 1861, Frank M. Ziebach started the Weekly Dakotian. There were 10 advertisers in that first issue including W. W. Marsh, who ran the Ft. Randall stage. When the Indian War of the Outbreak brought trouble in August, 1862, the Yankton stockade protected the settlers. There are 21 historic markers in and about Yankton.
Erected 1966 by the Yankton Chamber of Commerce and State Highway Commission
[back]
[MAP]
THE MISSOURI RIVER WAS HISTORIC HIGHWAY
COMPASS ROSE
LEGEND
[Raised white square] Historic Points
[Triangle] Lewis & Clark Campsites
[Dashed line] Interstate highway
[Solid line] State Highway
[Boat shape] Steamboat Wreck
[Wide dashed line] Military Road 1855
[Raised black dot] map markers
[Ring and cross] Grasshopper Cross
HISTORIC SITES
1 Pacquette's Ferry 1855
2 Hotchkiss & Dexter Mill 1867
3 Willows 1861 Adelescat 1869 Jefferson 1873
4 14 Mile House
5 First Homestead in US 1-1-1863
6 Fort Brule 1862
7 First election in NW US 8-22-1804
8 Fort Vermillion Fur Post 1833
9 Vermillion Fur Post, School, Church, Paper
A First Catholic Church
B St. Paul Lutheran Church
C Lincoln P. O. 6-1864-00
D Post Vermillion 1823
E McClellan's Post 1805
F Fort Hutchson 1864
G Stanage Ferry 1859
I Frost-Todd Trade Post 1859
J There are 16 historic markers located in YANKTON, the "Mother City"
K Custer Campsite April 1873
L Jack McCall Hung 1877
M Custer Campsite 1873
N Lewis and Clark council with Sioux 1804
O Spirit Mound 1804
[under shipwreck markers]
Antelope 1969
South Dakota 1902
Bell of Lexington 1875
Black Hills 1882
Fontanelle 1881
Susie L K 1920
Lizzie Worden 1873
Peninah 1881
Western 1881
Yankton 1870
Kate Sweeny 1855
Urildo 1869
Clay Dixon (no date)
Erected 1966 by the Yankton Chamber of Commerce and State Highway Commission"
In the course of doing research for this waymark, Blasterz discovered that between 1855 to 1918 there were 295 shipwrecks on the Missouri River that runs through South Dakota.
From the South Dakota Genealogical Society, this account of the first steamboat shipwreck on the Missouri River, that of the Kate Sweeney in 1855 near Burbank, Minnesota Territory (modern day Burbank SD): (
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"In the Annual Report of the Missouri River Commission for the Fiscal year ending June 30th, 1897, Captain Hiram M. Chittenden1 publishes a compilation showing the loss of 295 steamboats on the Missouri river from the beginning of steam navigation to the date of the report.
Of these 20 were lost within the boundaries of the present state of South Dakota. Captain Chittenden's report may be found by those interested as Appendix W. W. of the Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers of the Army for 1897.
We have herewith extracted from it the information pertaining to the South Dakota wrecks, arranged them chronologically and added to them such additional information as we have been able to secure.
Kate Swinney, usually written Sweeny. The first wreck noted is that of the Kate Swinney, which occurred August 1st, 1855, at what has since been known as "Kate Sweeny Bend," between Vermillion and Elkpoint, where the line dividing Union and Clay counties meets the river. The boat was a side wheeler of 328 tons and was returning to Saint Louis from a trip to Fort Union and was loaded with Fur. (2) She was owned by Capt. Pierre M. Chouteau. (3) George Anderson, her mate and Henry Dickson her fireman started to walk from the wreck to Sioux City and were never again seen and were supposed to have been killed by the Sioux. (4) The boat was named for Miss Kate Swinney, daughter of Capt. W. D. Swinney, of Glasgow, Missouri. From the Saint Louis newspapers of the period we are enabled to get some of the particulars of the wreck:
1. Hiram Martin Chittenden, brigadier general U. S. A., born Western, New York, October 25, 1858, graduated from military academy 1884. Was long connected with the engineering work on the Missouri and other western rivers and is the author of several works on western history and upon engineering.
2. This is an error as a further reading of this narrative will show. The Kate Swinney was employed that summer to carry soldier's and military supplies to Fort Pierre and was returning empty.
3. Pierre M. Chouteau, of the notable Chouteau family of St. Louis, son of the Pierre Chouteau of Port Pierre fame.
4. I can find no evidence confirmatory of the statement that these men were killed by the Sioux.
"Fetcoe the pilot and Black the carpenter got away in a life boat and reached St. Joseph in safety. Before leaving the wreck the Captain sold the salvage to "some nearby settlers"5 for $300."
Later in the same article, this account of the 1881 wreck of the steamboat WESTERN, which loss is listed on the waymarked historical marker:
"The Western owned by the Coulson line, a stern wheeler 212x34 feet was cut down by the ice at Yankton in the great gorge of March 29, 1881. A large field of ice ran against her with such force as to flatten her port boilers. She was built in 1872 and was deemed worth $15,000 at the time of her loss. The first injuries were not fatal to the vessel and hope was entertained for raising her when the water subsided. However the water did not immediately recede as anticipated but rose to unprecedented heights and ice piled mountain high about the wharves. April 21st the Press and Dakotan completes its story:
"The Steamer Western lies where she was cast by the flood a crushed and disintegrated mass of wood and iron. Through the melting mass of ice can be seen enough of the wreck to convince the explorer that the Western was completely chewed up, in the jaws of the gorge. The forward part of her hull lies upon the bank right side up and the stern projects over and against the bank apparently in an inverted position. The ice has not melted away sufficiently to establish the fact that the hull of the Western broke in the center and the stern half turned bottom side up." A half dozen other boats at the Yankton wharf or nearby were roughly handled but most of them were repaired within reasonable cost. They were the Helena, Black Hills, Livingston, Nellie Peck, Rosebud and Butte were among these."