Site of First Dakota Territory Capitol Building DAR Monument -- Yankton, SD, USA - Daughters of the American Revolution on Waymarking.com

Dakota Territory, was created in 1861 from land obtained from France (1803 Louisiana Purchase) and from Great Britain (Convention of 1818), that had been part of Minnesota Territory until Minnesota became a state in 1858.

The issue was, that not all of Minnesota Territory became the state of Minnesota. The western state boundary of Minnesota was set by Congress along the Red River. So what happened to the millions of acres of land in Minnesota Territory that was not part of the state of Minnesota? All that area became unorganized - meaning, it had no organized government at all. Normally, Congress would have organized this land into a new Territory after Minnesota became a state, but paralyzed in the run-up to the Civil War, Congress didn't. The new unorganized lands began at the west edge of the Red River at the Minnesota state line and extended to the eastern edge of the Missouri River, then north to the Canadian border. (This land eventually formed the eastern halves of the US States of North and South Dakota, which were admitted to the Union in 1889.)

Everything west of the Missouri River and north to the Canadian border was Nebraska Territory.

In 1861, that part of Nebraska Territory north of 43* N Latitude to the Canadian border was added to the unorganized lands left over from Minnesota statehood to become Dakota Territory.

Clear as mud? See more here WITH MAPS (Thank God): (visit link) here (visit link) and here: (visit link)

ANYHOO -- All those machinations aside, in 1861 Dakota Territory was finally organized, and its Territorial Capital set at Yankton. A few months after its formal organization, a Territorial Capitol building opened about a mile north of the Missouri River. Marker is at the intersection of Capital Street and East 4th Street (State Highway 50), on the right when traveling north on Capital Street

Unhappily, in 1883 political shenanigans wrested the Territorial Capital from Yankton to Bismarck, Dakota Territory.

In 1883, Bismarck was in Dakota Territory, but when Congress formally drew the state boundaries for the states of North Dakota and South Dakota, Bismarck wound up in North Dakota. The South Dakota capital city designation went to Pierre SD, which remains the capital today.

DAR Chapter: South Dakota Society Date Placed: 01/01/1925 Inscription: This stone marks the site of the first capitol building of Dakota Territory Erected in 1862 Presented by South Dakota Daughters of the American Revolution 1925

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Date Logged Log User Rating   05/18/2023 Benchmark Blasterz visited it