Many Welsh immigrants came to South Dakota in the frontier years of the 1880s and 1890s, looking for generous homesteads of the hundred and 60 acres of land granted by the South Dakota Homestead Bureau for those hardy pioneers who could settle the land and make a go of it for a period of five years. After those years had passed, if pioneers admit the terms of the agreement with the Homestead Bureau, they receive title to their section of land free and clear.
Many of the stories of this hardy generation of Welsh immigrants can be found here, in a reprint of the book "welsh settlements of South Dakota", first published in 1891: (
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The historical marker at Powell, where the first group of 300 Welsh immigrants settled on the prairie, reads as follows:
"WELSH COLONY AT POWELL
On March 22, 1883, the 300 members of the Welsh Colony arrived by train at Aberdeen, South Dakota. 30 families led by William E. Powell arrived here on the 29th and built the “Big Shanty” or “Shanty Mawr” on the Hugh Griffith claim on section 9, 1½ miles north where they all lived until moving on their own homesteads and their families arrived from North and South Wales.
The “Big Shanty” was moved here, and the post office with Maurice Jones as postmaster set up July 7, 1883. A general store, J. T. Llewellyn, proprietor; a blacksmith shop, Morgan’s “a Go”; Central School, John A. Williams, teacher and a Calvinistic Methodist Church, Rev. John W Morgan, pastor; a Congregational church, Rev. J. T. Lewis, pastor, were organized and built. All but the general store and the CM church were disbanded because of death, discouragement and hardship and only the heartiest farmers remained.
The Methodist Church was destroyed, the store badly damaged and for farmsteads wiped out by a tornado June 2, 1911.
Determination of the new generation to continue worship and faith resulted in the immediate rebuilding of the church which was dedicated on its present site on Thanksgiving Day.
On June 8, 1958, to commemorate the faith and loyalty of those hardy Welsh pioneers, the 75th anniversary of the establishment of their trustful faith was celebrated by the congregation of the remaining church, now Presbyterian., 1911.
Erected 1966 by Descendants of the Pioneers and State Highway Commission"