First Homestead In Dakota
Inscription
3 1/2 Miles The 1862 Homestead law bet 160 acres against the homesteaders ability to stay 5 years. At 12:01 A.M. January 1, 1863, Mahlon Gore, a printer, filed at the Vermillion Land Office for a claim 3½ miles north, where an arrow marks the spot. It was the first filing in Dakota and probably in the United States.
He failed to ‘prove up’ and never got the land. He, however, did acquire considerable fame thereby.
Location
Sources
More markers in Union
Pacquette Ferry
Sioux City, SD
First Ferry in Dakota On December 18, 1855, Capt. P.T. Turnley issued a license to Paul Pacquette to run a ferry on the Big Sioux River...
Sioux Point
Sioux Point is the cud de sac that Lewis & Clark noted on August 21, 1804, between the Big Sioux and the Missouri Rivers and south of old...
St. Peter’s Church Jefferson
The vicinity of Jefferson, even before the organization of Dakota Territory in 1861, was a French-Canadian community and Catholic...
First Flour Mill In Dakota
Richland, SD
On Sioux 5 miles NE Dakota’s first flour mill was established in 1867, after the Legislature gave them a water right on the Big Sioux...
Grasshopper Cross
Jefferson, SD
2.3 Miles The first cross erected that day in May, 1876, when Father Pierre Boucher led his pilgrimage of Catholics and Protestants on an...