Our Extra Last Day in Sioux Falls (Thank Goodness) 8/7/2010

Well today is our last day in the fairgrounds here at Sioux Falls and we couldn't be glader. We had a motorhome come in last night and they were parked so close to us that their slideout was so close we could just about open the door to go outside. Well anyway at least the bathrooms were open again as they were still dumping the sewage into the Big Sioux River. Seeing as we were here for another day we decided to go out and do a few more of the caches here. There were 4 Earthcaches that we wanted to do seeing as we found that the parks weren't closed like the news reports said they were. Our first cache was nothing but a quick park & grab. Second were 2 Earthcaches in Falls Park one that had to do with the falls that flow through the park and the other with the old mill that was there many years ago. Next was another Earthcache in Lein Park near the Big Sioux River and this one had to do with magma deposits that were left many many years ago on the banks of the river. The next cache was located at the U. S. Geological Survey Stream Guage along the Big Sioux River.

Next was a cache on top of a hill where the Pioneer Memorial was located. There was a bronze marker on the site which is also accompanied by a huge granite obelisk that was erected in 1949. A plaque on the monument reads as follows:
MEMORIAL TO THE PIONEERS
OF
MINNEHAHA COUNTY
1856 -- 1889

ERECTED BY THE
MINNEHAHA COUNTY
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
1949

Another marker, made of engraved granite is mounted at the base of the obelisk, and reads...The Pioneer Memorial
Honors the early settlers who faced the harsh and lonely prairie, the ferocity of the elements, and the uncertainty of their fate in this new land between 1856 when Sioux Falls city was platted and 1889 when South Dakota achieved statehood. They built homes, farms and businesses and planted their family roots in Minnehaha county. This Sioux Quartzite obelisk was erected in their memory in 1949.
1999
Minnehaha County Historical Society
There was also a historical marker there that had to do with the Amidon Affair and really nobody knows why this spot was chosen for it. The 1862 Sioux Uprising, a result of unjust government treatment, claimed many Indian and non-Indian lives. Near this place on August 25, 1862, two of its victims, Judge Joseph B. Amidon and his son, William, were killed while making hay on their claim which was a mile north of their cabin in Sioux Falls.
Amidon was a County Probate Judge, Treasurer and Commisioner appointed by Governor Jayne and the Territorial Legislature. When he and William failed to return home at sundown, Mrs. Amidon became alarmed and sought help from the Dakota Calvalry (sic) detachment in the village. A search was to no avail, but the bodies were found in the morning. Joseph died of a single bullet wound. William was riddled with arrows.
George B. Trumbo brought their bodies back to the village. Later, Sg. Jesse Buel Watson, Company A, Dakota Cavalry, reported, "We picked up the bodies and buried them in a cemetery ...(on what is now)... North Duluth Avenue.
In the opinion of John Renville and Joseph Laframboise, veteran fur traders and plainsmen, the Amidons were slain by members of the band of the warrior White Lodge. He was under orders from Chief Little Crow, Indian leader in the "Dakota Ware", to drive white settlers from the Sioux Valley. Pure chance placed the Amidons in the path of White Lodge's scouting party.
Two days later, orders came by courier from Governor William Jayne to abandon Sioux Falls and seek shelter at the Territorial Capitol at Yankton. Settlers and soldiers together hastily set out in a wagon train before sundown.
Following the settlers' flight to Yankton, Sioux Falls remained abandoned until the establishment of Fort Dakota by federal troops in 1865, when settlement was resumed.
Joseph B. Amidon was born in Connecticut in 1801. He came to Sioux Falls from Saint Paul, Minnesota, with his wife Mahala, son William and daughter Eliza, sometime before 1860.
The marker is located on the edge of a bluff overlooking the Big Sioux River (Google Maps satellite view). I don't know why the Amidon's chose this spot for their hay field, but if it were me settling the area back in 1860, I certainly would've built my home there, just for the view. Unfortunately, time and the development of Sioux Falls has not been kind to this spot, for just down the hill to the south is the waste water treatment plant retention ponds and the John Morrell meat packing plant. To the east is Barney's Auto Salvage, an eyesore from the ground and the air. And just around the bend to the west is the South Dakota State Penitentiary. If not for those four facilities, this area would be the most desirable residential property in eastern South Dakota.
I've long wondered what it was about the deaths of the Amidons that made the event worthy of monuments like this, because there were many early settlers who died either at the hands of Indians or any number of other causes. But in reading the story, the event was apparently the catalyst which led to the evacuation and the 3-year abandonment of the Sioux Falls settlement. That was a major event in the history of the city.


Another version or way of telling the story is as follow:In the spirit of Halloween, we look back at an age-old mystery that has baffled history buffs for years. Long before Sioux Falls became a city, two early pioneers were ambushed and killed on the edge of town. More than a century later, there is still some debate on what happened to the two bodies.
Standing high on a hill overlooking the city of Sioux Falls, this granite memorial symbolizes the struggles the early pioneers endured while settling a small piece of land along the Big Sioux River.
"This was a brand new territory. They're weren't many people and you were pretty much on your own," Sioux Falls Historical Society member Bruce Blake said.
Alongside the Pioneer Memorial is another historical marker that describes an event known as the Amidon Affair.
"It's the best early story we have. It's the only major Indian conflict story of settlers coming in and taking the land away from the Indians," Blake said.
About 50 people settled on a small piece of land near the falls of the Big Sioux. Among them, Judge Joseph Amidon and his 18-year-old son, William. William was hunting crows in a nearby cornfield when he discovered just how dangerous the wide open plains were at the time.
"He stumbled upon a party of Santee Sioux who were hiding not far from where we are standing," Blake said.
The warriors had been ordered to clear all settlers from the Big Sioux River valley.
"Not to alarm his father, they shot him with a number of arrows. They took his shotgun or rifle and when his father came looking for him, they shot and killed him with his own gun," Blake said.
The next day, a small group of soldiers under orders to protect this small settlement, discovered the bodies. The small village was evacuated right before it was pillaged and burned.
"If this had not happened, if Willy wouldn't have gone to look for crows in the cornfield, probably after dark or at dawn the next day, there could have been a massacre and many of those settlers may have be killed," Blake said.
Blake says the pioneers eventually returned and along with many others helped Sioux Falls become a city in 1877. To this day, no one really knows where the Amidons are buried. Many early reports say the judge and his son were buried near the spot where they were killed.
"In fact, there was a large mound about 30 feet in length and waist high," Blake said.
Nearly 100 years after the attack, the historical society called on archeologist Adrian Hannus to search the site.
"When we did the excavations around that, we found that it was just a pile of junk," Hannus said.
Another theory placed the bodies at 7th Street and Duluth Avenue.
"The only other burial at the time was, they had elected a governor and he died and was buried there so there was three of them in this small cemetary," Blake said.
Right next to the Pioneer Military cemetary, where four Civil War soldiers had recently been buried. But when Hannus drilled more than 300 soil-samples on this property, he found no evidence of any graves. Still the story and the search doesn't end here.
According to history, those four soldiers that were buried at 7th and Duluth were moved to Mt. Pleasant Cemetary and buried in four unmarked graves. Legend has it that Judge Amidon and his son moved with them.
"When they plumbed around the gravesites of the four soldiers from Ft. Dakota, they found no evidence of reburial. So the headstones are there but there's some question as to if the soldiers are in fact buried there," Blake said.
"Even negative evidence becomes evidence that's important," Hannus said.
Which is why like the road leading up to the historic site, Blake's search for answers is currently at a dead end. Still the legend of the Amidon Affair and the mystery that surrounds it will likely live on for years to come.


On the way to the next cache we passed another historic marker having to do with the Amidon Graves Mystery. About 200 yards southwest of this marker is the location long supposed by historians to be the burial site of Judge Joseph Amidon and his son William, ambushed and killed by Santee Sioux warriors on August 25, 1862. The Sioux war party was under orders to clear all settlers from the Big Sioux River valley.
For decades the belief was held by many that the Amidons had been interred near where they fell. A linear earthen mound, about 30 feet long, eight feet wide, and four feet high, strewn with rocks and large boulders, was understood to mark their gravesites.
In 1991 the Augustana College Archeology Lab was employed to excavate the presumed burial mound. A crew led by archeologists Dr. L. Adrien Hannus and Peter Winham methodically extracted nine soil core samples, dug four one-meter square excavations, and cut a 21-foot long backhoe trench. No evidence of human interments was found; only debris piled up by farmers for almost a century was uncovered. The location of the Amidon graves remains a mystery.


Next 2 caches were park and grabs, one at a gas station and the other at a bus stop on the bench in front of a McDonald's. Next was our last Earthcache in the parking lot of Northern Links Golf Club and was about a 1938 Eatrhquake in Sioux Falls. Since 1872 there has only been one earthquake centered in Minnehaha County ever recorded. This occurred at 3:37 a.m. on October 11, 1938 just outside of Sioux Falls. Residents were awoken by the quake that measured 4.1 on the Richter scale. It affected 5000 square miles in the surrounding region, causing minor swaying of loose objects, rattling dishes and windows, and jarring houses. There were no injuries or deaths because of the quake and over 50 calls were made to that evening to the Sioux Falls police.
During the ice age, glaciers weighing millions of tons compressed the earth’s crust; as they retreated, the crust slowly began to rebound. In October 1938 the adjustment in the crust suddenly released energy, the ground trembled, and vibrations radiated out from the focus. This site is near the epicenter, the point within the earth where energy was abruptly released.
Buildings were jarred, dishes rattled, and loose objects swayed (V) at Sioux Falls from an October 11, 1938, tremor. Police stations received more than 50 calls from alarmed residents. The total felt area affected was about 7,500 square kilometers in South Dakota and one town in Minnesota. A strong, localized shock on July 23, 1946, caused several cracks in water mains (VI) at Wessington. The earthquake, which occurred about 12:45 a.m., also awakened sleepers at Huron. The small felt area extended from Pierre to De Smet and from Wessington to Redfield. A similar disturbance occurred on December 31, 1961, causing slight damage at Pierre. Reports of cracked plaster and a cracked cement floor were received. Also, buildings shook and loose objects rattled. Newspaper and police switchboards were swamped with calls from alarmed residents (VI). Fisherman along the Missouri River reported that many fish leaped into the air at the time the earthquake occurred. The felt area extended from Midland on the west to Huron on the east.

Our last cache was in a local Veteran's Memrial Park in a small garden. Then it was back to the coach for the rest of the day. Well hopefully that is our last post from the fairgrounds so until tomorrow we love and miss you all. Mom & Dad Dori & Dick