Andrew Lee

Lee won the governorship twice by a few hundred votes. In 1896 he beat the Republican Amund O. Ringsrud of Elk Point by 319 votes out of 82,777, and in 1898 he held on against Kirk G. Phillips by 370. The fusion that carried him did not outlast him. In 1900 the Populists ran him for Congress and he went down in the Republican landslide that ended their influence in the state, and in 1908, running for governor again as a Democrat, he drew 44,876 votes to Robert S. Vessey's 62,989.

What the plaque says

Governor Andrew E. Lee Andrew E. Lee was born near Bergen, Norway, on March 18, 1847. When Lee was four, he and his family moved to Wisconsin. After receiving a general school education, Lee arrived in Vermillion, Dakota Territory, in 1867. Lee and Charles E. Prentis owned and operated the Main Street mercantile store Lee & Prentis for almost half a century. They also ran a large and successful farming and ranching operation. In 1872, Lee married Annie Chappell. They had one daughter, Jessamine (Lee) Fox. Lee entered the political arena in 1891 when voters elected him Vermillion alderman. Beginning in 1892, Vermillion voters twice elected him mayor. In 1896, Lee ran for Governor of South Dakota supported by a coalition of Populists, Democrats, and Silver Republicans. Under the Populist banner, Lee served two terms (1897-1901) as the third Governor in the state's history. Lee championed initiative and referendum. In 1898, South Dakota became the first state to adopt that reform. At the age of 87, Lee died March 19, 1934, in his Vermillion home. Governor Lee is commemorated by the Andrew E. Lee Memorial Medicine and Science Building on land he donated to the University of South Dakota.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• National Music Museum — 0.5 mi
  One of the great collections of musical instruments in the world, on a college campus in a prairie town, built around a band teacher's thousands of horns, fiddles and curiosities.
• Spirit Mound Historic Prairie — 6.5 mi
  A lone hill north of Vermillion that Lewis and Clark walked to on a scorching day in 1804, now one of the few places left where you can stand exactly where they stood.
• Ponca State Park — 17 mi
  Oak ravines and bluffs at the downstream end of the Missouri's last unchannelized reach in Nebraska, with a three-state overlook and the river's resource and education center.

More markers nearby

• Grand Officers — 0.3 mi
• First Permanent Schoolhouse in Dakota Territory — 0.3 mi
• Vermillion — 0.5 mi
• Bruyer Church — 4.3 mi