Historical Marker · No. 386
Brown Earth Indian Church
Grant County · South Dakota
Erected by Grant Co. Post No. 171, Strandburg, S.D., 1965
The church stood at the center of a colony. In 1875 a group of Dakota families gave up tribal standing to take homesteads on the prairie of Brown Earth, off the south edge of the Sisseton reservation, one of six such colonies of the period; about thirty families farmed here under the American Board's mission. Daniel Renville opened the hand-hewn log church, about 20 by 25 feet, in 1877. Most families went back to the reservation, and the church stood empty from 1884. It joined the National Register on August 29, 1984.
What the plaque says
Brown Earth Indian Church 1 N 1/2 W In 1877 some Sisseton Christian Indians sponsored by the Presbyterian Mission, with Daniel Renville as native pastor, decided to take homesteads near Yellowbank Creek north of this point. That year they erected their church, the first in Grant County, Dakota. It is to be seen and is worth seeing together with its cemetery. Erected 1965 Grant Co. Post No. 171, Strandburg, S.D.
Where it stands
45.10614, -96.76211 · Directions
More markers nearby
- Legend of Punished Woman's Lake — 8.7 mi
- Gen. A. A. Humphrey Post — 9.9 mi
- American Legion Junior Baseball Monument — 10 mi
- Roberts County / Grant County — 16 mi