Historical Marker · No. 450
Byron J. Cochrane
Deuel County · South Dakota
Erected by The grandchildren and the S.D. State Historical Society, 1972
White is the operative word on the bronze. Everything east of the Big Sioux River, Deuel County included, was Dakota country until the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands ceded it at Traverse des Sioux in 1851, and the county's own history has the Reverend Stephen Riggs finding a camp readying for a buffalo hunt here in 1840. Cochrane's name stayed on the water beside his cabin. Lake Cochrane, about 350 acres on the Minnesota line, now shares a state recreation area with Lake Oliver, ten miles east of Clear Lake, with campsites, piers and a camping cabin.
What the plaque says
Site of Log Cabin built in 1872 by Byron J. Cochrane first permanent white settler in Deuel County Erected by the grandchildren and the S.D. State Historical Society 1972
Where it stands
44.70431, -96.47025 · Directions
More markers nearby
- Lake Hendricks Norwegian Colony of 1873 — 12 mi
- Lake Hendricks State Park — 15 mi
- Tabor Evangelical Church — 18 mi