Canton

Ernest Lawrence was born in Canton on August 8, 1901, not in 1902 as the bronze has it, and Merle Tuve six weeks earlier, on June 27, 1901. The two grew up as best friends and tinkered with radios as teenagers. Lawrence built the cyclotron at Berkeley and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in November 1939; element 103, discovered at Berkeley in 1961, was named lawrencium for him. Tuve chaired Section T, formed in August 1940 to develop the proximity fuze, and was founding director of the Applied Physics Laboratory, its main laboratory from 1942.

What the plaque says

Canton First appeared on maps as Commerce City 1866. Its first postmaster was Benjamin Hill, appointed 14 May 1868. First settler here, L. P. Hyde, 1861. Cuppett, Hewit, & Rea built a blockhouse spring 1868 where Court House now stands. County organized 30 December 1867. Original plat under Act of Congress spring 1868. Twenty five Norwegian families settled near Canton in 1868. Sioux Valley News, first newspaper, established in 1872 by R. H. Miller. Railroad reached Canton in 1879. First county seat directed to be on Section 14 Township 98 Range 59 was named Canton by vote of settlers, believed to be exactly opposite to Canton, China. O. E. Rolvaag author of "Giants in the Earth" student Augustana Academy 1898-1901. Ernest Orlando Lawrence inventor of the cyclotron and eminent scientist was born here 1902 as was Merle Tuve developer of the famous "radio proximity fuze" of World War II. Erected 1955 by Chamber of Commerce and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Falls Park — 19 mi
  The falls a town company came for in 1856, abandoned in 1862, and tried to make pay with a seven-story quartzite mill that ran for barely two years.

More markers nearby

• Augustana - The School on Wheels — 0.7 mi
• Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians — 2.1 mi
• Canton Ski Hill — 2.1 mi
• Shindler — 12 mi