Charles Francois Picotte

The bronze names Eagle Woman as Picotte's mother, but she married Honore Picotte in 1838, eight years after the birth year cast above. She was Wambdi Autepewin, Eagle Woman That All Look At, born about 1820 to a Two Kettle father and a Hunkpapa mother, later Matilda Galpin, a trader in her own right after 1869 who helped Father De Smet persuade Sitting Bull to join the 1868 talks. In 1881 she had a letter written to her stepson, Charles Picotte, at Yankton Agency, signed your affectionate mother, asking his help for Sitting Bull.

What the plaque says

Charles Francois Picotte 1830-1896 Born at Ft. Tecumseh (Pierre), the son of Honore Picotte, an American Fur Co. factor and Eagle Woman, he was educated at St. Louis. Marrying a Yancton woman, he became a leader in that Band and was influential in the Treaty of 1858 ceding land and setting up a Reservation. Yankton townsite is a part of his 640 acre allotment. His 1860 home was 200 yards South. Erected 1960 by Harold Edmunds and State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spirit Mound Historic Prairie — 22 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.
• National Music Museum — 24 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.

More markers nearby

• First Building at Yankton Site May 1858 — steps away
• First Territorial Capital — 0.3 mi
• Pine Street Bridge — 0.3 mi
• Trial of Jack McCall For Murder of Wild Bill — 0.3 mi