First Building at Yankton Site May 1858

Holman built on land the Ihanktonwan (Yankton) still held. Their treaty ceding the country was signed in Washington on April 19, 1858, a month after he first came, and ratified only on February 16, 1859, with the people given a year to move to their reservation. Joseph R. Hanson, who saw the cabin in 1858, recalled forty years later that Holman's party opened a claim book and recorded more than a hundred claims of 160 acres each, and that Indians burned the cabin that October. The bronze's threatening Indians were standing on their own ground.

What the plaque says

First Building at Yankton Site May 1858 C. J. Holman, for a Sioux City group, rivals of Frost, Todd & Co.'s Upper Missouri Land Company came in March 1858, was run off by threatening Indians but returned in May and built cabin, after fracas with F. T. & Co. employees and lived there till Sep- tember when Major Lovell, U. S. A. ousted him again. Cabin near this marker. Erected 1960 by Yaggie Mills, Yankton

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.

More markers nearby

• Trial of Jack McCall For Murder of Wild Bill — steps away
• Charles Francois Picotte — steps away
• First Territorial Capital — steps away
• Pine Street Bridge — 0.3 mi