Historical Marker · No. 123
Hole-In-The-Mountain
Brookings County · South Dakota
Erected by Brookings County Historical Association and South Dakota Highway Commission, 1956
The gap the bronze calls the Hole lies in Minnesota, a valley about half a mile wide through Buffalo Ridge near Lake Benton, on the highest ground of the Coteau des Prairies in that state. The Nature Conservancy holds 1,364 acres of it as the Hole in the Mountain Prairie, where in 2017 the Minnesota Zoo tried to bring back the Dakota skipper, a nearly extinct butterfly that had vanished from the preserve. The ridge became wind country: its first sixteen turbines went up in 1984, and more than a thousand stood across the Buffalo Ridge area by 2022.
What the plaque says
Hole-in-the-Mountain All early maps (1838-1879) showed the Hole-in-The-Mountain or Mountain Pass where Coteau Percé creek drained SW from Lake Benton to the Big Sioux. It is 8 miles SE. NICOLLET & FREMONT, first explorers, visited the "Hole" on July 6, 1838 and passed westward 3 miles north of here, visiting Lakes Oakwood and Poinsett and returning to Minnesota 43 miles further north. FT. RIDGELY & SOUTH PASS WAGON ROAD, Wm. H. Nobles, Supt., and Samuel A. Medary, Engineer, used the "Hole" in 1857 for this first "made road" (fords of rock and mounds to show the way) into South Dakota. This road, which terminated at the Missouri, was 254 miles long and crossed the Big Sioux at Medary. Medary, in 1857, said of the "Hole," "It is the only known route favorable for a railroad through or over the Coteau des Prairies." The Dakota Central Railroad (North Western) in 1879 confirmed his prediction, and Elkton, first Ivanhoe, Andrew W. Blanchard PM 16 June 1880; Aurora, Byron J. Kelsey, PM 7 January 1880; Brookings, George W. Hopp, PM 9 December 1879 may accord their existence to the "Hole"; while Fountain, Chauncey A. Kelsey PM 30 July 1878 in Section 2-110-49 5 miles N of Aurora and Medary, Brookings County first county seat, became ghost towns since they were off the Railroad. Erected 1956 by Brookings County Historical Association and South Dakota Highway Commission
Where it stands
44.26875, -96.45565 · Directions
More markers nearby
- You Are Now Entering South Dakota — steps away
- Brookings County / Moody County — 8.2 mi
- Lake Hendricks State Park — 15 mi
- Flandreau Christian Indian Community — 15 mi