John Stevenson Robertson: Pioneer Horticulturalist

The Horticultural Society dedicated Robertson's memorial plaque in July 1935 with the man himself standing by, and two years later he was buried in the same park. He grew apples and pears on dry ground at 4,200 feet and wrote about it in the society's journal, whose first issue, in 1929, carried his Largest Orchard Grows New Pears. The award he endowed outlived him by decades; the thirteenth was given in 1957. This marker, the society's own, followed in 2019.

What the plaque says

John Stevenson Robertson: Pioneer Horticulturalist John S. Robertson (1866-1937) was a pioneer in farming and fruit growing in the Black Hills. His dryland orchard was located about four miles north, at an elevation of 4,200 feet. Born in Ohio in 1866, Robertson homesteaded in Fall River County in 1892 and planted his first apple trees in 1896. He experimented with adapting varieties and growing techniques for the climate and terrain. He coordinated with horticulturalists across the state, particularly N.E. Hansen of the State Agricultural College in Brookings, to test varieties and share results. Robertson was the horticulture editor for Dakota Farmer and wrote for area newspapers. He lectured at Farmers' Institutes and horticultural society meetings. In 1928, South Dakota State College honored him as an Eminent Farmer. Robertson was prominent in the State Horticultural Society and its president from 1933 to 1935. In 1935, the Society founded a memorial park and erected a plaque to Robertson that was dedicated in his presence on July 18th. He bequeathed funds to the Society for an annual John Robertson Memorial Award in Horticulture. South Dakota State College recognized his development of a plant variety by naming it the John Robertson black raspberry. Robertson is interred in the park. Dedicated by the South Dakota State Horticultural Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Mammoth Site — 3.8 mi
  A housing lot in Hot Springs where a bulldozer turned up a tusk in 1974 and the developer gave up the subdivision for sixty-one mammoths.
• Wind Cave National Park — 10 mi
  A cave that breathes through a hole the size of a dinner plate, lined with nearly all the boxwork known on Earth, under a prairie restocked with bison shipped from New York.
• Needles Highway — 24 mi
  Fourteen miles that Governor Peter Norbeck laid out on foot and horseback through the granite spires, threading a tunnel eight feet wide.
• Jewel Cave National Monument — 25 mi
  A cave the prospectors who found it sold to the government for $750, thought to be two miles long until a climbing couple began to walk it in 1959.

More markers nearby

• The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, SD — 3.8 mi
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• Leslie Jensen Scenic Drive — 7.0 mi