Memorial to the Pioneers of Minnehaha County

The 1955 tablet the state register lists with this obelisk pointed to the unmarked graves of Judge Joseph B. Amidon and his son William, killed in August 1862, beside a mound of boulders 900 feet northwest. In 1991, at the urging of Sioux Falls lawyer Bruce Blake, the county historical society hired Augustana archaeologist Adrien Hannus to dig there. The soil held decades of farm trash and no burials. Blake found accounts placing the burial in at least two other spots, and the graves remain lost. By 2022 the 25-foot obelisk itself needed some $15,000 of tuckpointing.

What the plaque says

Memorial to the Pioneers - of - Minnehaha County 1856 - 1889 Erected by the Minnehaha County Historical Society 1949 The Pioneer Memorial Honors the early settlers who faced the harsh and lonely prairie, the ferocity of the elements, and the uncertainty of their fate in this new land. Between 1856 when Sioux Falls City was platted and 1889 when South Dakota achieved statehood, they built homes, farms, and businesses and planted their family roots in Minnehaha County. This Sioux Quartzite obelisk was erected in their memory in 1949. 1999 Minnehaha County Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Falls Park — 1.1 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

• The Amidon Affair — steps away
• The Sioux Quartzite — 1.4 mi
• The Hanging of An Innocent Man — 1.8 mi
• In Memory of Makana Na Ota E 'En (Among Little Trees) — 1.9 mi