Minnehaha County

The county's name is Dakota, and it means waterfall. It joins mni, water, with haha, usually glossed as curling, so the whole reads curling water or waterfall. The familiar translation laughing water traces to Mary H. Eastman's 1849 book Dahcotah, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made the word world famous in The Song of Hiawatha in 1855, taking his heroine's name from the falls at Minneapolis, which he never saw. The territorial legislature created this county on April 5, 1862, and it was organized in 1868. Its own falls, on the Big Sioux, gave Sioux Falls its name.

What the plaque says

Minnehaha County No one knows when the first people came to live on the land that now comprises Minnehaha County, but native Woodland and Oneota peoples were here over a thousand years ago. The Big Sioux River, which flows south through the county, appears on maps published in Paris in 1702. The Sioux Indians arrived soon thereafter and have lived in the area for over 250 years. The area has had a colorful history. Indian country claimed by the French was ceded to Spain in 1762 and back to France in 1800. When Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory in 1802, Minnehaha County was a part of that purchase. As part of the United States, the area was successively under eight territorial flags: Louisiana, Indiana, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota and finally, Dakota Territory, organized in 1861. Minnehaha County was created by the Territorial Legislature in 1862. The county, currently 24 miles north and south and 34 miles east and west had much of its surface formed by the Late Wisconsin Glacier, about 10,000 years ago. The falls of the Big Sioux River, its most notable feature, were formed from Precambrian pink quartzite about 1.7 billion years ago and have been a regional landmark since earliest times. (Continued on other side) Dedicated in 1998 by the Minnehaha County Historical Society the Minnehaha County Board of Commissioners and South Dakota Department of Transportation Minnehaha County (Continued from other side) The first European known with certainty to have visited the falls was Philander Prescott in 1832. He was likely preceded and followed by a succession of explorers, trappers, and traders until the oxcarts and covered wagons of the first permanent settlers arrived in 1856. With the outbreak of the Sioux War in 1862 and the ambush killing of two men at Sioux Falls, the entire settlement was evacuated and abandoned until the establishment of Fort Dakota in 1865. The arrival of the first railroad in 1878 opened Minnehaha County to rapid growth. A turbulent era followed, marked by severe natural disasters including floods, droughts, blizzards, and grasshopper plagues. South Dakota became a state in 1889. Gradually sod houses evolved into prosperous farmsteads by the end of World War I in 1918. Like the rest of the nation, Minnehaha County was transformed by World War II. An important Army Air Force Technical School was established at Sioux Falls. Two interstate highways crossed the county, a large regional airport developed, and new technology transformed agriculture. Sioux Falls is frequently cited as one of the nation's most attractive places to live, with Minnehaha County sharing the honor. Dedicated in 1998 by the South Dakota State Historical Society the Minnehaha Century Fund and South Dakota Department of Transportation

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Falls Park — 13 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

• Valley Springs Rest Area — steps away
• The Town of Valley Springs — 1.6 mi
• The City of Brandon — 5.7 mi
• 1908 Palisades Bridge — 6.2 mi