Oahe Mission School and Chapel

Thomas Lawrence Riggs, son of the Minnesota missionary Stephen Riggs, built this chapel with Lakota labor in 1877 and worked from Oahe for almost fifty years. The mission's boarding school opened in 1884 and ran until 1914, with his second wife, Louisa Irvine, as superintendent. After Riggs died in 1940 she kept Sunday school here until her death in 1951. In 1956 their sons deeded the chapel to the state ahead of the reservoir. It was moved in 1957 and again in 1964, from a site about five miles upriver, not the eleven the bronze casts.

What the plaque says

Oahe Mission School and Chapel 1877 Stephen Return Riggs became a Missionary to the Sioux in Minnesota in 1837. Thomas L. Riggs was born in 1847 and twenty-five years later was delegated to serve the Teton Sioux on the Missouri. His first Station, Hope, was west of the Missouri, opposite Ft. Sully. On De- cember 26, 1872, he married Nina Foster and his son, Theodore, was born in July, 1874, at Hope Station, which they soon left, to serve 300 Two Kettle and Sans Arc Sioux at Bogue, soon called Oahe Station, in a log building. A school and church were necessary. Lumber to create it was brought by the steamer "Durfee" in June, 1877, and by September, Riggs, one carpenter and Indian labor had created the present chapel where the annual Dacotah church meeting was held. Two young Indians, Samuel Smiley and David Lee were baptized and Roan Bear (Clarence Ward) was married to Estelle Dupree. OAHE "a place to stand upon", as near as the Sioux language came to a foundation, became the religious center of a huge area. The building has not been changed since it served as school and church. Some blackboard writing of Louisa Irvine, his second wife, who survived Thomas, has been preserved. The bell, inscribed "Wakan Tanka Ohala Po", (Praise ye the Lord) is the gift of a New England Congregational Church, Thomas L. Riggs' own faith. Its original site was 11 miles upstream and is now under 150 feet of water. It is open for church services of any denomination and likewise for marriages by any clergyman. Contact State Historical Society, Pierre. Erected 1965 by State Historical Society and Highway Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Oahe Dam — 0.9 mi
  One of the largest rolled-earth dams in the world, dedicated by President Kennedy in 1962, holding back a reservoir that reaches more than 230 miles to Bismarck.
• South Dakota State Capitol — 6.6 mi
  A copper-domed capitol built to end three elections' worth of fighting over where the capital belonged, beside a lake fed by an artesian well with a gas flame burning in it.
• Verendrye Monument — 7.0 mi
  The hilltop above Fort Pierre where three children found a lead plate in 1913 that two French brothers had buried in 1743 to claim the West for their king.

More markers nearby

• The Oahe Dam and Lake — 1.1 mi
• Sioux Indian Mosaic — 2.0 mi
• Center of Missouri Valley History — 2.0 mi
• Lindbergh Landing Site — 3.5 mi