Pierre Was a Cowtown - Reading Brands

The ferries on this bronze worked because the railroad stopped at the river. From 1880 the Chicago and North Western ended on the east bank here, so West River cattle were held at Fort Pierre and ferried across to the Pierre stockyards and the cars. In 1907 the railroad finished its 2,200-foot swing bridge, the first permanent rail crossing of the Missouri in central South Dakota, joining the line that ran on west from Fort Pierre. Both faces of this marker cast brands as symbols in the text, ranchers' marks a reader has to see.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• South Dakota State Capitol — 0.5 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 — 1.5 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.
• Oahe Dam — 6.2 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.

More markers nearby

• John Sutherland and the Capital Fights — 0.3 mi
• First and Only Hanging in Hughes County — 0.4 mi
• Hughes County Courthouse and Library — 0.4 mi
• Steamboat Reach — 0.4 mi