Roberts County / Marshall County

The Roberts face's one line on 1892 carries a land cession. The giant flatiron, the Lake Traverse Reservation of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, was set by treaty on April 22, 1867 and held about 918,000 acres. Under an 1889 agreement ratified in 1891 the tribe sold its unallotted land at $2.50 an acre, and a proclamation opened it to settlers on April 11, 1892. In 1975 the Supreme Court ruled six to three in DeCoteau that the sale ended the reservation; the Oyate still asks for its 1867 boundaries to be recognized.

What the plaque says

You are entering Roberts County South Dakota Long the home of Sisseton, Wahpeton & Cuthead Yanktonaise Sioux, it became part of Deuel & Cheyenne Counties in 1862; Deuel ex- tending N to 46th parallel (4 miles N) in 1872. The Reservation extending S to Lake Kampeska in a giant flatiron was established in 1867. Grant County included the part SE of the Reservation from 1873 to 1883, when Roberts County, named for S. G. Roberts, Territorial Councilman of Fargo, was created. Org. Aug. 6, 1883 by Frederick Dittes, Charles Crissey, Indian Agent and Reuben R. Hall, at Dittes' Residence, Travare 2 miles SW of Browns Valley was named county seat. In 1884 Wilmot won the election but, losing two court actions, stole the records and it was named by 1885 Legislature as county seat. It in turn lost an election in 1898 to Sisseton, who, fearing court action, in turn stole the records to again win approval in the 1900 election. White settlement on the Reservation came in 1892 and the railroad to Sisseton in 1893. Post offices were: Sisseton Agency, 1872; Wilmot, 1881; White Rock, 1885; Corona, 1886; Summit, Sisseton and Effington, 1892. Rosholt, Victor, Hammer, Claire City, 1914, when the Soo Line entered the county. With great historic background (see giant map at Sisseton) many lakes, wonderful vistas from its high coteau, a pictur- esque and fruitful countryside, Roberts County welcomes you. Erected 1959 by Roberts County Commissioners Hull, Christofferson, Helgeson, Dybdahl and Dickenson You are entering Marshall County South Dakota The last county organized east of the Missouri, on May 2, 1885; it had been in Sheyenne County 1862; a gigantic Hanson 1870; co- incident with Stone 1873; the north half of Day 1879 and was created by the 1885 Legislature and named for Governor William W. Marshall of Minnesota. Its high coteaus and many wooded lakes made it the early and happy habitat of the Cuthead Yanktonaise and Sisseton Sioux. White trappers and traders, enroute from Lake Traverse to the Aricara villages on the Missouri near Grand River, visited it by 1800 and its first permanent resident was Joseph R. Brown in 1843 when he had a Fur Trade Post at Buffalo Lakes, near the SE corner, later sold to the American Fur Company. In 1864, following the Santee-Sioux outbreak in Minnesota, Ft. Wadsworth, near its south central border was built to restrain the hostile Indians. It was a very strongly entrenched post and in 1876 was renamed Ft. Sisseton but was abandoned by the Military in June 1889. Reconstructed in the 1930s, it is the most authentic old fort in the midwest and in 1959 was named as a state park. Not far distant is Roy Lake, with a most extensive shore line, another state park. The county's first post office was at Newark, June 15, 1883; John E. Pulver, Postmaster. Famous for fishing and upland game, Marshall County welcomes you. Erected 1959 by Marshall County Highway Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Joseph N. Nicollet Tower and Interpretive Center — 5.7 mi
  A tower on the edge of the Coteau des Prairies honoring the French mapmaker who drew this country in 1838 and 1839 and kept the Dakota names on the map.
• Sica Hollow State Park — 5.7 mi
  Wooded ravines on the edge of the Coteau, on the Lake Traverse Reservation, where the springs run iron-red and the Dakota tell of a good land gone bad.
• Fort Sisseton Historic State Park — 15 mi
  A stone fort on the Coteau des Prairies built to watch the Dakota after 1862, renamed for the Sisseton who scouted for it, restored by the WPA and saved again by a boy who grew up loving it.

More markers nearby

• Two Companions — 2.5 mi
• Two Sisters — 2.5 mi
• Little Paul Mazakutemani — 3.6 mi
• Map of Northeast South Dakota — 5.7 mi