Historical Marker · No. 480
Salem Rest Area
McCook County · South Dakota
The county this rest area serves is named for a man shot at a political meeting. Edwin Stanton McCook, an Ohio-born brevet major general of the Fighting McCooks, came to Yankton in 1872 as secretary of Dakota Territory and was acting governor in 1873. On September 11 that year, at a meeting in the St. Charles Hotel, the banker Peter P. Wintermute shot him four times, and McCook died of the wounds. Wintermute's manslaughter conviction and ten-year sentence ended in acquittal at a new trial in Vermillion. The county had been created that January.
Where it stands
43.66591, -97.42243 · Directions
More markers nearby
- Bridgewater — 9.0 mi
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