South Grand Stage Station

The Marquis de Mores's line survives in a museum. His Medora Stage and Forwarding Company ran four Concord coaches over 215 miles and thirteen stations; the first reached Deadwood on October 5, 1884, about 36 hours out, for a $21.50 fare. The coaches were lettered U S M for a mail contract he never won. One of them, Kittie, ran routes in Minnesota after his estate sold it, and the State Historical Society bought it in 1990; it stands in the Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre.

What the plaque says

South Grand Stage Station Roadside Park U.S. Highway 85 Regina, Canada - El Paso, Texas Belle Fourche 76 Deadwood 103 State Line 80 Williston, N.D. 219 Probably the first white men to traverse this area were Wilson Price Hunt and his Astorians, bound for the Pacific from the Aricara Villages at the mouth of Grand River in August 1811. Transient traders and trappers were here thereafter but left no record until in July 1874 General George A. Custer with a notable expedition of soldiers and scientists enroute from Ft. Abraham Lincoln to the Black Hills twice passed close to this place. Three years later on August 14th Major Lazelle and a Detachment of the 1st Infantry, hunting Indians, camped nearby. From 1868, a part of the Great Sioux Reservation, it was opened to settlement in 1876 but it was 1893 until surveyed. Cattle men from 1883 on were making use of its free range and in 1884 the fabulous Marquis De Mores, who sunk a fortune at Medora had a 150 horse, 4 stagecoach line, one station of which was right here on the South Grand. Its stages, over a 215 mile route to Deadwood, ran from October 1884 to May 1885 but the mail contract was given the shorter Pierre-Deadwood route and the stageline folded up. This exact location was in Dakota Territorial counties of Harding, Burdick, Harding again at Statehood; then Butte in 1897 and finally organized as Harding the 3rd time 17 February 1909. It was named in 1881 originally for J. A. Harding of Lawrence County, speaker of the Territorial house. Erected 1956 by Citizens of Harding County and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Battle of Slim Buttes — 20 mi