Swan Lake General Store

The plate's dates for the county seat fit neither the county nor the territory. Dakota Territory was created on March 2, 1861, and Turner County in 1871, when Swan Lake City was named its seat; a first courthouse went up there in 1872. The county's own history says the seat moved to Parker in 1885 with the help of lobbyists and the territorial legislature, which agrees with the Swan Lake bronze a short walk southeast. That bronze also names the storekeeper here, Gustav Gilbert, Merchant, in an 1875 newspaper advertisement.

What the plaque says

The first general store in Turner County was erected on this site in 1875 by Gus and Carrie Gilbert. Swan Lake was the county seat of Turner County from 1859-1883. Erected 1972 by F. N. Gilbert and Sam Lakings

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spirit Mound Historic Prairie — 26 mi
  A lone hill north of Vermillion that Lewis and Clark walked to on a scorching day in 1804, now one of the few places left where you can stand exactly where they stood.
• Falls Park — 30 mi
  The falls a town company came for in 1856, abandoned in 1862, and tried to make pay with a seven-story quartzite mill that ran for barely two years.

More markers nearby

• Swan Lake — 0.4 mi
• Turner County Poor Farm — 9.5 mi
• Harney Hospital — 14 mi
• Southeast South Dakota Experiment Farm — 16 mi