The Great Highway of the Northwest: The Yellowstone Trail

The panel credits businessmen from three states. The idea began as one man's complaint. Joe Parmley, who ran a land office in Ipswich, South Dakota, was fed up with a wet slough near his home and called a good-roads meeting there on April 23, 1912, aiming first at a passable twenty-five miles to Aberdeen. The association formed that October at Lemmon, and his land office served as its national headquarters until 1916. It never built a road. Numbered highways took its purpose after 1926, the Depression took its dues, and its main office closed on March 15, 1930.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• The Bozeman Trail — steps away
• Montana's Jurassic Park — steps away
• The Cattle Drive of 1866 — steps away
• The Crazy Mountains — steps away