The Oahe Dam and Lake

Thomas Riggs's sons placed this bronze in his memory in 1957 and cast it in the future tense: the lake will cover. It covered Peoria Bottom, upstream on the east, where their father's mission stood and Yellow Hawk and Spotted Bear took homesteads. Final closure came on August 3, 1958, when crews dumped shale into the last channel for twenty-one and a half hours; storage began that month. The reverse maps the stretch and lists what the water would take, from steamboat wrecks to agencies and forts, a roll call cast before the river rose.

What the plaque says

The Oahe Dam & Lake This huge structure and its lake, 200 miles long, will cover a multitude of Historic Sites. Oahe is a Dacotah (Sioux) Indian word meaning "Something to stand upon," a foundation, and so it was that in 1875 Thomas L. Riggs, Congregational Missionary, named his Mission 9 miles upstream. The vast Bottom, upstream on the east, was called Peoria Bottom for the Peoria Belle, a supply steamer for General Alfred Sully's troops who camped there in 1863 enroute to fight the hostile Santee Sioux farther north. In 1855-56 when General W. S. Harney came to Ft. Pierre Choteau, across the river, his pre-fab barracks were too flimsy and this bottom, then unnamed, was an ideal winter camp site, supplying logs for the crude huts where many of his troops wintered. In 1867, Harney located a new Agency site upriver about 9 miles, many of the buildings later being used by Christian Indians, including Yellow Hawk (Cetangi) and Spotted Bear (Mato-Gleska) and several others who took homesteads in the bottom. In the 14th century it was the abiding place of an Indian culture that predated the Aricara and in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was the site of a score of Indian villages and a large moated and palisaded fortress, 11 miles upstream. It was also the site of the "Big Hut," an Indian gathering place for ceremonials called by the Dacotah Ti-tanka-ohe. Erected 1957 in memory of Thomas L. Riggs by his sons and the State Historical Society The Missouri River was Historic Highway There are markers or monuments at many of these sites. Steamboat Wrecks 1 Ada Belle 1923 2 Bachelor 1869 3 New Ella 1881 4 Sioux City No. 2 1873 5 Peoria Belle 1864 6 F. Y. Batchelor 1879 7 Lizzie Reed 1901 Sites F New Fort Pierre 1859-64 G Old Fort Pierre 1831-56 H Indian Mosaic 1780? I Center Monument J Fort Tecumseh 1822-31 K Verendrye Monument 1743 L Forts La Frambois I & Teton 1817 M Old Fort Sully 1863-66 Am. Fur Co. 1863 N Ancient Indian Fort 1450? O Narcelle Ranch 1856 Warren Camp 1855 P Fort George 1840 Q Fort George Indian Fortress 1450? R Loisel Fur Post 1802-09 S Fort Bouis or Defiance 1845-46 T Lower Brule Agency 1894 Historic Sites 1 Medicine Rock - Now at Gettysburg 2 Cheyenne Agency 1891-1958 3 Forest City 1885 - 1st County Seat 4 Fairbanks - Ghost Town 1883-90 5 Jon Valle Trade Post 1804 6 Rousseau Ranch & Cemetery 7 Fort Bennett 1870-91 8 Fort Sully 2nd 1866-92 9 Hope Mission 1872 A Oahe Mission 1873 B Sully's Camp 1863 C Fort La Frambois 1862 D Fort Primeau 1863 E Fort Galpin 1857 Erected 1957 in memory of Thomas L. Riggs by his sons and the State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Oahe Dam — 1.3 mi
  One of the largest rolled-earth dams in the world, dedicated by President Kennedy in 1962, holding back a reservoir that reaches more than 230 miles to Bismarck.
• South Dakota State Capitol — 5.5 mi
  A copper-domed capitol built to end three elections' worth of fighting over where the capital belonged, beside a lake fed by an artesian well with a gas flame burning in it.
• Verendrye Monument — 6.1 mi
  The hilltop above Fort Pierre where three children found a lead plate in 1913 that two French brothers had buried in 1743 to claim the West for their king.

More markers nearby

• Sioux Indian Mosaic — 0.9 mi
• Oahe Mission School and Chapel — 1.1 mi
• Center of Missouri Valley History — 2.2 mi
• Lindbergh Landing Site — 2.4 mi