Twelve Mile House

The keeper the bronze spells two ways appears as Desire Chaussee on the postmasters plaque in town, and he left other marks. The 1989 National Register nomination for St. Peter's Church records a Mass said in his sod shanty on May 25, 1863, by a priest it names as Fr. Forbun, though a log church already stood nearby. When the eleventh Legislative Assembly of Dakota Territory convened at Yankton on December 7, 1874, Chaussee sat in the House as one of Union County's five members.

What the plaque says

Twelve Mile House Was a road house twelve miles from Sioux City run by Desiree Chausee. It was a log building right here. It was also the site of Willow's Post Office. Postmasters were William Mathers, 19 August 1861; Desire Chausee in 1864; Charles Heath in 1865 and finally became Adelescat, Joseph Dupins, P.M. November 19, 1869. In its day quite a famous stopping point for stages, ox teams and travelers. Erected 1966 by Calanthe LaBreche and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ponca State Park — 7.8 mi
  Oak ravines and bluffs at the downstream end of the Missouri's last unchannelized reach in Nebraska, with a three-state overlook and the river's resource and education center.
• National Music Museum — 23 mi
  One of the great collections of musical instruments in the world, on a college campus in a prairie town, built around a band teacher's thousands of horns, fiddles and curiosities.
• Spirit Mound Historic Prairie — 28 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.

More markers nearby

• Postmasters Jefferson — 0.3 mi
• Grasshopper Cross — 0.4 mi
• St. Peter's Church Jefferson — 0.4 mi
• First Flour Mill in Dakota — 0.5 mi