Valley Springs Rest Area

Pathfinder barely ran. Northern States Power began building the reactor west of Brandon in July 1959, reached criticality on March 24, 1964, and declared commercial operation on August 1, 1966. A full-power test in September 1967 lasted thirty minutes; afterward the utility found failed steam separators, eroded superheater cladding and leaking condenser tubes, and in November it shut the reactor for good. The building carried on as a fossil-fuel peaking plant until its cooling tower collapsed in a storm in the summer of 2000, and Xcel Energy then decommissioned the site.

What the plaque says

Valley Springs Rest Area Indian and frontier legends mix with the space age as you enter South Dakota here. Just one and one-half miles south, Valley Springs typifies early South Dakota settlements. Established in 1873, the town got its name from the many springs found by early settlers along Beaver Creek. Seven miles northwest of here lies Palisades State Park, just south of the town of Garretson. There, Split Rock Creek has eroded a gorge through billion-year-old red rock known as Sioux quartzite, one of the oldest geologic formations in South Dakota. Indian legend says that these rock terraces and deep gorges were formed when an Indian god threw a tomahawk from the spirit world, cleaving this canyon in the plains. At Garretson is the narrow gorge known as Devil's Gulch. Frontier legend asserts that outlaws Jesse and Frank James hid in a cave above Split Rock Creek after their bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota. When Jesse abandoned the hiding place, he found a posse in close pursuit, and spurred his horse into a great leap over the Gulch to make his escape. A few miles span the gap from frontier legend to prairie history. Sioux Falls, 13 miles west, was one of the earliest settlements in South Dakota (1857). It grew rapidly to become the largest community in the state by the 1890's. South Dakota has many footprints of the space age. At Sioux Falls, the first atomic power plant in the United States to use an internal nuclear super heater operated from 1964 to 1967. Appropriately, the plant was named Pathfinder, in honor of John C. Fremont, who explored parts of South Dakota in 1838-39. Near Garretson is the Earth Resources Observation System (EROS) Data Center, where the space age is today. The EROS Center stores millions of high altitude and satellite photos of the earth's surface and derives information from them in an outstanding example of the benefits of space exploration to humanity. Within a few miles of this rest area are highlights of history, from rocks laid in the earth's foundation to images of mankind's reach for the stars.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Falls Park — 14 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

• Minnehaha County — steps away
• The Town of Valley Springs — 1.6 mi
• The City of Brandon — 5.7 mi
• 1908 Palisades Bridge — 6.1 mi