Webster

The saline water plant on the bronze's list was a federal experiment. The Interior Department's Office of Saline Water chose Webster for the third of its demonstration plants, built to test electrodialysis, which pulls dissolved salts out of brackish water through membranes with an electric current. It was designed to make 250,000 gallons of fresh water a day at somewhat under a dollar per thousand gallons, and the department published a booklet on it in 1962. The Day County Museum the bronze names is now the Museum of Wildlife, Science and Industry, where the marker stands.

What the plaque says

Webster County Seat of Day County Founded in 1881 and named for J. P. Webster who homesteaded the townsite. Railroad supply point for Fort Sisseton (Fort Wadsworth) frontier outpost established 20 miles north in 1864. Gateway to Northeastern South Dakota Lake Region whose abundance of game led the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux to settle here and attracted hunters and fur traders from afar in the pre-settlement era. Once nicknamed "The Buffalo Republic", a thriving community today occupies the site where vast herds of shaggy bison roamed and Indian trails zig-zagged their way from the Lakes to the Mighty Missouri. Indian mounds still yield artifacts of the Red Man and the ruts of the Stage Coach are still visible on the Prairies. A region of diversified farming, extensive dairying, livestock growing and modern farmsteads. Fine homes, schools and churches have re- placed the sod shanties of the early pioneers and power machinery has displaced the ox team of the last century. Home of the Day County Hospital, the Prairie States Saline Water Conversion Plant, the Bethesda Nursing Home, the Lake Region Electric Association, and the Day County Museum. A Live Town in a Good Community Sponsored by the Security Bank, Member F.D.I.C.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Sisseton Historic State Park — 22 mi
  A stone fort on the Coteau des Prairies built to watch the Dakota after 1862, renamed for the Sisseton who scouted for it, restored by the WPA and saved again by a boy who grew up loving it.
• Joseph N. Nicollet Tower and Interpretive Center — 30 mi
  A tower on the edge of the Coteau des Prairies honoring the French mapmaker who drew this country in 1838 and 1839 and kept the Dakota names on the map.

More markers nearby

• Sigurd Anderson — steps away
• WWII Plane Crash Holds Memories — steps away
• The Fight at Webster — steps away
• Edgar S. McFadden — steps away