West Wall Yankton Stockade

The stockade's commander, Capt. F. M. Ziebach, was a printer. Born near Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1830, he ran papers in Iowa before helping start the Weekly Dakotian at Yankton on June 6, 1861, and sold it in March 1862, months before the walls went up. Townspeople teased him as commander in chief of the army at Fort Yankton. He was Yankton's mayor from 1876 to 1880 and was called governor for life after presiding over a mock legislature. Ziebach County was created in his name on February 1, 1911; he died at Wessington Springs in 1929.

What the plaque says

West Wall Yankton Stockade Indian war of Outbreak, August 1862 threatened to spread into Dakota and a "strong point" for all settlers near Yankton was built in September under Capt. F. M. Ziebach. The west wall, of posts with boards on either side and earth packed between, 450 feet long, was about 150 feet east of this marker. Erected 1960 by Binder Brothers

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spirit Mound Historic Prairie — 22 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.
• Santee Sioux Nation Museum — 23 mi
  The Isanti Dakota nation's museum and research room beside its headquarters at Santee, with census rolls from 1866, the mission school's photographs and a Dakota-language newspaper that ran for 68 years.

More markers nearby

• Yankton Stockade — steps away
• North Wall Yankton Stockade — steps away
• First Dakota National Bank of Yankton — steps away
• East Wall Yankton Stockade — steps away