Historical Marker · No. 200
Where Does the West Begin?
Beadle County · South Dakota
Erected by Millard G. Scott and State Highway Commission, 1957
The bronze's twenty inches no longer holds where it stands: NOAA's 1991-2020 normals for the Huron airport give 23.32 inches a year. The question was older. Arthur Chapman wrote Out Where the West Begins in 1910 after western governors argued over where the line fell, and by 1923 a man from Fort Worth would tell you he came from the city where the west begins. The bronze honors the Lakotas, but the James valley was Yankton and Yanktonai land: the Ihanktonwan counted it part of their homeland, and the Ihanktonwanna ranged between the James and the Missouri.
What the plaque says
Where Does the West Begin? Traditionally the American West has begun at the edge of the settled areas, always advancing with the sun. The Delaware River was the West of 1700; the Mississippi of 1820. Then the settlement of the Pacific Slope started the West coming east against the sun. So a new definition was born - instead of geographical barriers, social customs and economics dictated boundaries. Here the West Begins The James River is the dividing line between humid and semi-arid territory. Here the annual precipitation is less than twenty inches. Agricultural practices change. Westward the farms become progres- sively larger -- the towns and cities more generously spaced. Ranching overshadows farming. Scenes of rolling range land, miles of barbed wire fence, frequent watering places, distant buttes and mountains meet the eye. Boots and broad-brimmed hats become the style. It's a great country! It's the West! To our first settlers, the Lakotas, who left us clean waters and abundant game; to the early Explorers who mapped the country and pointed the way; to the Homesteaders who brought their families and developed this vast area; to the rugged Pioneers of yesteryear who through drought, blizzard, depression and times of abundance learned to live with the land, to establish and maintain homes, churches, schools, cities and sound government -- this Marker is respectfully dedicated. Erected 1957 by Millard G. Scott and State Highway Commission
Where it stands
44.36335, -98.23014 · Directions