Fort Randall Reservoir Archeology, Geology, History

Despite the uncounted explorers, fur traders, rivermen, and soldiers who traveled the Missouri River during the first half of the 19th century, serious and permanent settlement was long delayed. The movement of the farmer-frontier was westward, but the goal was the lush Oregon country or the mild valleys of California, not the dry and virtually treeless plains. The upper Missouri River country remained the resort of Indians and traders. It continued as a military frontier almost to the end of the century.

The sutlers, contractors, freighters, and adventurers who supplied and often exploited the military posts and Indian reservations were the first real settlers. Small villages or mere clusters of cabins sprang up near the forts and Indian agencies, offering diversions, often of a dubious sort, to soldiers and Indians alike. The settlement of White Swan, named after a famous chief of the Yankton Sioux, was contemporary with Fort Randall. It served as a post office, a stage station and, during the Sioux up rising of 1862, as a temporary military post. In addition, it undoubtedly provided many amusements for military personnel and for the Indians settled in the vicinity. The village of White Swan died with the abandonment of Fort Randall. Today, no evidence of the town remains.

Harney City, a similar settlement, grew just across the Missouri from the Whetstone Agency, a center for the distribution of annuity payments to the Brule Sioux (1868-1872) and a military post dependent upon Fort Randall. Harney City was a typical frontier trading post, with a post office and steamboat landing. The community was composed of cattle men, "wood-hawks", freighters, and a handful of busy merchants. The village must have been impressive in its own way; visitors spoke of it as "the wildest frontier town in the country". Whiskey was readily available to the Indians from the agency across the river, so that drunkenness was not unusual and murders were frequent.

Other settlements were of a more permanent sort, established by men who came to stay, to make homes and, as historians are fond of saying, to grow with the country. Some, particularly the early ranchers, were rough-hewn by modern standards. They were individualists and they were tough, but it was the toughness of the frontier, tempered with an adaptability that allowed them to survive in a dangerous country. Many did much better than merely survive. Some took Indian wives and founded families that are still known in the area. Major Joseph V. Hamilton, former trader and a man of wide experience on the frontier, was the central figure of a group of colorful "squawmen" and ranchers who settled near Platte Creek, beginning as early as 1859. A "Hamilton hostelry" is mentioned by the Jesuit missionary, Father Jean De Smet, who baptized ten children there in 1867. The names of Napoleon Jack, Colin Campbell, and John Archambeau, all early residents in the "community", are still remembered. The ranch of one Felice Fallace was a notable stopping place on the Sioux City-Yankton-Pierre stageroad. Fallace built a substantial ranchstead of four houses, in each of which, by report, he maintained an Indian wife and family. It is also alleged that Fallace and other ranchers in the locality made an effort to promote trouble among the Yankton Sioux, insuring that troops would be maintained at Fort Randall, where high prices were paid for wood, hay, and other provisions.

Surprisingly little is known about many of the early settlements. A few were platted towns that experienced brief prosperity and then faded into complete obscurity. Others continued to grow and are still important trade centers. Brule City was one of the earliest to be established. In 1873, Jim Somers, a "squawman", had a woodyard for the fueling of steamboats in the bottoms across from, and just below, the mouth of White River. David W. Spalding, of Emmetsburg, Iowa, relying on a rumor that the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad was to be built in this direction, selected the neighborhood as a townsite. The first settlers arrived by steamboat in the spring of 1874. The growing village became the first county seat of Brule County, and continued to flourish until Chamberlain was established in the early 1880's and the railroad announced plans to cross the river at that point. Following its rapid decline, Brule City disappeared without trace.

The town known as "Old" Wheeler, on the bottoms opposite Scalp Creek, was settled permanently in 1878 when the Reynold brothers established ranches in the area. The following year, the growing village became the county seat for Charles Mix County. At its height, Wheeler contained the courthouse and jail, a newspaper, a hotel, a general store, and twenty or more residences, all regularly laid out, and was served by a steamboat landing. In 1916, Lake Andes became the county seat, and Wheeler began to decline, surviving as a ghost town until inundated by the waters of the Fort Randall Reservoir.

The small city of Chamberlain and the village of Oacoma, lying just across the river to the west, are representative of a later period of settlement. Chamberlain, today the largest community adjoining the Fort Randall Reservoir, was founded in 1880-81 by the Dakota Land and Town Lot Company, a subsidiary of the Milwaukee Railroad. Chamberlain was a bustling "railhead" city for a number of years, an important tran-shipment center and, in a very real sense, the gateway to the ranchlands west of the river. A pontoon bridge spanned the river in the 90's, but with the building of the railroad to the west, the city lost some of its importance. Today Chamberlain is the commercial center for a wide area, serving two Indian reservations and many ranch communities. In recent years, with the increasing attraction of the lake impounded behind the Fort Randall Dam, Chamberlain has also become an important tourist center and sports area.

Oacoma, on the west bank of the river, boomed with cattle. The great herds of the west-river country were gathered here before ferrying them to Chamberlain and shipment to the east. With the coming of bridges, the extension of the railroad, and the loss of the Lyman County seat to Kennebec, Oacoma underwent a rapid decline. It remains a small village today, a relic of a once boisterous past.