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Fort Dakota I
n August of 1862, the six year-old settlement at the falls of the Big Sioux River was abandoned, when the Santee Sioux War in Minnesota spread west into Dakota Territory. Two Sioux Falls residents were killed causing the territorial governor to order an evacuation of the small city in the making. Some of the settlers went to Yankton where a crude fortification was erected by a hardy band of people who decided to stay and protect their frontier assets. Many others left Dakota Territory never to return. Their desperate departure became known as the “Great Dakota Stampede,” a chaotic and awkwardly comic event that included many panicstricken, territorial officials. Those that
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HISTORY
stayed in Yankton were not attacked by the Indians, but fearing future attacks, they petitioned the federal government for military protection. America was just then in the throes of the Civil War and little attention was given to outlying settlements on the western frontier. The tragic situation in Minnesota was different. The uprising that killed hundreds of white people was crushed by federal troops, while volunteer cavalry units confronted and fought the Sioux on the Dakota frontier, but no action was taken toward establishing a military base at Sioux Falls until the end of the Civil War. The passing of the Homestead Act of 1862 was part of the federal government’s
plan to transplant white American’s onto the frontier. So with the war over, the plan was set in motion. And on June 1, 1865, Lt. Col. John C. Pattee selected as the site for a military post, raw land near the falls of the Big Sioux River in what is now downtown Sioux Falls. A company of the 6th Iowa Volunteer Cavalry, under Lt. Joseph DeHaven began building the post. The site included the remains of several buildings along the west bank of the Big Sioux River that were left by the settlers. The troops built a barracks out of logs for enlisted men, a commissary storehouse, and a stable. An officer’s quarters, a stone powder house, and a rail fence around the compound were added later.
