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Third Cataract Hotel
The Cataract Hotel BY WAYNE FANEBUST
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n the early 1870s, Sioux Falls, Dakota Territory, was in the midst of a second attempt to become a town, after the first site created by speculators, in 1857, was abandoned and destroyed in 1862 — as a direct consequence of the Dakota War in Minnesota. In 1865, the federal government located a military post called Fort Dakota on the ruins of the first town site. The area was thought of as too
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HISTORY
valuable to ignore and in 1870, when the government shut down the installation and withdrew the troops, eager prairie entrepreneurs took up the challenge of starting over. W. H. Corson was among the ambitious pioneers. “Harry” Corson, as he was called by his fellow frontier residents, was from Maine. Having been born in a hotel, he seemed destined to claim that line of work. Harry
was eight years old, when his family moved to Monroe, Wisconsin, where his father engaged in the mercantile trade. At age 23, he went west to California where he ran a hotel, among other businesses. In 1870, Harry Corson came to Sioux Falls, and after taking a good look at the area, decided that people would come, a city would be built, and as such, a hotel would be a wise investment.
