Eminija: THE TOWN SITE AND THE MOUNDS

BY WAYNE FANEBUST

Inthe spring of 1857, town site speculators from the Dakota Land Company laid out 640 acres of land at the point where the Split Rock River flows into the Big Sioux River, in accordance with federal law. It was reported that a cabin was built and two men were left in charge of the site that was given the name “Eminija,” the Santee Sioux Indian word for the Split Rock River. The Dakota Land Company was headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was controlled by anxious and ambitious men who saw the frontier not as a place of natural beauty, but rather a source of wealth and power.

Big things were expected from this real estate experiment, including the shipment of goods and materials by steamboats, just then one of the most expedient methods of travel for men and merchandise. Along with the town sites of Sioux Falls City, Medary and Flandrau, the paper town with the mysterious name, Eminija, was expected to enrich the speculators both financially and politically.

In November of 1857, a St. Paul newspaper that supported the Dakota Land Company reported that Eminija was slated to be the “head of steamboat navigation on the Big Sioux,” and that “several houses” were built there. If that was true, then the houses were unoccupied because at that point in time there was only a handful of men in the Big Sioux River region that was still part of Minnesota Territory. And yet the speculators continued to spread misinformation, to the extent that

51 men voted in the Eminija “precinct” in a so-called election in November of 1857.

In May of 1858, it was proudly announced that the Dakota Land Company would run a line of steamboats on the Big Sioux River from Eminija to Sioux City, Iowa. While there was some steamboat travel on the Big Sioux River, it was limited to a distance of about 30 miles from Sioux City. Another attempt made it only four miles up river where the steamboat encountered a “big pile of mud.” Yet despite the innumerable obstacles, the starry-eyed adventurers carried on as if directed by some invisible force. And they probably believed they could make any number of misrepresentations because no one was likely to travel to Eminija and challenge