THE DAKOTA LAND COMPANY

The Dakota Land Company of St. Paul, Minnesota, arrived in Sioux Falls in June of 1857 as part of a town-planting party, which was in progress from Medary (near Brookings) to Commerce City (Canton) along the Big Sioux River. Because the prime town site at the falls was already claimed by the Western Town Site Company, a claim of 320 acres was made between 9th and 15th streets and Minnesota and Third Avenues, the current downtown area. The settlement was named Sioux Falls City. A quartzite building was erected on the west bank of the river crossing and housed The Dakota Democrat, the first newspaper in Dakota Territory.

FUNDED BY THE STATE PRESERVATION OFFICE BY THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE.

AUTHOR UNKNOWN their version of the facts.

MARKER LOCATION: SIOUX FALLS, 9TH ST. & 1ST AVE.

If the eager speculators took note of the mounds on a nearby slope, no written account appears in the surviving records of the company. And yet the conspicuous mounds and the stone effigies associated with them had been there for centuries, dating back to 500 to 1000 AD. The ancient burial ground ultimately became part of a homestead, and it did attract the attention of amateur archeologists and curiosity seekers. Men, whose motives were other than purely scientific, unceremoniously dug into the mounds, finding skeletons and other artifacts. Ignoring that these were sacred places of the dead, some of the pot hunters resorted to explosives and the use of heavy equipment. These rude acts had some desirable consequences for they set in motion the search for answers — a quest that is ongoing. Who were these ancient people, where did they come from, and why did they choose this particular spot for creating the silent piles of dirt? And most of all perhaps: where did they go? The general consensus is that these Native Americans were a part of the Woodland Culture, a large group of indigenous people who also occupied land that is now part of Good Earth State Park along the Big Sioux River, a short distance from the city of Sioux Falls.

In 1922, archeologist W. H. Over examined the high ground west of the mounds above the Big Sioux River. His examination revealed the remains of a fortified village 85 feet above the flood plain. These villagers were part of the Plains Village Culture and were ancestors to the Missouri River Mandan People. Over believed the village was occupied for a short time between 1000 and 1200 A.D, and evacuated rather suddenly under pressure from a warring tribe.

In 1939, W. H. Over and fellow archeologist Elmer Meleen, conducted a scientific dig at the Eminija Mounds site. They examined skeletal remains of people that ranged from infants to older adults, along with other artifacts. They published their findings in an essay entitled “A Report on the Investigation of the Brandon Site and Split Rock Mounds.”

There are 15 remaining burial mounds, including one that features an old box elder tree growing out of it, called, appropriately the “Eminija tree.” The surviving mounds are protected by dedicated local people interested in historic preservation. This worthy effort was led by a Sioux Falls historian, the late Tom Kilian. Thanks to these efforts, it is

The Eminija Mounds

The Eminija Mounds, the largest and most numerous burial mound group in South Dakota, were built by Native Americans of the Late Woodland Period and may date from 500 to 1000 A. D. The original group consisted of at least 38 dome-shaped burial mounds. They were scattered irregularly for nearly a mile along the edge of the Big Sioux River flood plain northwest of this spot. It is supposed the builders carried thousands of baskets of dirt to form each mound. The original height of the mounds is unknown. They are now three to four feet above ground level and the largest of the mounds are from 60 to 110 feet in diameter.

Today, only 15 mounds remain substantially intact. Some have been totally destroyed by artifact hunters, while others have been leveled by agricultural cultivation and natural erosion. In years past there have been numerous digging assaults on the mounds by amateurs. Sometimes they used destructive methods including horse-drawn scrapers and dynamite while searching for artifacts.

These sharply defined, highly visible mounds were first visited, mapped and named in 1860 by A. J. Hill, a St. Paul geographer. Nine of the mounds have been excavated, the first in 1869 by Dr. J. F. Boughter, a Fort Dakota surgeon. In 1883 A. H. Stites, who later became mayor of Sioux Falls, excavated the largest mound which, at that time, was ten feet high. He reported boulder outlines of a turtle and two large fish on

The Eminija Mounds

opposite sides of the mound. These effigies have since disappeared. Professional survey groups found skeletal remains of at least 78 humans. All original burials were below ground level generally in the center of the mounds. Searchers found a few artifacts in association with the burials, including objects of bone, red ochre, varied ornamental beads, disks made of local and marine shells, and a few ceramic pot shards in Woodland patterns.

W. E. Myers of the Bureau of American Ethnology excavated several mounds in 1921 and believed there may also have been intrusive burials by both Ponca and Omaha Indians. All excavation studies of these mounds have been partial and exploratory. Much remains to be learned about the people who built them, their methods of construction, their burial practices, and the artifacts that accompanied the burials.

In 1988 through the vision and generosity of land-owners unlikely that the mounds will be recklessly disturbed in the future, in large part due to the work of Kilian. He persuaded the Shafer family — that owns the property — to place an Easement for Historical Preservation on the hallowed grounds. This means that any further work at the site will be conducted by professional archeologists.

Wendell and Eva Shafer an Easement for Historic Preservation in perpetuity was filed to protect the remaining mounds. The easement requires that the surface area must remain completely undisturbed as a cultural and historic resource for the people of this region.

The so-called town of Eminija suffered an ignoble and humiliating fate. Although the Dakota Land Company touted the site in lofty terms, it never became the metropolis that the speculators wanted. First of all, unlike the Missouri River, the water level in the Big Sioux River was almost never deep enough for steamers to navigate. Then there was a political change in America that further dimmed the hopes and plans of the Company. Their success was tied the Democratic Party in both Minnesota and Washington, D. C. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president at the head of the new Republican Party, thus sealing the doom of the St. Paul-based speculators, who could count on nothing from Congress.

While Sioux Falls and Flandrau (with an “e” added) grew and prospered, Eminija did not. Whatever was built there, it was left to the elements and has long since disappeared. At some point in time, Split Rock River was demoted to the status of a creek. When people paddle their canoes into the Big Sioux River from the mouth of the creek, they glide through the peaceful waters completely oblivious to the short, noisy history of the town site with the mysterious name. And yet not far away, the ancient Eminija mounds remain in noble solitude, marking the time as if waiting for historians and scientists to reveal the rest of their history.