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On April 6th of 1903, Theodore Roosevelt visited our fair city on a 9-week tour of the country.

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The original site of Sioux Falls was abandoned in 1862 because of the Dakota War in Minnesota. It was not reoccupied until 1865, when Fort Dakota was established to assure settlers of their safety. This view of Fort Dakota shows the various structures situated along the banks of the Big Sioux River. The fort remained in existence until spring of 1869. The following year, the new city of Sioux Falls arose from the abandoned fort buildings. C. K. Howard, a merchant from Sioux City, built a frame addition to the fort hospital at about Tenth Street and Phillips Avenue and opened a store. R. F. Pettigrew and a few others lived in the old barracks. The last fort building was demolished in 1873.

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n this close-up photo (c. 1866), the commander of Fort Dakota sits outside of the officers’ quarters. The quarters were used by Dr. J. L. Phillips and his family as their home when they came to Sioux Falls in 1870. Phillips, a former member of the Western Town Company, laid claim to the quarter-section that included Fort Dakota and present-day downtown Sioux Falls. During the winter of 1870-71, Phillips laid out several streets and lots.

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The penitentiary was designed by Wallace A. Dow and constructed in 1882. The warden’s residence, seen at right, was completed in 1884. In the 1890s, prisoners quarried stone to build a wall to enclose the prison yard. The penitentiary is the subject of Sioux Falls’s most persistent urban legends, that Sioux Falls chose the penitentiary over the university because the state would always need a jail, but it is not true. As territorial delegate to Congress (1881-82), Richard Pettigrew lobbied for and succeeded in getting a federal appropriation to construct the jail in Sioux Falls, which can be seen from the Big Sioux River in the accompanying photo.

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From 1894 until 1901, hospital care in Sioux Falls had been limited to large rented homes, such as the Cameron residence. Erected in 1901 at Nineteenth Street and Minnesota Avenue, this building was the city’s first hospital building, forerunner to Sioux Valley Hospital. The original impetus toward having a hospital building in Sioux Falls came after residents returned from the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition, where they had seen exhibits of medical care that caused them to want the same for Sioux Falls.

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Designed by Wallace Dow and completed in 1889, the Minnehaha County Courthouse is today known as the “Old Courthouse Museum,” a program of the Siouxland Heritage Museums. Located at Sixth Street and Main Avenue, it was used for county offices and court rooms until the completion of the new courthouse in 1962. In 1965 the Argus Leader ran an editorial calling for its demolition in favor of public parking space. The building to the right is the Minnehaha County Jail, built in 1881-82.

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Looking south from Eighth Street and Main Avenue, the Syndicate Block appears on the right, with horse and carriage in front. Designed by Wallace Dow and built in 1890 in an effort to promote Main Avenue as a business street, the Syndicate Block was purchased in 1909 by Joe Kirby and became known as the Western Surety Building. It was razed in 1962 to make room for the First Bank of South Dakota.

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The quarried stone was cut into building stones and paving blocks and shipped to construction projects throughout the country. The pink quartzite was superior in quality to other stones and possessed a coloring which was extremely delicate and pleasing to the eye. The stone was used in the construction of several Sioux Falls buildings including the Old Courthouse Museum, old post office (now the Federal Courthouse), Carnegie public library, and Pettigrew Home & Museum. Historical records show that hundreds of miles of roads in the larger cities of the west were paved with quartzite blocks cut at the East Sioux Falls quarries.

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As a U.S. Senator, Richard F. Pettigrew was able to convince Congress to appropriate funds to construct the Federal Courthouse and Post Office building at Twelfth Street and Phillips Avenue—and he insisted that it be built of Sioux Falls quartzite. When it was originally constructed, in 1895, it was two stories in height. In 1913 a third floor was added, and in 1933 the eastern annex was built in response to the increase in postal and court business.

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A crew of firemen outside of Central Fire Station. Date of the photo is unknown but the station was built in 1912.

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Here is a parade from Service Day in May, 1919.

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Mr. Pettigrew, a mastermind to innovation in Sioux Falls (and not to be forgotten, SD's first senator) decided Trolleys were a great idea. This one pictured is from 1887. Throughout the years the Trolleys became electric and today, run on gas. Of course they look more modern now

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Early Trolley Photo at the corner of Summit and 11th St.

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Founded by Harry Corson in 1871, the Cataract Hotel, located at Ninth Street and Phillips Avenue, was the place to stay and eat in Sioux Falls. A brick structure, designed by Wallace A. Dow, was erected in 1878 next to the original, wood-framed building. Since most important meetings took place at the hotel, it soon became regarded as the center of the town. As a result, when a system of house numbering was established in 1886, the numbering started at the intersection of Ninth and Phillips. This structure, destroyed when fireworks in a hotel store window ignited in June 1900, was replaced in 1901 by this elegant stone building. The hotel fire gave impetus to the establishment of a full-time fire department in August of 1900.

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Richard F. Pettigrew convinced eastern investor George Seney in 1879 to finance the construction of the seven-story, twelve-hundred-barrel-per-day flour mill. Opened in 1881, the mill closed in 1883, its owners unable to obtain enough wheat at reasonable prices to keep it running profitably. The mill was purchased by the United Flour Milling Company of Minneapolis in 1911, converted the mill to electric power, and operated it until 1916. It was reopened by the Larabee Flour Company in 1917 and closed permanently shortly after World War I.

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Pettigrew left his home to the city of Sioux Falls in his will. Pettigrew's home is maintained by the city of Sioux Falls to this day. The Pettigrew museum is designed to emulate how a person of Pettigrew's stature would have lived at the turn of the century.

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A more recent movie about the history of Sioux Falls.

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Mount Rushmore Presidential Trail Entire Hike South Dakota

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we look at the history of one of the oldest parks in the city. McKennan Park was a gift to the citizens of Sioux Falls, and since 1908 has been a place of beauty and open spaces. The park has been home to swimming pools, tennis courts, a band shell, skating rinks, playground equipment and beautiful flower gardens.