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Survey of
Historic Sites and Buildings
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Spirit Mound
South Dakota
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Location: Clay County, just west of S. Dak. 19, about 8
miles north of Vermillion.
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Spirit Mound. (Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.) |
On a stiflingly hot day, August 25, 1804, Lewis and
Clark and nine other men, thirsty and tired, trudged northward a few
miles from the Missouri to visit this distinctive conical mound. The
Indians in the vicinity, who never visited the place themselves, said it
was the residence of devils18-inch-high dwarves with
extraordinarily large heads, who were armed with sharp arrows they used
to kill any intruders.
The explorers encountered no dwarves or other
spirits, but from the top of the hill they beheld what Clark termed a
"most butifull landscape." Visible in all directions were herds of
buffalo and timber-less plains, which extended on the north as far as
the eye could see.
Formerly an agricultural area in private ownership,
with cattle, instead of buffalo, grazing on the plains, in 1986 a local
group incorporated the Spirit Mound Trust, dedicating its efforts to
save the mound as a public resource. In cooperation with the National
Park Service, South Dakota Parks and Wildlife Foundation, and South
Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks, the 320 acres of Spirit Mound
Historic Prairie became part of the South Dakota state park system in
2001. The prairie has been replanted with native prairie grasses and
flowersthe farm buildings and trees have been removed in an effort
re-create, as much as possible, the way it appeared when Lewis and Clark
passed through.
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/lewisandclark/site37.htm
Last Updated: 11-Oct-2005
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