Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1895-03-16
THE YANKTON RESERVATION
Prospective Settlers Are Waiting
on the Borders.
Five Hundred families win lie Ready Il
Move in When the Proclamation
Is Issued on the First OF
April-School Land.

Yankton, s. D., March 9.-Ths open
ing Of the Yankton reservation Is at
tracing hundreds of settlers who wish
to begin early cultiyating their pre-
captions. BY the 1st Of April, IL Is es-
timated hat 500 hundred families at
least will be ready to settle upon their
homestcads and commence cultivation.
In addition to the government land 20
be disposed Of, the state will nave about
~, 600 acres of school land which may be
sold or leased. The Indians h have
been allotted land will not cultivate
more than s per cent of their holdings,
thus affording the white settler an OPP
p~ortunity Of leasing from the Indians
choice parcels of land to good advant-
age. The western part of the reserva-
ton will probably be thickly settled,
and il is not unlikely hat n town Will
be built neal the western border of the
county. At the present time there Is no
railroad nearer than Armour, on the
north and Springfield on the east, but
u road extended five miles from eithcr'
one Of these points would penetrate the
reservation. There are three towns or
settlements on the Missouri river side
of the reservation, excluding the
lb'll y > - ~ ~ 'Ao7N '
are Choteau Creek. White Swan and
Wheeler. From Wheeler to markets
down the river -Yankton, Sioux City
ana Omaha-graln Is shipped every fall
by steamboats,. which operate especially
to convey the crop. a railroad has
been surveyed from Yankton, through
the reservation To Wheeler, and II is
probable that before another crop Is
ready for market that this a will
be ready to transport 1t.
There are a great many good reasons
for the settlement Of this land. 1t is in
the neighborhood Of the best crop pro-
duciug sections In the west, has all the
ordinary advantages Of an old organ
lzed county government, with its courts,
its schools, churches and close proxinl-
ity To several thriving towns and vii
lagos, with regularly established mail
routes, and various other advantages
not possessed by the wild land of the
Sioux City reservation, west OF the Mis-
souri, river. Again. the terms of pay
mont for this land are very reasonable.
viz: 30 cents per acre at the time of fill
ing, and $3.25 per acre at the end OF five
or seven years, when inal proof Is
made. During all this time the settler
has no taxes to pay. IL he don't like
his bargain at the end OF seven years.
H." can sell his Improvements and move
away. No man could ask more than
this. The first year will he the most
difficult. but as hundreds of others have
successfully passed their first year Of
frontier life il is foretold hat the set
tlers ON the Yankton reservation will
also do the same. With $500 or $500 a
family can go through the first year
even il they do not cultivate q large
crop. This estimate includes small
house N barn. Intending settlers
should provide themselves With cows,
chickens and pigs. not only for their
W support, but TO supply the markets
with butter and eggs. Should other
sources fail. with COWS and chickens
there is no possibility Of failure. and as
nay Is always a sure crop, but little eX-
pense is attached to keeping a few head
of COWS and horses. The newcomers
who are seeking these lands all seem TO
be of the very best class of eastern
farmers, and many OF them will go to
their new homes i'm unusually good cir
cumStanccs.