The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1910-03-10
SOUTH DAKOTA
COMES OF AGE
YOUNG STATE REACHES ITS MA
JORITY.
TRIALS AND VIVISITUDES
OF THE EARLY SETTLERS WERE
MANY AND BURDENSOME.

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signed February %, 1889, says a Pierre
dispatch. Her career perfectly typi-
les the child which comes up from
weakness and dependence to robust
and aggressive manhood.
1t is fifty-one years since permanent
white settlements were made within
the present state along the lower Mis-
souri, section. 1t will be forty-nine
years on March 2 since the territory
convened a year later; that is to say,
on March II, st. Patrick's day, 1862.
Her development in early territorial
days was extremely slow, for she was
beSet by many adverse circumstances.
Dame Nature has a method of trying
out her pioneers in every land, and
the South Dakotans were subjected to
the law of the survival of the fittest.
Her first great menace came from hos
tile Indians, and a four-year Indian
war, followed by years of drouth, of
ravenous g~rasshOppers and devasting
prairie fires and winters of such Sc
verify as to render modern winters
tropical. by comparison. The settler
III stuck it out was good stuff and
no mistake.
The first real impulse for great de
velopment came with the discovery OF
gold in the Black Hills, which caused
a stampede in that direction, and the
many thousands who crossed the
prairies created business in the set.
Elements, made markets for their pro-
duets and advertised the agricultural
possibilities.
Very many, disappointed in securing
gold in the Hills, turned back to Sc.
cure it from prairie homesteads. In
1877 began a homesteading movement
which eliminated in the great Dakota
boom of the early eighties, when in a
day, as it were, all of the region east
of the Missouri was converted from a
wilderness into a we'll settled region.
made accessible by railroads and pro.
vided with markets, schools, churches
and all of the ~conveniences of civiliza-
ton.
Inevitably this boom was followed by
a reaction. Nature started another
trying out of the settlers and many
thousands were not equal to the test.
Fire, flood, frost and drouth were too
many for them, and they went back
Ito live with wife's folks"
1t was in the very storm center of
this reaction that South Dakota was
born. Such years of failure and dis
enlargement as 1889 and 1890 have
scarcely fallen upon any other new
commonwealth. Destitution was every
where prevalent. The officials of the
new state were compelled to appeal to
the benevolent people of the East for
means to keep the people alive, and
their troubles eliminated in the great
financial depression which swept Amer
lea in 1893, a total crop failure in 1894
and the robbery of the state treasury
of every dollar it contained at the be-
ginning of 1895. Having by these pro-
cesses selected a few choice souls, who
stayed for seed, the good dame put on
a smiling c~ountenance and has from
that time forward beamed kindly upon
the growing population of the Sun,
shine State.
For fifteen years the development of
South Dakota has been most satisfac-
tory. Each year has been better than
the last. Productions have grown to
a stupendous sum, returning to the
people more than n other state in
proportion to population; reserve
wealth has piled up until the paltry
$4,000, 900 of bank deposits of those
days have grown to more than $50, O00,-
600. Our annual production of agrl-
900.
Education has been fostered and re-
ligion advanced quite in degree with
her material prosperity.
The struggle which resulted in the
division Of Dakota Territory into two
sovereign states of the Union Is an
epic in American history. The consti-
tuition which was adopted by the faith.
ers of Dakota is the highest testimo-
NAL to their patriotism and their wis
dom. At a time when the West was
flooded with adventures the home.
steaders of South Dakota selected a
body OF men to draft a constitution
which has not a Job or an opportunity
for graft IN 1t. Its provision for the
preservation Of the school lands and
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