I write about it every once in a while, but one of the episodes in South Dakota’s great and rich history which I find fascinating (and at times humorous, because of all the trash talking) is the nearly 15 year battle over where South Dakota’s State Capital was to be early in our Statehood.
The process for even serving as a temporary Capital was contentious in 1889, with various factions declaring their location in the state as the superior one. And in the process, one group of businessmen hatched a scheme, planning on the future growth opportunities that the State Capital would provide, and declared that the optimum location might be to establish a new state capital community named “Harrison” in the land between the towns of Miller and St. Lawrence.
From the Hand County Press, January 3, 1889:
If you’re not familiar with the area between Miller and St Lawrence…
Smack dab in the area between the two communities is an important business location that people in Central South Dakota recognize as the site of the Midway Drive-In – one of the last locations in South Dakota where you can catch a drive-in movie!
Granted the map has changed a bit from 1889, so while it may not have been the exact location, it likely would be in the area of where the Capital Complex would have been, had the plan come to fruition.
Unfortunately for the planned community of “Harrison,” even the local newspaper for Hand County was throwing cold water on the idea in their editorial in the same January 3, 1889 issue.
In that connection we ask our over solicitous and sanguine friends what practical good Miller and St. Lawrence are to derive therefrom? In the first place, only notoriety and finally—only notoriety. Ouch.
“One thing very positively and impressively impresses itself on us is the fact that so far as this paper is concerned it will not go into any wild and chimerical scheme with a view of securing a capital of South Dakota—without a feather bed to light on. In other words without something substantial to back up the campaign.”
I believe that was their way of demanding the backers of the scheme “show us the money.”
If you ever get over to enjoy the Americana of a Drive-In movie in one of the last places in South Dakota where you can do so in that stretch of Highway 14 between Miller and St. Lawrence, whether you’re carting your kids over to Miler for the Super Mario Brothers Movie, or Guardians of the Galaxy 3 in coming weeks, keep in mind that except for the hand that fate dealt them, you might be parking in a location that could have been the State Capital had the scheme of some Miller businessmen come to fruition.
I’ve read of this campaign and also the rivalry between the two communities to be the county seat. I believe the distance between the two towns is three miles. The Chicago Northwestern had several irons in the fire in the State Capitol battle. Huron, Pierre and this compromise candidate were all on the Chicago Northwestern and the railroad employed people like Coe Crawford and Marvin Hughitt, a name written large in early statehood history now largely forgotten, to promote their candidates.