WELCOME TO THE DAKOTA TERRITORIAL MUSEUM The Museum Complex includes Main Museum Building (containing majority of exhibits) Territorial Council Building (restored) Great Northern Railroad Depot Cook Blacksmith Shop Gunderson Rural School house Retired Burlington Northern Caboose

Historical facts about the Dakota Territory Capital
(Present day Yankton, South Dakota)

• 1861  Dakota Territory created (land between the west line of Minnesota and the crest of the Rockies)

• 1861  Governor William Jayne - 1st Governor of Dakota Territory (1861-1863)

• 1862  First session of the Dakota Territory Legislators

• 1863  Governor Newton Edmunds, 2nd Governor of DT (1863-1866)

• 1866  Yankton's first industry ( brewery)

• 1869  First financial institution (Parmer's Bank)

• 1870  Yankton acquired telegraph service

• 1872  Dakota Southern locomotive, "Judge Brookings", was the first to cross into Dakota Territory (October 1, 1872)

• 1873  Dakota Southern locomotive, "C.G. Wicker", was the first into Yankton

• 1873  General Custer & Mrs. George A. Custer stayed at the Merchants Hotel

• 1876  Famous steamboat "Far West" was converted into a hospital ship, transporting injured from the "Battle of Little Big Horn"

• 1877  Jack McCall, convicted of shooting Wild Bill Hickok, was hung on March 1, 1877;  location of hanging was 2 miles north of Yankton

• 1881  Great flood of the Missouri

• 1881  Collapse of riverboat commerce

• 1883  Dakota Territorial Capital was moved to Bismarck (present day Bismarck, North Dakota)