While stationed at McPherson Barracks, Atlanta, Georgia, in May of 1869, D. C. Poole received orders from the United States Army that he was to report to Washington, D. C. He had been selected by government officials to execute the duties of an Indian Agent in Dakota Territory.
Poole had been assigned to the position of Agent for Indians in the Sioux District, which was located at the mouth of Whetstone Creek, Dakota Territory. He was instructed to proceed, without unnecessary delay to report to the Whetstone Agency and begin his duties.
Before he left Washington, D. C., he checked available maps to learn something of his new field of operations. All the maps showed:
“A large space, marked Dakota, which was blank, except for a rather erratic black line which marked the progress of the muddy Missouri river, as starting in Montana Territory and following all points of the compass until it reached the Gulf.”
A few old Indian Trading Posts were identified – Fort Sully, Fort Randall, and Fort Rice. Fort Buford was generally ignored by mapmakers. It was an abandoned Indian trading post which had its liveliest existence half a century earlier. Any point that had been established after 1859 was a blank on the map.
Poole made personal inquiry of government officials in Washington; however, he got less information from them than what was on the map. The few who had any knowledge of the land of the Dakotas would say:
“It’s a terribly cold country in the winter and melting hot in summer; no rain; you can’t raise anything, and, if you do, the grasshoppers will eat it up.”
He also learned that whenever there was a good season, the garrison at Fort Randall raised a fine crop of vegetables, and the troops added largely to their company funds by selling their produce to the steamboats which passed. The prospectors and miners who floated down the river from Montana in mackinacs and dugouts also eagerly purchased whatever produce was available.
Military orders were to be obeyed, and fourteen hundred miles of railroad brought Private Poole to Sioux City, the “jumping off place” at that time. From there he had the choice of either the stage or steamboat. The stage was daily, the steamboat only whenever a sufficient load was on board to make it pay.
In 1869, Sioux City could not boast of any palatial hotels. It was supplied with a few places which might be referred to as “an accommodation for man and beast.” The St. Elmo and Northwestern divided the patronage of the traveling public. Stopping at either would suggest that you should have gone to the other!
Since General Harney and several of his assistants were quartered at the Northwestern, Poole thought he might be able to get some valuable hints regarding his new duties. Haney’s advice: “They are children, sir, and you must deal with them as such.”
When asked if he intended to visit the Indians on the Missouri again, Harney was most eloquent and decided in his peculiar way in replying that he did not. Since he had already made too many promises he could not fulfill, he did not propose to continue in that line any longer. The Indians might expect to see him with a quantity of horses, cows, and chickens for them, but they would not, and did not.
At Sioux City, John H. Charles, genial, good natured and accommodating, kept the principal store that supplied the wants of dwellers on the banks of the upper Missouri. He had everything that officer, soldier, steamboat man, and ranchman needed. If it was not in his store at the time, he knew precisely where to get it, how to send it, and when and how it could be paid for.
Charles also gathered all the gossip from the up-river forts and agencies. He took great delight in sharing with the newly arrived his latest clever remarks and wisdom. He also enjoyed sharing with all newcomers the changes which had taken place upriver.
For those coming from the East, Sioux City presented few attractions. The only two treasures important to those who visited Sioux City was its growing importance as the outlet to the upper Missouri country and being the terminal point for the railroad connecting to Eastern civilization.
The tortuous course of the Missouri River is best illustrated by the difference in the distance between Sioux City and Yankton by river and stage road. By river, it was about two hundred and fifty miles. By stage road it was sixty-five miles.
The distance by river in 1869 was only an estimate, for so changing was the channel of this erratic river that a steamboat never found it the same in two consecutive trips. Even during a single trip the river channel crossed and re-crossed itself many times.
As Poole explained in his book AMONG THE SIOUX OF DAKOTA: Eighteen Months Experience as an Indian Agent: “Her course can only be compared to that of a man who went home late from his club, and complained that it was not the length of the way, but the width of it, that troubled him.”
Author Clarence Shoemaker, originally published in the Gregory Times-Advocate on July 24, 2024