Through the 1870s Tackett Station appeared on several maps as a municipality called “Chouteau Creek”. In 1894, “Chouteau Creek Station” became a self-sufficient community with an ice house, slaughter house, and packing plant to process meat. – on the Dakota Territory map by Silas Chapman of Milwaukee in 1872
Gregory County, located in South Dakota was created by the first legislature of 1862 and was named for John Shaw Gregory, a member of that body who represented the area west of Choteau Creek and west of the Missouri River and north of the Niobrara River. It was referred to as “Mixville” as well as “Fort Randall.” At that time, Gregory resided at Fort Randall and was a trader in the employ of Captain Todd. He came to Dakota Territory in 1857 as the agent to the Ponca Indians who were then located on Ponca Creek.
Throughout his life, J. S. Gregory was always regarded as a well educated gentleman. He seemed dedicated to public service and always tempted to private enterprise. The Black Hills Daily Times concluded his obituary with the following: “Major Gregory was a thorough gentleman, but lacked the faculty of making the world contribute to his needs.”
That portion of Dakota Territory called Charles Mix County was the home of a few white men as early as 1858. In 1861 it had a population of about fifty white persons, nearly all contractors and their employees, who furnished supplies to the garrison at Fort Randall.
A French Canadian named Antoine Bijou established a trading post in the upper portion of that county and conferred upon that long stretch of rugged hills that ran parallel with the river for forty miles the name of Bijou Hills. The hills were named for Louis Bissonet, of St. Louis (nicknamed “Mr. Bijou”) who in 1812 built a trading post on the Missouri River at the foot of these hills.
These hills are bold irregular bluffs, much more elevated than the surrounding country. His settlement is supposed to have been made in 1813. He had serious trouble with the Indians, who finally compelled him to abandon his post, and some of his trading stock. He was doubtless the first white man to settle in that section what would later become a part of the Dakota Territory.
Mixville, located about twenty from Fort Randall, was the first settlement near the Ponca Indian Agency. The Poncas were comparatively well advanced in civilized methods at that time and did not mingle with other Native American Indian tribes. However, many of their warriors were inclined to make forays upon the white settlements for plunder.
When Lewis and Clark came up the river from Kansas City in 1804, they discovered that the Ponca Indians had already established a permanent village on the banks of Ponca Creek between Yankton and Fort Randall. The houses in their permanent village which were made of dirt were called “Dirt Lodges.” They were much more comfortable and a much better quality of dwelling than the tepee of the Yankton’s on the east side of the Missouri River.
As originally defined, Dakota Territory included the eastern portion of the Niobrara River to the point of confluence with the Keha Paha, thence up that stream to the 43rd parallel. In 1882 an act of Congress approved on March 28th ceded to the State of Nebraska all the territory lying south of the 43d parallel and west of the Missouri River, which cession was accepted by a vote of the people of that state at an election held on May 23, 1882.
The tract so ceded amounted to about six hundred square miles and had been organized as the County of Todd, Dakota Territory in 1862. This will explain why and how Todd County came to be lost from the map of the territory, and its membership in the Legislature dropped from the rolls.
At the first election held under the governor’s proclamation in 1861 the settlements west of Choteau Creek on the east side of the Missouri River and the communities on the west side of the river east of Fort Randall constituted the Sixth Council and Representative District and at the September election J. Shaw Gregory, of Ponka Precinct, was elected councilman, and John L. Tiernon, of Fort Randall, representative. Gregory received twenty-six votes on the east side and twenty-nine at Ponka Precinct on the west, giving him fifty-five votes. His opponent, Freeman Norval, received thirty votes on the east side and none at Ponka.
For the House, Tiernon received twenty-seven votes west of Choteau Creek and twenty-eight at Ponka, giving him fifty-five. Henry Price, his unsuccessful opponent, received twenty-seven votes west of Choteau, but had no support whatever at Ponka. It was claimed at the time that Gregory was an Indian agent, and Tiernon an army officer, which was a fact, but no objection was raised in either House to their eligibility to serve as legislators.
History furnished a very satisfactory account of the Dakotah nation of Indians beginning in the sixteenth century, when they inhabited the country west of Lake Michigan. They were a warlike people, as all Indians were, but their wars were altogether with other Indian tribes – the Hurons, Iroquois and Algonquins – in which they were uniformly successful. They were known as a very honorable nation.
Author Author Clarence Shoemaker, originally published in the Gregory Times-Advocate on January 11, 2025