Page 31 - VisitorGuide2019

Sunday. Guided tours are available by 24 hour advanced Oahe Dam Visitor Center
reservation by calling (605) 773-3688. 500 East Capitol Avenue, It’s always beautiful on Lake Oahe! Take in the view and
Pierre. www.state.sd.us. learn about Lake Oahe, the Missouri River, the Oahe Dam and
the power plant through exhibits and brochures. Open year
South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center round. Seven miles north of Pierre on South Dakota Highway
The extensive collections of the South Dakota Cultural 1804. (605) 224-4617.
Heritage Center preserve the historical and cultural legacy
of the state’s early Sioux inhabitants and the first waves of Oahe Chapel
European settlers. Open year-round, the museum features Adjacent to the Visitor Center is the Oahe Chapel. Built in
permanent, rotating and traveling exhibits. Admission is 1877, the chapel was both church and schoolhouse for the
charged; kids under 17 are admitted free. 900 Governors Oahe Mission and the Sioux Indians it served. Services at
Drive, Pierre, SD 57501. (605) 773-3458. www.history.sd.gov. 8 a.m. Sundays Memorial Day through Labor Day. Persons
interested in seeing the Chapel can inquire at the Oahe Dam
Lewis & Clark Family Center Visitor Center.
Feel the difference between elk and buffalo hides. Learn
to identify the tracks of native animals. See a dug-out canoe Casey Tibbs South Dakota Rodeo Center &
of the kind used on Lewis and Clark’s historic expedition. The Mattie Goff-Newcombe Conference Center
interactive displays of the Lewis and Clark Family Center, The Casey Tibbs South Dakota Rodeo Center is a historical
located on Farm Island, offer hands-on lessons in U.S. history. museum devoted to the sport of South Dakota rodeo; the history
Farm Island Recreation Area, 1301 Farm Island Road, Pierre, and its stars. Although the Center will collect and display the
SD 57501. (605) 773-2885. E-mail: FarmIsland@state.sd.us. rodeo memorabilia of superstars like Casey Tibbs and Mattie
Goff-Newcombe, its broader reach will extend into the rich
culture which has made rodeo such an important part of the
history of South Dakota. (605) 494-1094. www.caseytibbs.com
Fort Pierre Chouteau
In the mid-1800s, Fort Pierre Chouteau was the largest
trading post on the upper Missouri River, a thriving community
of traders, trappers and Native Americans. Today, not much
remains of the fort’s wooden bastions and buildings but the
site is a National Historic Landmark.

Verendrye Museum
Named for the first Europeans to visit South Dakota, the
Verendrye Museum is located on Deadwood Street in Fort
Pierre. The museum houses pioneer relics and a reproduction
of the lead tablet brothers Chevalier and Louis la Verendrye
buried in a bluff above the Missouri River, thereby claiming
for France the territory that eventually became the Louisiana
Purchase. The Fort Pierre Railroad Depot contains original
South Dakota National Guard Museum telegraph and other railroad and local memorabilia. Open
Established in 1862 as a frontier militia, the South Dakota Memorial Day to Labor Day. (605) 223-7761.
National Guard is tightly woven into the state’s history. The
South Dakota National Guard Museum in Pierre is the state’s Pierre’s Fist Schoolhouse
repository for relics, memorabilia and historical documents Pierre’s first schoolhouse was built by Max Schubert to be
relating to the Guard’s activities from the late 1800s through used as a temporary drug store until a larger two-story building
recent peacekeeping missions. 301 East Dakota, Pierre, SD could be built. In 1881 it was used as a school for one year,
57501. (605) 773-2475. Hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday with 18 students attending until the public school was opened
through Friday. in October. It was moved to its present location in Steamboat
Park in 1965. Tours are by appointment and can be made by
South Dakota Discovery Center contacting the Chamber at (605) 224-7361.
Fun, interactive learning is the focus of the South
Dakota Discovery Center. More than 60 hands-on exhibits Monuments and Memorials
illustrate principles of electricity, magnetism, life sciences, The beautifully landscaped 115-acre grounds of the South
telecommunications, and physics. 805 W. Sioux Avenue, Pierre, Dakota Capitol include the five-acre Capitol Lake and several
SD 57501. (605) 224-8295. www.sd-discovery.org. monuments and memorials situated nearby. The Capitol
grounds are open year-round; brochures for a self-guided tour

www.pierre.org | 31