Marker Name: You are entering Day County South Dakota
Marker Type: Roadside
Marker Text:
Created west of the Sisseton Reservation Line, surveyed in 1869; from Greeley (South) and Stone (North) so named in 1873; by the Legislature of 1879; it was named for Merrit H. Day of Turner County, a member. Before that, its area had been in a Gigantic Hanson County (1870).
Its first white resident was Francis Rondelle, a trader, in the area as early as 1868 and who was located by Horace J. Austin, surveyor, living 2 miles west of the present Waubay in October, 1877. Earl P. Owen settled near Minnewaste Lake in April 1877 and was Postmaster at Wahbay, at the east end of Waubay Lake on November 3rd, 1879.
In 1880, the Milwaukee, pushing from the east, had its first train into Webster City, on J.P. Webster’s homestead, on October 27th. The Reporter & Farmer started in September, 1881 and on January 2nd, 1882, Charles Warner, Lansing Sykes and George Bryant, as County Commissioners, organized Day County and named Webster county seat.
The present area east of the Reservation Line was added in 1883 and its southern tier of townships taken from Clark and became part of Day County in 1885.
Located, in the main, on the High Coteau, its Lakes Pickerel, long and deep, Enemy Swim, Blue Dog, Waubay and 13 lesser but sizeable lakes abound in fish and waterfowl; and its richly grassed uplands supply cover for other game birds, making the county a Sportsman’s paradise.
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