South Dakota Trivia & Tidbits - Page 12

Looking for South Dakota trivia? Try our list South Dakota little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Founded in 1885, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City today enrolls nearly 2,500 students from 30 states and 20 countries.

first appeared: 12/15/2002

In 1913, high school students discovered an inscribed lead tablet on a bluff near Fort Pierre (pop. 1,991) that had been buried there in 1743 by French-Canadian explorers Chevalier and Louis La Verendrye. The tablet is on display at the South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre.

first appeared: 12/8/2002

In 1997, Jeremy Sonnenfeld of Sioux Falls became the first person to bowl three perfect games or a 900 series in sanctioned tournament play.

first appeared: 12/1/2002

Completed in 1924, the Meridian Bridge at Yankton (pop. 13,528) became the state’s first bridge to span the Missouri River and completed the link for travelers on the International Meridian Highway between Mexico City, Mexico, and Winnipeg, Canada.

first appeared: 11/24/2002

Each November, Custer State Park in Custer (pop. 1,860) holds a buffalo auction to reduce the herd, prevent overgrazing, and raise park funds.

first appeared: 11/17/2002

In 1906, a telegraph operator, needing a hasty reference to the area, tapped “Mo” for Missouri River and “Bridge” for one being constructed for a railroad, and thus named the town of Mobridge (pop. 3,574).

first appeared: 11/10/2002

A 28-foot-tall fiberglass statue of a pheasant in Huron (pop.11,893) pays tribute to the region’s pheasant hunting.

first appeared: 11/3/2002

The state’s most destructive tornado struck Spencer (pop. 157) on May 30, 1998, killing six people, injuring 150, and destroying most of the town.

first appeared: 10/27/2002

Belle Fourche (pop. 4,565) is the nation’s largest shipping point for wool.

first appeared: 10/20/2002

The Chapel in the Hills, built in 1969 in Rapid City, is a replica of the 850-year-old Borgund Church in Norway. It features pegged construction and intricate carvings of Norse dragonheads and Christian symbols.

first appeared: 10/13/2002

Palisades State Park in Garretson (pop. 1,165) is one of a few places nationwide with a red mineral stone used by American Indians to make sacred pipes.

first appeared: 10/6/2002

Reg Young reeled in a state record bigmouth buffalo fish—51 pounds, 9 ounces—on April 24, 1993, at Lake Mitchell in Mitchell (pop. 14,558).

first appeared: 9/29/2002

Forty buildings, including a sod house and the Lawrence Welk Opera House, have been assembled into a pioneer town at Prairie Village near Madison (pop. 6,540).

first appeared: 9/22/2002

Ernest Orlando Lawrence, who was born in Canton (pop. 3,110) in 1901, won the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the cyclotron, which accelerated atomic particles without high voltage.

first appeared: 9/15/2002

On Jan. 22, 1943, chinook winds caused temperatures to rise from minus 4 to 45 degrees in two minutes in Spearfish (pop. 8,606). When the warm breeze stopped, the temperature dropped 58 degrees in 27 minutes.

first appeared: 9/8/2002

In the 1950s, residents of Pollock (pop. 339) moved the town one-half mile south when the Oahe Dam was built on the Missouri River.

first appeared: 9/1/2002

Following admission of Alaska and Hawaii to the Union in 1959, a U.S. Coast and Geodetic survey officially designated a point 20 miles north of Belle Fourche (pop. 4,565) as the nation’s geographic center.

first appeared: 8/25/2002

In 1938, Gladys Pyle of Huron (pop. 11,893) became the first Republican woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.

first appeared: 8/18/2002

Founded in 1897, the South Dakota Retailers Association in Pierre (pop. 13,876) is the country’s oldest state retail association.

first appeared: 8/11/2002

Billy Mills, a Sioux Indian born June 30, 1938, in Pine Ridge (pop. 3,171), won the 10,000-meter run at the 1964 Olympics, the first American to win a gold medal in that event.

first appeared: 8/4/2002

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