“Forestburg Roadside Park”

Long before the white man, an Indian Trail from the sanctuary at Pipestone Quarry to the ‘Three Rivers of the Sioux’ near Ft. Thompson passed closely by. The whiteman’s first road in Dakota, the Ft. Ridgely & South Pass Wagon Road, forded the James 7 miles North in 1857.

The rock ford and a monument mark the site. December 1862 the ‘March to Moscow’ relief expedition from Minnesota to Ft. Thompson pass by ‘Mazeppa Hill’ 2½ miles NE, now called Big Mound. In 1865 the ‘Big Cheyenne Wagon Road,' Minnesota to Montana crossed the James at Big Mound. In 1873, first settlers George Walker, W.M. Tait, G.W. Hunger filed a few miles downstream and in 1874 W.G. Santee, Cyrus Ingham and W.R. Belcher arrived; with Ingham and Belcher families staging 4th of July celebration, to delight of Indians, on Big Mound. Santee became postmaster at Forestburg 5 November 1875, the ‘furthest North’ in James Valley for 4 years. This area, first in a gigantic Buffalo County in 1864, was in a larger Hanson in 1870; then in a narrow Bramble in 1873 and a Big Miner in 1879, Forestburg was county seat December 2, 1880 until after the election of 1882 when Howard won and stole the records from a reluctant Forestburg. In 1883 a bill creating Brisbine was introduced but wind of possible gubernatorial displeasure caused a change to Sanborn, a railway official and it was so enacted and there were two sets of County Commissioners, at Forestburg and at Letcher, until the 1884 election, Woonsocket won and settled the dispute. First train reached Forestburg on November 12, 1883 but the railroad had pushed north to Letcher in the fall of 1882.

Sanborn County, ½ mile west of Forestburg on Highway 34 (1988)