“Gouvernor Kemble Warren”

Topographical Engineer

“Reconnoitering for Gen. W.S. Harney, Warren was here on August 13, 1855, if not the first white man to enter this area, at least the first to leave a record. This trip and many like it in 1855-1857 enabled him to accurately map the huge area from the Missouri west to the Big Horn Mountains. His map of Nebraska & Dakota of 1857 checks out remarkably with the surveyed maps of modern times.

He left Ft. Pierre on August 8th against the protests of the commandant, his superior, ‘who sought to prevent so rash an attempt, which presented to him nothing but a prospect of my certain destruction.' His little group of 8, sought to avoid any contact with the Indians and proceeded S crossing Antelope & Medicine Creeks, the White River at Oak Creek, the Southeast to Two Tails, now Cottonwood Creek, past the present Witten to Dogs Ear’s Butte which he found to be 2350 above sea level. Thence S to Dogs Ear’s Lake, called by him White Lake, where he found sand cherries so profuse they bent the shrubs to the ground. Proceeding S they came to the Keya Paha River, called by him Turtle Hill Creek and Turtle Butte and thence S to the Overland Trail at Ft. Kearny, where he reported to Harney ‘This route unfeasible for the passage of a wheeled army.'

Tripp County, US 18 & US 183 east of Winner