“Valley Springs Rest Area”

Indians and frontier legends mix with the space age as you enter South Dakota here. Just one- and-one-half mile south. Valley Springs typifies early South Dakota settlement. Established in 1873, the town got its name from the many springs found by early settlers along Beaver Creek. Seven miles northwest of here lies Palisades State Park. Just south of the town of Garretson.

There, Split Rock Creek has eroded a gorge through billion-year old red rock know as Sioux quartzite, one of the oldest geological formations in South Dakota. Indian legend says that these rock terraces and deep gorges were formed when an Indian god threw a tomahawk from the spirit world, cleaving this canyon in the plains.

At Garretson is the narrow gorge known as Devil’s Gulch. Frontier legend asserts that outlaws Jesse and Frank James hid in a cave above Split Rock Creek after their bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota. When Jesse abandoned the hiding place, he found a posse in close pursuit and spurred his horse into a great leap over the Gulch to make his escape.

A few miles span the gap from frontier legend to prairie history. Sioux Falls 13 miles west, was one of the earliest settlements in South Dakota (1857). It grew rapidly to become the largest community in the state in the 1890’s.

South Dakota has many footprints of the space age. At Sioux Falls, the first atomic power plant in the United States to use an internal nuclear super heater operated from 1964 to 1967.

Appropriately, the plant was named pathfinder in honor of John C. Fremont, who explored part of South Dakota in 1838-39.

Near Garretson is the Earth Resources Observation System (EROS) Data Center, where the space age is today. The EROS Center stores millions of high altitude and satellite photos of the earth’s surface and derives information from them in an outstanding example of the benefits of space exploration to humanity.

Within a few miles of this rest area are highlights of history from rocks laid in the earth’s foundation to images of mankind’s reach for the stars.

Minnehaha County, I-90 - West Bound going into SD (2006)