Potter Co., SD - Description and History, 1884 This file is a complete transcription of the descriptive information about Potter County as found in A. T. Andreas' "Historical Atlas of Dakota", 1884. POTTER COUNTY Potter County lies north of Sully County, on the Missouri River, which seperates it from the Indian Reservation. It is bounded east by Faulk, north by Walworth and Edmunds, and south by Sully County. Its area is equivalent to about twenty-five congressional townships. The county is traversed in the northwest by the Little Cheyenne River and its numerous branches, along which stream the country is more or less broken by low bluffs and ravines. A large branch of the Okobojou Creek drains the southeastern part of the county, and there are numerous small streams rising in the bluffs and flowing into the Missouri River. The county along the latter stream is quite broken, in the northwest portions particularly. In the northeast part of the county, on the line between Towns 119 and 120 north, in Range 73 west, there is a considerable lake, and another in Town 118, Range 77, near Cornelian post office. In Town 119, Range 76, lying between the bluffs, bordering the Little Cheyenne River, is a low meadow of considerable extent, which in the wet season is covered with water, and known as Green Lake. It is dry in the summer season and produces heavy crops of grass. The county, for agricultural and stock-raising purposes is a fair average of the Missouri River counties. The middle, eastern and southern portions are mostly composed of rolling prairie, broken near the four corners of Towns 118 and 119, in Range 74 and 74, by a collection of rough hills or buttes covering four or five sections. There is very little timber in the county. The earliest settlements in Potter County, with the possible exception of a few half-breed ranchmen or traders, were made in the spring of 1883, at various points - Forrest City, Appomattox, Gettysburg, etc. Soon after the settlements were commenced, the question of county organization came up for consideration, and the Governor appointed the following gentlemen commissioners to organize it: James W. Shaw, F. G. Kretschmer and Gen. Charles A. Gilchrist. The first-names two met to perfect an organization and located the county seat at Forest City; but Gen. Gilchrist, the absent member, who was interested in Appomatox, protested against the proceedings, and the matter was thrown into the courts, which decided that the action of the majority was legal and binding. The county has been divided by the commissioners into school townships, and is fast filling up with a good class of people, mostly of American birth. The total population of the county on the 1st of May, 1883, did not exceed fifty people, whereas to-day there are probably three thousand within its limits. The following are the present county officers: Commissioners, James W. Shaw, Gen. Charles A. Gilchrist, F. G. Kretschner; Register of Deeds, J. C. Strickler; Judge of Probate, D. L. Fry; Clerk of Court, J. E. Ziebach; Treasurer, A. M. Akin; Assessor, M. M. Sprague; Sheriff, E. M. Dennis; Superintendent of Schools, R. M. Springer; Surveyor, Fred H. Meyer; Coroner, John M. Beaver; Justices, Henry J. Klett, Irving G. Bigsby, T. G. Hunnington, S. G. Manful; Constables, Henry Eidam, M. Thompson. Three considerable towns were laid out in 1883, to wit: Forest City, at the mouth of the Little Cheyenne River; Appomattox, on the same stream some ten miles above Forest City and Gettysburg, ten miles southeast of Appomattox. A new town called Garfield, or Union, a few miles east of Appomatox, was laid out a little later, and Pembroke in the north part of the county, and Waneta, two miles above Forest City on the Missouri River, are more recent aspirants for metropolitian honors. It is expected that Waneta, laid out by Judge Fry and others, is to be a prominent point on the Chicago & Rock Island Railway, to be pushed up the Missouri valley. Artichoke and Davidson are post offices in the south part of the county. Two mail routes traverse the county, one carrying the mail tri-weekly from Pierre over the old river route to Le Beau, in Walworth County; the other making one trip per week from Blunt, in Hughes County, through the central portions of Sully, Potter and Walworth counties to Le Beau. Four prominent railway lines are projected through Potter County, namely: the Northern Pacific, the Chicago & Northwestern, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, and the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific. Forest City is finely situated on the Missouri River, at the mouth of the Little Cheyenne, and very nearly on the forty-fifth parallel of north latitute. the location is a good one for a business point, and already a considerable trade has entered there. When the Indian country lying west of this point on the opposite side of the Missouri shall have been opened and settles by white men, Forest City will be in exactly the right place to profit by it. Judge Fry is Postmaster of this place. Appomattix, Garfield or Union, and Gettysburg, are growing and ambitious places, which promise in the not very distant future to become important centers of business. There are already five newspapers established in the county: the Press at Forest City, established by Judge D. L. Fry, editor and proprietor, September 20, 1883; the Herald at Gettysburg: the Herald at Appomattox; the Clarion at Pembroke, and the Union at Garfield or Union. The Clarion was also established by Judge Fry. All these journals are wide awake, newsy sheets, fully up to the times in everything relating to the interests of Dakota and of Potter County in particular. About three-fourths of a mile above the mouth of the Little Cheyenne River is a great natural curiosity, which have puzzled all who have seen it. It is known in the common parlance of the region as the "Medicine Rock." Its dimensions, as given by one who has often seen it, are 18 by 10 by 8 feet. We are not informed of the nature of the rock, but it probably belongs to the Cretaceous formation. In its surface, which slopes a little, are three distinct impressions, evidently of the human foot, sunken several inches into the rock, and appearing as if made by an individual running over its surface when the material was in the form of plastic clay. Some accounts say there are also impressions of the feet of quadrupeds or birds, similar perhaps to those found in the Red Sandstone of the Connecticut valley about Turner's Falls in Massachusetts. The Cretaceous formations are more recent than the Triassic, to which the Red Sandstone mentioned is assigned by geologists, but it still carries the human race a long way back of its commonly ascribed period on the earth. Not having personally examined the locality, we cannot speak with as much certainty as could be wished, but from all accounts the matter is evidently worthy the careful study of the scientist.