The Quarry’s Glory Days!
To appreciate the significance of The Quarry, you have to know a little something
about Yankton’s early history, from its incorporation in 1862 to South Dakota’s admission into the Union in 1889.
As the capital of a vast territory covering all or parts of five future states, Yankton (as it was first spelled),
became known as the Mother City of the Dakotas. Political manipulators got into the act, however, and in 1883 the seat of
government was stolen away to Bismarck.
Two years earlier the Missouri River steamboat fleet wintering at Yankton
was smashed to pieces in the disastrous Flood of ‘81, and the town lost that business, too.
Next the ex-capital
adopted the name Fountain City when it went on an artesian well binge; when great seemingly unlimited geysers caused promoters
to visualize a “little Chicago; with endless industries all powered by water. Needless to say, greedy excess drilling
quickly overtaxed the source.
The town desperately needed a new morale booster -- and that’s when an
exciting development began to take shape.
