mclaughlin100.com

McLaughlin grew up along the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad which pushed northwest from the Missouri River crossing at Mobridge in 1908. The need to have places to replenish the steam locomotives with coal and water about every 30 miles dictated the railroad establishing a station on the line where the City of McLaughlin was born. The need to establish places to supply the needs of homesteaders gave rise to McLaughlin as a business center. Farmers and ranchers had to haul the things they needed to maintain their homes and farms with wagons pulled by horses and it took a day to make a make a trip more than 15 miles away and back. McLaughlin was also a center for Indian trade being the center of the Bullhead, Little Eagle and Kenel Districts which were located in the wooded areas along the Grand and Missouri rivers. Before the railroad and white settlers came the territory where McLaughlin stands was the home of the Hunkpapa band of the Teton Sioux Tribe. Starting in the late 1880’s huge cattle companies like the Ed Lemmon’s Lemmon Cattle Company (L7) and Dan Zimmerman’s DZ Cattle Company ran cattle over the rangeland. The Standing Rock Reservation was established for the Hunkpapa Sioux in 1889. It covered what is now Corson County, South Dakota, and Sioux County, North Dakota. McLaughlin is located about in the center of the reservation. Individual Indians who were judged “competent” to manage their own affairs were allotted 620 acres of land. The land that eventually became McLaughlin was allotted to Eugene Bearking. The Milwaukee land Company bought the site of McLaughlin from Bearking and platted lots which the land company leased or sold. Some of the first visitors to McLaughlin were ranchers who were running stock along the Cannonball and Cedar Rivers from Fort Yates west. They were trailing cattle along Oak Creek which runs a mile north of McLaughlin to Wakpala where the railroad built a stockyard. McLaughlin was incorporated Oct. 7, 1909. The city was named after Major James McLaughlin who was superintendent of the Standing Rock Reservation. He had a home at McLaughlin. Major McLaughlin was influential in establishing United States Indian policy. While he was at Fort Yates he ordered the Standing Rock Indian police to arrest Sitting Bull, prominent Indian medicine man and leader, who was camped on the Grand river 15 miles southwest of McLaughlin. Major McLaughlin ordered Sitting Bull’s arrest because Sitting Bull’s followers were indulging in Ghost Dancing which the Indian Department feared would incite the band to leave their camp and join other Indians on Pine Ridge and indulge in violence. Sitting Bull was killed by the Indian police when he resisted arrest at the urge of his followers. One of the first business places was a café owned by a Chinese man who had been working for the railroad. The first store was located north of the railroad track and was operated by Sib McLaughlin. Later McLaughlin built a big store south of the railroad track which he sold to George Comstock. The United States government bought land from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. In 1908 the west part of the reservation was opened to homesteading. The eastern part of the reservation, which included McLaughlin, was opened to homesteading in 1912 and again in 1913. Homesteaders flocked to the area around McLaughlin and the city became a miniature boomtown. The people in the area suffered in the depression and drouth of 1932-1937 and some people left. It has now stabilized at a population of 875 in the city proper and some 600 in housing projects located outside the city limits on the south and west sides. The city has a huge grain elevator complex and a livestock auction market.