Back Across the Wide Missouri: This Explorer's Record Was Real

Leaving Pierre for Fort Pierre. You know it is pronounced "Peer," right?

When I re-crossed the wide Missouri at Pierre, South Dakota, homeward bound, I stopped to see a historical spot that I had never visited.

Looking across the Missouri R. at Pierre, South Dakota, from the Verendrye Site.

The Verendrye Site is in Fort Pierre, Pierre's smaller sibling on the west side of the river. The leaders of a French expedition in 1742-43 left a lead plaque here memorializing their visit as they gazed over the junction of the Bad and Missouri rivers.

There is a small public park at the site today.

The French explorers placed their lead plate in a cairn, which fell down or was destroyed, but local children found it again in 1913.

Unlike the Thoen Stone, which is sort of the Kensington Runestone of South Dakota, the veracity of the  Verendrye plate has never been questioned.

Found in 1887, the Thoen stone was supposedly cut by the last survivor of a group of gold prospectors who had entered the Black Hills illegally in 1834..  If you know the history of the Kensington Runestone, you can see a certain parallel: "I (we) am (are) the last survivor(s)"

Looking downriver across Fort Pierre from the Verendrye Site.