Old Courthouse Museum

Make time for history at the Old Courthouse Museum. This beautifully-restored 1800s quartzite building has three floors of regional history exhibits. The Museum store includes unique and affordable Dakota-made gifts for the whole family.

Free admission. Free parking. Wheelchair accessible. Open daily. Call (605) 367-4210 ext. 0 or email for more information about current exhibits and fun, educational programs for all ages. Click Here for more Information.

Pettigrew Home and Museum

Welcome to the Past! Tour the elegant 1889 Queen Anne-style home of South Dakota's first senator, Richard Pettigrew. Take a guided tour of the historic home, or browse the museum galleries and discover the Sioux Falls of the late 1800s.

Free admission. Free parking. Wheelchair accessible. Open Monday through Sunday. Call (605) 367-7097 or email for more information. Click Here for more Information.

Underwear: A Brief History

Underwear-it's the first thing you put on in the morning and the last thing you take off at night. For centuries it has come in a variety of unique and often torturous designs, and in many colors, shapes, and sizes to fit each individual. Besides securing one's valuables, wearing underclothing also provides the benefits of warmth, protection, and cleanliness. These unmentionables change the shape of the body and make statements about social class. Similar to clothing fashions, undergarments progressed from simple loincloths to sophisticatedly engineered products. In order to appreciate the history of our outerwear, we must first take a brief peek at the hidden history of our underwear.

Stop in to the Old Courthouse Museum on Thursday, October 22nd for the Underwear: A Brief History exhibit opening reception from 5-7 p.m.to take a look at a variety of unique garments that built the foundation of historical fashion! 

Corn: Bushels of Corn

This year, South Dakotans will plant approximately 5 million acres of corn. Eastern South Dakota is part of the great Corn Belt that sweeps across the mid-section of the United States. From its origins in South America, corn has spread across the globe and has evolved from a bushy grass into a slender stalk. With farming practices changing from individual farms with horse-drawn implements to conglomerate operations with state-of-the-art machinery, the corn industry has skyrocketed in recent history. From food to ethanol, from sweeteners to batteries, corn is a part of thousands of products we use everyday. Whether you are a farmer interested in a century of implements or a city-dweller who has only viewed fields of corn from a car window, come and be a-maized at the numerous ways corn has changed and how it influences our everyday lives. Click Here for more Information.
  

Cruisin' Cuisine: Drive Ins of Sioux Falls

Drive-in restaurants had their beginning in 1921 in Dallas, TX at a little café called The Pig Stand where servers began hopping onto the running boards of cars coming into the parking lot. These servers eventually became known as "car hops," and the era of the drive-in restaurant with car hops providing curb-side service was born.

Cruisin' Cuisine takes a nostalgic look at several early drive-ins of Sioux Falls, including The Barrell, Bob's, The Cottage, Cutler's, Dal-Ray, Herbert's, Kirk's, Lee's, Ray's, and Rickey's. Relive times gone by with music, images, and artifacts from these city hot spots. Opens October 16th, 2008

American Indian Beadwork

American Indian beadwork was and is today a major art form in Indian culture. Artistic expression was a central part of everyday tribal life, as Indians decorated themselves, their homes, and their possessions.  Before their contact with Europeans, American Indians made their beads from stones, shells, teeth, animal bones, deer hooves, and seeds.  By the late 1700s and early 1800s, Venetian glass beads had become a form of currency between European fur traders and Indian tribes all across North America.  Tribes found these beads appealing, colorful, and much easier to use than porcupine quills.

The exhibit will highlight beadwork from many different North American Indian tribes including Iroquois, Chippewa, Potawatomi, Woodland, Ojibwa, and Lakota.  It will feature both historical and contemporary objects as well as the different techniques the American Indians used in creating their beadwork designs. Some of the artifacts that will be on display are a shirt and leggings worn by Chief Spotted Tail, an 1870s war shirt, bandolier bags, purses, and beaded moccasins.

Medical Instruments

Throughout history, medical equipment has shaped the way people percieve both medicine and hospitals.  Until the 19th century, medical technology was a small, specialized business field in the United States.  During the 20th century, the field of medical technology expanded even further with the introduction of many new medicines, vaccines, and countless medical devices.  Check out the interesting Medical Instruments in our collection.

The Art of Architecture: Selections From the Perkins, McWayne & McLaughlin Collection

In 1918 Robert A. Perkins and Albert McWayne formed Perkins & McWayne, Architects and Engineers. For the next 36 years the firm, with Perkins as primary architect and McWayne as primary engineer, designed structures to house the activities of business, education, government, communities and private individuals. Their

buildings can be found throughout the state of South Dakota, but also in southwest Minnesota and northwest Iowa. When Perkins retired from practice in 1954, Earl McLaughlin took over as principal architect, and the firm continued as McWayne & McLaughlin until 1976. Click Here for more Information.

Fur Trade: Top Hats, Beads, and Buffalo Hides

This exhibit examines how trappers, traders and companies from England, France, Spain, and America, and even the national governments of those countries, became involved in the business of supplying furs to Europe and America, specifically through trade with the native people who lived in the Upper Missouri River Valley in present-day South Dakota. Over approximately 200 years (c. 1660-1860), the fur trade spread and grew from its focus on beaver in Canada south into the Great Plains, where for its last 30 years it centered on buffalo hides. In those two centuries, French and British explorers from Canada, French and Spanish from the Louisiana colony, and American businessmen from the east slowly established posts and forts in the Dakotas. From these stations the new arrivals quickly attempted to establish relations with the native Indian inhabitants, who had engaged in inter-tribal trade for generations.

All participants on both sides filled important and diverse roles in the complex system of trade, but the main transaction remained a relatively simple one: the exchange of beaver, raccoon, fox, mink, muskrat, deer, bear, and buffalo skins for “trade goods” including beads, ribbons, metal tools, mirrors, knives, shells, kettles, and alcohol. 

Although basic in essence, the fur trade provided many dangerous challenges: transportation of goods and furs, weather, disease, competition, and the maintenance of good tribal relations. In the end, the fur trade was an international business on a grand scale, but beyond the profits made, the most important result of the trade during these years was communication. Two very different cultures found common ground without giving up their own identities or engaging in warfare. Click Here for more info.