Crow Creek Reservation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Crow Creek Indian Reservation is located in parts of Buffalo, Hughes, and Hyde counties on the east bank of the Missouri River in central South Dakota in the United States. It has a land area of 1,092.09 km² (421.658 sq mi) and a 2000 census population of 2,225 persons. Its major town and capital of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe is Fort Thompson, located immediately west of the dam of the same name, which holds back Big Bend Reservoir (also known as Lake Sharpe, one of the Missouri Mainstem reservoirs constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers in the Pick-Sloan Plan.

The people of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe are a mixture of Dakota and Nakota speaking "Sioux", who settled on the reservation after escape or exile from Minnesota following the 1862 Sioux Uprising or Minnesota War, and were relocated from de-established Indian Reservations further east in South Dakota. Although considered to be a part of the Great Sioux Reservation by some writers, the Crow Creek Reservation, established in 1862, has always been separate.

The reservation originally included bottom lands along the Missouri, which had been farmed by Arikara and other tribes prior to these tribes being wiped out in small pox and other epidemics in the 1700s; today, several Arikara or Mandan villages are archeological sites on the Crow Creek Reservation. Lake Sharpe flooded much of this land, forcing relocation of Fort Thompson and other settlements, and worsening the economic conditions in the area. Allotment and land sales reduced both the amount of land in tribal and Indian ownership, and even the boundaries of the Reservation shrank between its establishment in 1862 and modern times.

The Reservation, and the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, is organized into three Districts. The Tribe runs its own school, the Crow Creek Tribal Schools system with an elementary school at Fort Thompson and a K-12 boarding and day school at Stephan, approximately 10 miles north of Fort Thompson. Most of the Tribe's land is leased to a few large ranching families, and unemployment is high. The Tribe operates the Lode Star Casino and Hotel and attracts many tourists to the reservation, the archeological sites, Lake Sharpe's fishing and boating, and people traveling. The reservation is located southeast of Pierre, and north of Chamberlain. It is reached via SD Routes 47 or 50 off Interstate Highway 90, or via SD Route 34 east from Pierre.

The Lower Brule Indian Reservation is located immediately across the Missouri River from the Crow Creek Reservation.