Vermillion Historic Highway and Vanished Timeline

Vermillion Historic Highway 

August 24, 1804, Lewis & Clark camped near the White Stone (Vermillion) River and next day visited Spirit Mound 8 miles north. The military road, Sioux City - Ft. Randall after 1855 provided access, as did steamboats. A. C. Van Meter ran the ferry. In 1859 permanent settlers came as the Yankton Indians went to their reservations. The town was on the Missouri, under the bluffs, east of the Vermillion. Dr. Franklin Caulkins had a private school. The 1860 census credited the Vermillion area with 40 families and 215 people. John Ball surveyed the township that fall, and Compton and Deuel had a store and a sawmill. Samuel B. Mullholland, the hotel keeper, became postmaster on April 17 and in August Brother C. D. Martin established a Presbyterian Church of logs. April 8, 1861, Abraham Lincoln located Dakota's Land Office here with Jesse Wherry and Henry Kennerley, Receiver & Register and on July 18th, Clark & Bedell established the Dakota Republican. Private schools continued until Captain Nelson Miner, Dakota Cavalry, built a permanent one the winter of 1864. November 25, 1872, the Dakota Southern reached here.  

In 1873 the village was organized and was incorporated in 1878. The 1862 Legislature named Vermillion site of the University, but it was October 18, 1882, until first classes were held. Meanwhile the great flood of 1881 had wiped out the town below the bluffs moving the Missouri south to the Nebraska bluffs.
So began a new era for Vermillion located atop the bluffs as now.