The Legendary Medicine Rock

Written by Winifred Fawcett

Originally the Medicine Rock was located on a hill fifteen miles west of Gettysburg, near the mouth of the Cheyenne Creek. Indians considered it to be a sacred rock and visited it regularly. Perhaps the first white people to visit the rock were the Verendrye brothers in 1743 as they passed by on their trip up the Missouri to visit the Mandans. Lewis and Clark passed by it in 1804 but did not stop because the Indians on shore were being a nuisance at the time. The rock was first mentioned by the Atkison-O'Fallon expedition in 1825 although earlier fur traders such as John Jacob Aster, William Ashley, Kit Carson, and Antoine LeBeau all passed by in the vicinity of the rock. Captain John Fielner of the Sully expedition was killed near the rock when the expedition was sent up into the county to take care of the Indian problems in 1863.

Mrs. George A. Custer tells of their stop at the rock in 1873 in her book, Boots and Saddles, when Custer troops were moving to Fort Lincoln near Bismarck. In 1929, Mrs. Agnes Whitlock received a letter from Barry Maxwell who told of the same expedition because he was a mule team driver with the Custer forces. He also explained the deep track near the rock. When he drove the stage from Pierre to Bismarck, he drove as close as he could to the rock so the passengers could see the five human footprints, handprints, and animal paw prints.

From the South Dakota guide book, copyright 1938, they say there were three human footprints of enormous size. Indians used to tie bags of herbs on poles above the rock with the belief that the herbs would absorb additional power. They laid gifts upon the rock to the "Great Spirit." Some believed a man of prodigious size walked across the rock before the clay had hardened into stone. Some believed it was the work of an artist or jokester who desired to give future generations something for speculation. Others believed the prints to have been made by a little boy running from a bear, which the spiritual powers of the rock stopped, saving the boy. Some scientists feel that the prints may have been made by a medicine man trying to impress his followers.

Mrs. Agnes Whitlock gave the State Historical Society a quarter of land for the perpetual care of the Medicine Rock which was located along the former Missouri River. The land was sold however, the purpose of the bequest forgotten. When the rock needed to be moved out of the path of Oahe waters no funds could be found. Volunteers from Gettysburg moved it into Gettysburg in 1954 and relocated it close to the Medicine Rock Cafe, which is an historic building. This building had been the Whitlock Store in Forest City. It was cut in half so it could be moved to Mrs. Whitlock's Crossing when the bridge was built across the Missouri River in 1925. When the Oahe waters were threatening Whitlock's Crossing, all buildings had to be relocated so the cafe was moved to Gettysburg in about 1954.

The imprints upon Medicine Rock were gradually disappearing with exposure to the weather and wear put on the rock by tourists. Gettysburg decided when their new Dakota Sunset Museum was built to include Medicine Rock in it. The rock was moved to the museum site and the building was built around it in 1989.

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