Sioux Falls is the largest city in the US state of South Dakota. The town’s history started in 1856, when two groups from The Dakota Land Company and the Western Town Company claimed lands around the Great Falls of the Big Sioux River. The groups worked together and established themselves, and in the first winter 17 men stayed on site. The 17 became more, but the settlement was abandoned in due to the Sioux uprising in 1862. In May 1865, Fort Dakota was established in what is today downtown Sioux Falls.

Many former residents returned along with more settlers, and Sioux Falls grew and formally became a city in 1883. In the same decade, the railroad came to town and the population quickly quadrupled to over 10,000. Growth continued in the 20th century with the establishment of industries, agricultural production and a military base in the first half of the century and trade and services in recent decades.

Today you can explore a modern city where you can take some nice walks along the Big Sioux River and through downtown to see the city’s sights. The most famous building is the Minnehaha County Building, built in 1890 to house the regional government for Minnehaha County. The building style is an example of the so-called Richardson Romanesque architecture, named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson.

The building functioned as a government building until 1962 and as a courthouse. Today you can visit the Old Courthouse Museum in the beautiful building, and at the museum there are exhibits on Sioux Falls’ and the region’s history, Native American cultures and life on the prairie.

Main Avenue runs through downtown Sioux Falls, where you can see buildings from different periods of Sioux Falls’ history. Here is the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science, which houses many different institutions. Washington Pavilion is the name of the former Washington High School, where you can find, for example, an art museum, a concert hall and a science museum with interesting exhibits.

In the building’s Egger Gallery, you can see a fine collection of Native American art. The building, like many of the houses in Sioux Falls, was built in quartzite of the kind you can see at the city’s famous waterfall. Next to the Washington Pavilion is the First Lutheran Church, one of the city’s churches, and if you go east, you come to the Big Sioux River and Fawick Park, where there is a copy of Michelangelo’s David.

Just north of downtown are the actual waterfalls of the Big Sioux River, which in its time gave rise to the founding of the city right here. In the area of ​​the falls, approximately 28,000 liters of water flow down through the 30-meter-high falls every second. The area around the falls is called Falls Park, and here you can walk along many paths to several viewpoints on each side of the river, and thus you can see the falls up close from all sides.

There is a bridge over the river and a cafe overlooking the beautiful area as well. The cafe is housed in the Sioux Falls Electric Light and Power Company’s hydroelectric plant, which opened in 1908. The park also houses the remains of a mill that was active from 1881-1883, and a visitor center from which you can see all of Falls Park from above in the observation tower.