August 28, 1804: The nation of thirteen united colonies in North America was only 28 years old when a tribe of the renowned Sioux Nation halfway across the continent stepped into the spotlight of American history. On that day, the Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the Yankton Sioux homeland.

1567: Earlier, Hernando DeSoto may have reached Eastern Siouan tribes in the interior of South Carolina.

July 1859: The 2,200 Yanktons buried the last two bodies that had been laid away on scaffolds. They loaded their travois for the 70-mile land journey following the steamboat CARRIER, which slowly fought the sandbars and snags up the Missouri toward Greenwood, their reservation, with food and provisions.

Sioux writer Ella Deloria: It was as though, after being sucked without warning into a remorseless whirlpool and helplessly lashed and bruised by the wreckage pounding around them, the people had at last been thrown off to one side and were sitting there, naked and forspent, dully watching their broken life being borne along, and lacking both the strength and the will to retrieve any of it."

July 26, 1866: Chief Struck by the Ree, with Little Swan, Feather in the Ear, Medicine Cow and Jumping Thunder dictated a letter: We want no other but you [Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet] and your religion. Before I die I want to see a school and the children learn how to read and write in the American language

The school finally arose on the reservation at Marty, South Dakota, in three decades of sheer grit, 1918 to 1948. One former student, George Drapeau, remembers: My Dad, Frank Drapeau, was Indian and French, from the Quebec trappers. He was born in a log cabin on Beebee Island in the Missouri River in 1870. His brother Narcisse was baptized by Father DeSmet. Father Sylvester came by horseback to our home 14 miles southeast of Marty. He visited all the Indians in a month's time. Dad wanted us to get a religious background. All we knew was fight and cuss. Mother (Susan LeClair) was part Yankton Sioux. Father Sylvester knew my Dad had a hard time from a heart attack. And so my older brother Buck, Jr.; our sister Leafie; myself and Leo started class in the little church 1922. We slept in the same building. It was tough. The first thing Buck did was take on Sister John. You know who won, because Buck returned later as Boys' Prefect.

LITTLE BRONZED ANGEL magazine to the benefactors:

March 5, 1927: More than 100 destitute persons come to the [Sears & Roebuck] mission rectory for clothing today, and soup from Grandma Eisenmans cookstove.

October 6, 1927: How timely the arrival of a box of shoes! One suitcase carried the personal effects of the 40 children riding the truck bed 500 miles from North Dakota to school here at Marty.

December 15, 1927: We could use a quantity of old blankets, sheets, gowns and stockings. Even clean old rags for the homes of the sick. Many suffer from tuberculosis and running sores.

December 22, 1932: Mrs. Hodgkiss is dying. The government should take better care of these young Indian mothers. Father Sylvester made the long trip to Washington two years ago and besought the Indian Department to give the 2,000 on this reservation at least a doctor and a nurse. He returned thinking he had succeeded, but nothing has been done to date. [Hard-won HOSPITAL FINALLY BUILT in 1937.]

1933: SEVENTH CAVALRY RECALLED. Benefactor from Pennsylvania writes: I am an old Seventh Cavalry man of the late 1870s and 1880s, so I know your Indians. My father, brother and myself rode trail and campaigned against the grandfathers of your little Indian people long before any ties were laid along the railroad west of Mandan, North Dakota. We, the white men of those days, and the present generation of men, owe these poor devils what we never can repay them. I knew them, when the country where you now are, was a living game paradise. Elk and buffalo in countless numbers; cotton-tail deer, black-tail deer and antelope by the thousands; prairie chicken and other fowl so numerous as to be an actual nuisance as you traveled the trail. The rivers and streams teeming with fish; the bushes and trees filled with berries; jackrabbits so plentiful they could be knocked over with a stick. I knew the ancestors of your flock when those men, those warriors, owed allegiance to no person but the Great Spirit. When they rode proudly ahead of their families, men just as God had made them. Say a prayer and have some innocent among those little ones say a prayer for my late wife, and I will not forget the favor. N.N.

January 23, 1935: Missionary's letter: Lucky thing we ran onto a six-story [Sioux City Bank] building to tear down and haul to Marty 135 miles to build a gymnasium.

Accredited 1936, Marty's high school moved into its new building September 11, 1938, less than six months after excavation began, the day the ice broke up on the Missouri. Structural stone and steelwork were fabricated in school shop classes. Local people take off their hats to the Mission at how fast our buildings go up, and how long it takes the county. Enrollment grades 1 to 12 reached 450 in 1947, attracting 14 distant tribes.

The bilingual [Dakota-English] newspaper sent to far-flung families on several reservations aimed to preserve the native tongue. Beadwork classes in the school revived the dying art, while elders taught oral history and dancing.

October 14, 1946: Old Albert Four Generations dies. He spun many a tale of riding with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in Europe.

1942: Everyone helps. Even the little girls beg to help build the new church.

1947: New Pickstown Dam nearby on the Missouri drains Marty's workforce, leads to tragedy.

1975: Yankton Sioux tribe assumes full responsibility for Marty school.