Category: History Listing Date: 2019-03-09
Historic Springfield
Ogden Marsh Monument - September 3, 2011
The citizens of Springfield, South Dakota demonstrate a commitment to historic and community preservation by supporting its museum, monuments, parks, and buildings.
A special thank you to Alice Petrik for her time in showing the museum and answering questions about the exhibits, the area, and citizens that contribute to historic preservation.
The Springfield Historical Society Museum is located on Main Street. It contains a remarkable amount of historic pieces from the area. Graduating class photos neatly hung on the wall of the first room you enter remind you of high school days. Display cases contain neatly arranged cameras, radios, and other items from the past.
As you move through the museum you realize the amount of time and work that was, and is required to build and maintain the museum. Grandma's House, a replica of a typical pioneer home, is but one example. The house was built by volunteers using recycled lumber from the Mae Wolf Wagner farm home located northwest of Springfield. The house was built in the 1880's of Minnesota pine using square nails. The furnishings are typical of a farm house of the time.
Historic farm machinery and implements fill another area of the museum. Horse drawn plow, sickle mower, even a hand operated corn sheller guide you through farming in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The Springfield story cannot be told without including its college. A large section of the museum is being organized to hold memorabilia from Southern State Normal School that became Southern State Teachers College in 1947. The National Guard and a prison have or currently use the land and/or buildings that were once part of the early college.
When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark passed through the area that is present day Springfield, South Dakota in Bon Homme County in September 1804, it's doubtful that they could imagine what the future would hold. Not far upstream (west) of Bon Homme Village, the town of Springfield was platted in 1869 by Ogden Marsh. Marsh and his wife Addie are buried under a fieldstone monument on 6th St.
