But it was also a beginning. In August 1988, the Yankton Federal Prison Camp opened on the old YC campus, turning it into a minimum security prison in the heart of the city.

Despite very early misgivings and fears about what effect the prison's presence would have on the residential area, the FPC has been a good fit with the community.

After Yankton College closed, it was unclear what the fate of the old campus would be. There were some prospective buyers who talked of re-opening the school as a place of higher learning. And many school alums still clung to the dream of seeing old YC arise phoenix-like from its ashes and its red ink. But those dreams never materialized.

But in 1987, the federal government approached the city and the school's caretakers about purchasing the 30-acre campus and converting it into a minimum security prison.

The public wrestled with this prospect. But in the fall of 1987, a referendum indicated overwhelming support for the sale of the property to the government.

The campus was purchased in 1988 for $3.1 million.

The first prison officials began arriving in the spring of 1988, with the first 10 inmates showing up that August. In fact, the employees and the first inmates worked together to prepare the facility.

The prison camp observed its 10th anniversay in 1998, and there was indeed good reason to celebrate. There were 500 prisoners on a campus that looked better than it did during the final years of the college. The prison has also hired close to two-thirds of its employees from the Yankton area, bettering the original hopes of 40-50 percent local employment.

The prison still acknowledges its collegiate roots. During the bienniel YC reunions, alumni are allowed to tour the campus and visit their old haunts.

"With ingenuity and hard work," the Press & Dakotan editorialized in 1988, "Yankton was able to make the best of a bad situation after it lost YC. That is a tribute to everyone involved."