The first white settlers rafted over to the site from the Nebraska side even before the Indian exodus in 1859. The village they began to establish was strategically located on the river, although they may not have known how important it was at the time.

The Lewis and Clark expedition passed it by, and there is little evidence that the early steamboats -- like the Yellowstone in 1831 and the Martha in 1847 -- ever stopped there. Artists Charles Bodmer, George Catlin and John James Audubon, who were on the upper river long before the treaty of cession in 1858, left no specific references to E-hank-ton-wan, the "end village," in their works.

But Yancton -- as the name was first spelled -- became a reality, and the Missouri became an immediate benefit to the new residents. It was used to float in lumber from the nearest sawmill at North Bend, Neb., so that houses and business places could be built. Even more important, it was a source of food supply.

Legend has it that the first Christmas menu at Ash's inn in 1859 consisted of catfish and molasses. And the Weekly Dakotian of Aug. 5, 1862, reported:

"Katphish, of fabulous dimensions, are being taken from the placid waters of the Big Muddy about these times. A great many of them weigh two and three hundred pounds!"

George Kingsbury in his History of Dakota Territory, wrote: "The catfish was an important factor in the settlement of Dakota, and in the opinion of many of the early settlers, the food problem would have been a very serious one had it not been for the abundant supply of this best of all fishes right at the threshold of the settlement."

Yanktonians who didn't have wells also depended on the river for their drinking water and other domestic uses. In the beginning, however, the process of making the silt-laden Missouri water available was crude and time-consuming as the pump, settle and skim method was used. An advertisement in a local paper on Aug. 4, 1875, described the service provided by one purveyor:

"John Buchanan, owner of the Blue Line water delivery, announces that he is prepared to supply families, stores, offices, etc., with Missouri River water, filtered over night in a large tank and made as pure and almost as clear as spring water for twenty cents a barrel. Don't fail to call the Blue wagon which is on the streets all hours of the day."

Fred Schnauber was the most prominent of the ice-harvesters who took advantage of another of the river's bounties as each year hundreds of tons of Missouri ice cut and stored for warm-weather use. During the tree claim period, local entrepreneurs pulled up, bundled and sold thousands of cottonwood saplings which sprouted along the shores and in the sandbars.

Of course it was the steamboat era which provided Yankton with its greatest economic boon during its earlier years. Until the mid-1880s the riverboats brought both direct and indirect employment to the Mother City. Warehouses, machine shops, saloons and Levee Street bawdy houses offered work and recreation for riverfront denizens. Firms like Adler, Ohlman & Co., Bramble & Miner and the Excelsior Steam Flouring Mill prospered because of the river traffic. So did the hotels which accommodated layover passengers.

In its issue of May 25, 1867, the Union and Dakotaian reported the extent of river travel at that early date:

"Thirty-nine steamboats passed up the river to yesterday noon, and all were well loaded with passengers. There will probably be about twenty more, making the whole number about sixty. Freight has been brought to this city from St. Louis for $1.25 per hundred, or about one half the price of last season."

While not all boats stopped at its moorings, Yankton became a regular port of call after the Dakota Southern Railroad was extended from Sioux City and made it a freight terminus in 1873. Wintering ways were constructed so ships of the Coulson Packet Line could be put up for repair and refurbishing during the off-season. The river, it seemed, would be a never-ending source of jobs and financial reward. However, the Great Flood of '81 changed all that.

While the Missouri -- which became known to some as the Old Misery -- had its positive merits, it also had its down side. Before dams brought it under at least some control, its annual June rise caused unpredictable erosion. The situation was particularly bad in 1918 when the Press and Dakotan of June 26 summarized:

"A very incomplete survey of what has already been destroyed by the Missouri is given briefly: A. P. Johnson has but three acres left of 170 ... a portion of this was the well known Julius Brauch place. Next east comes the Fred Schnauber place of 70 acres, a good slice already in the river, including a fine orchard. Nearer the city was Henry Buckhart's 60 acres, all now in the river ... a good deal of David Wallace's fine improved place of 50 acres is washed away and John Fanslow's fine garden is apparently doomed."

The paper also said that "The Woods" owned by the Benedictine Sisters west of town was threatened, and eventually the cement plant railroad grade was undercut. The changing channel of the capricious river was a continuing, worrisome thing for land owners and for Yankton itself.

So, too, were the periodic gorges which formed when the ice went out in the spring. They were what caused the floods and destroyed the steamboat fleet.

No record was kept of how many teams of horses were lost when they fell through the river ice. The malicious Missouri claimed human lives as well, like 7-year-old Fred Fanslow and Herbert Lemke, the WNAX singer of German songs, to name but two.

Until it was finally bridged in 1924, crossing the mud-brown waters by raft, ferryboat and sometimes treacherous pontoon spans brought its share of accidents as did travel across the ice in winter. Untamed, the Old Muddy -- too thick to drink and too thin to plow -- was both friend and foe of yesterday's Yanktonians who feared it, respected it and utilized it.

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Originally published Jan. 26, 1998