Abraham Lincoln never stepped foot in present-day South Dakota. Perhaps the closest he ever came was a trip to Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1859 to examine some land for a friend and deliver a speech. In fact, the 16th president rarely comes to mind when thinking about South Dakota history. After all, we became a state 24 years after Lincoln’s death. But you don’t have to look far to find ties and tributes to Abraham Lincoln in South Dakota.

That became evident when I moved to Yankton. Upon Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861, not only did he inherit a national crisis that quickly turned into four years of civil war, but he was also responsible for governing the vast new Dakota Territory, created just two days earlier by his predecessor, James Buchanan. Lincoln’s role included appointing territorial officials: a governor, secretary, judges, surveyors, marshals, U.S. attorneys and an Indian agent, among others. Most of Lincoln’s appointees lived in Yankton, and some are buried there in the city cemetery. Those men left lasting legacies in Dakota Territory’s original capital city.

In early 2021, house movers lifted and transported a home from Yankton to rural Springfield. The spectacle of house-moving itself was enough to draw attention, but interest seemed to peak when Yanktonians discovered its connection to Abraham Lincoln. William Edmunds built the house at Fifth and Cedar in 1904. His father, Newton Edmunds, was appointed governor of Dakota Territory by Lincoln in 1863.

A little downtown coffee shop called Muddy Mo’s is housed in a two-story brick building built in 1885 by Walter Burleigh, appointed by Lincoln in 1861 to be the agent for the Yankton Sioux Tribe at Greenwood. The job paid just $2,000 a year. Burleigh reportedly told the president that for he and his family to survive, he would have to either starve or steal. Lincoln, aware of Burleigh’s unscrupulous reputation, replied, “Dr. Burleigh, if I am any judge of human nature, you won’t starve.”

Another building at the foot of the Meridian Bridge is among the city’s oldest. It dates to 1859 and served as a trading post for Frost, Todd and Company. John Blair Smith Todd was stationed at Fort Randall in the 1850s but left the military and partnered with Daniel Frost in a trading company. Though Todd was a Democrat he was also Mary Lincoln’s cousin and is credited with using his connections to make Yankton the capital of Dakota Territory in 1861.

A historic building with Lincoln connections also stands in tiny Blunt just east of Pierre, though its future is murky. Mentor Graham was a schoolmaster in New Salem, Illinois, where he worked with Lincoln to refine his speech and make the 16th president one of America’s most eloquent leaders. Graham moved to Blunt as an old man in the 1880s and lived there just four years before his death in 1886. His home was once a tourist attraction and point of pride, but years of neglect and deterioration have town leaders wondering if they can salvage it.

You can find artistic representations of Lincoln across South Dakota, most famously at Mount Rushmore. James Michael Maher’s sculpture of Lincoln and his son Tad stands at the corner of Main and Ninth in downtown Rapid City, part of the City of Presidents project. There’s another statue in Mission Hill, just east of Yankton, and I’ve always remembered the bust of Lincoln inside Lincoln Hall on the South Dakota State University campus in Brookings. These and many more stand in tribute to a great man who, although he was never here, is certainly never forgotten in South Dakota.