Page 2 - Trail of Governors 2022 Annual Report

2022 Trail of Governors Annual Report

The 2022 ceremony honored three distinguished South Dakota leaders.

Each one helped build the South Dakota we know and love today. We owe them our gratitude, honor and respect. A crowd gathered in
the Capitol Rotunda on June 17, 2022, to unveil and celebrate these final three former governors’ statues.

Andrew E. Lee

Andrew E. Lee served as South Dakota’s governor from 1897 to 1901. Lee, born in Bergen, Norway, worked as
a store clerk in Wisconsin before moving to Dakota Territory. He started a mercantile and owned farms near
Vermillion with partner Charles Prentis. As governor, Lee sought to increase state revenues and remove corrupt state
appointees, prompted by the theft of state funds by the former state treasurer. He insisted on physically
inventorying all state funds, in cash, at the State Capitol. Lee’s nephew, Carl Gunderson, would later be elected
governor. The Lee Medical School building at the University of South Dakota is named for Lee, on land he donated.

Lee’s statue was created by artists Lee Leuning and Sherri Treeby and shows the governor’s foot resting on two strong
boxes like those that carried the state’s treasury back to the Capitol. His bronze likeness is near the corner of down-
town’s Pierre Street and Missouri Avenue. Naming donors are Jay D. and Elizabeth Vogt, Scott and Julia Jones, the
Gunderson family, and the South Dakota Retailers Association – honoring Donna Leslie.

Frank Byrne

Frank Byrne led South Dakota as governor from 1913 to 1917. Byrne was born in Iowa and was lured to South
Dakota in 1879 by the Dakota Boom. He worked for homesteaders before filing his own claim in McCook County
where he lived in a sod hut, later moving to Faulk County. He served on the state senate and after selling his farm
acreage, became a land company owner at Faulkton. He became lieutenant governor before being elected governor.
Byrne’s term as governor is remembered for his reorganization of the executive branch. He created several new
state commissions and bureaus in his reformation of state government.
Byrne’s bronze is in front of the Becker-Hanson Building, on Broadway Avenue. Sculptor James Michael Maher
created the governor’s likeness, showing him reading a book as he faces toward the main back entrance of the
Capitol. His donors are Dennis, Linda and Jana Batteen, Scott and Julia Jones, and the Gail and Delores Miller
Charitable Fund.

A vision to create a lasting legacy of South Dakota’s governors.