A bound volume of copies of the Dakota Sieve newspaper for the years 1892-1893 was recently given to the Jerauld County Heritage Center by Tim Dean.

Tim’s father, the late Dr. R.E. Dean, had purchased the old Wessington Springs train depot in the 1970s and placed it on a site near Tim Dean’s home in the Wessington Hills overlooking Wessington Springs. “I was looking around in the depot and found the newspapers in there,” Dean said. “There is very little local news in them,” he continued, “but the advertisers go back into the 1800s so it is still quite interesting.”

According to N.J Dunham’s “A History of Jerauld County,” the Dakota Sieve published its first edition on May 8, 1891. “The paper devoted to the interest of the Independent party, with C.W. Hill editor and R.W. Moore, printer.”

When the files found on the Dean place were originally printed, it appears that C.W. Hill was the editor. Another editor/publisher, G.W. Bachus took over in 1895.

Tim Dean recalls reading an article that late in his life, Bachus lived on the place where he now lives. “I remember reading that he died as a result of a fall at his farm,” Tim Dean said. That might explain where the old Dakota Sieve files came from.

Fred Dunham took over The Sieve in 1905 and changed its politics to Republican.

Although age had taken its toll of the old 1892-1893 papers, the volume was taken to the South Dakota State Museum where they are having legible printed material put on microfilm and filed in their archives.

The volume will be brought back here where all salvageable material will be preserved and filed in the archives at the Heritage Center where it will be available for use by historians and genealogists.