The 40th state to be admitted to the Union, November 2, 1889. The appeal of scattered Catholics along the upper Missouri to Bishop Loras of Dubuque for missionaries, about 1841, resulted in the visitations of Father Angustin Ravoux. He ministered to Indians and French Catholics at Fort Pierre in 1842,1847, and at Vermilion in 1844. In 1843 he printed, at Prairie du Chien, a devotional book in their own language for the Sioux Indians. Father Pierre de Smet, aided by Father Christian and Father Adrian Hoecken, visited Indian tribes of South Dakota from 1848 to 1850, and Father De Smet traveled among them again in 1868. A parish was organized in 1867 among French Catholics living at Jefferson, by Father Pierre Boucher, who became the pastor of Saint Peter's, the first church in South Dakota. Ecclesiastically, the state is governed by the dioceses of
Catholic infiuence on place-names of the state is shown in the following:
See also patron saints index.