Discovery Sites
How to Get There: From downtown Browns Valley, travel two blocks west along West Broadway Avenue, across the bridge spanning the Little Minnesota River.
What You Will Find: The Park is home to a cabin which is open to the public as a museum.
Services: None
This wayside rest is home to a cabin open to the public as a museum from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Samuel J. Brown Memorial Park was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Samuel J. Brown is the son of Joseph R. Brown, who founded the village of Browns Valley in 1866 after the government confiscated land from the Sioux Indian Reservation. Joseph R. Brown built a trading post and called it Lake Traverse, later renamed Browns Valley in his honor after his death in 1870. On April 19, 1866, Samuel Brown who at the time was chief Army Scout stationed at Fort Wadsworth started on horseback to warn the settlers there of what was thought to be an impending Indian attack. Brown rode 55 miles in five hours only to find the report false. Brown was caught in a blizzard and lost his way, drifting many miles to the south and into the Waubay area. Brown is called, the “Paul Revere of the Frontier” because of this famous ride.
Things to Do: Discovery Site, Museum, U.S. - Dakota War of 1862
