Andrew E. Lee was born near Bergen, Norway, on March 18, 1847. When he was four, he and his family moved to Wisconsin. After receiving a general school education, he arrived in Vermillion, Dakota Territory, in 1867. Lee and Charles E. Prentis owned and operated the Main Street mercantile store Lee & Prentis for almost half a century, and they also ran a large and successful farming and ranching operation. In 1872, Lee married Annie Chappell, and they had one daughter, Jessamine (Lee) Fox. Lee entered politics in 1891 when voters elected him Vermillion alderman. Beginning in 1892, Vermillion voters twice elected him mayor. In 1896, he ran for Governor of South Dakota with support from a coalition of Populists, Democrats, and Silver Republicans. Under the Populist banner, he served two terms from 1897 to 1901 as the third governor in the state's history. Lee championed initiative and referendum, and in 1898 South Dakota became the first state to adopt that reform. At the age of 87, Lee died on March 19, 1934, in his Vermillion home. He is also remembered in the Andrew E. Lee Memorial Medicine and Science Building on land he donated to the University of South Dakota.