This was until 1953 American Island

On September 17, 1804, Lewis and Clark camped on the west bank below the island, and after passing it on the 18th said, "Passed an Island about the middle of the river at 1 mile this island is about a mile long and has a great proportion of Red cedar on it." In 1811 the Astorians called it Little Cedar, and in 1843 Audubon called it Great Cedar Island. In 1855 Lt. Warren, western topographer, called it 2nd Cedar Island, and so it appeared on Colton's 1857 Atlas. Dakota surveys of 1875 showed it but did not name it, and Andrea's Atlas of 1884 was the first to call it American or Cedar Island. On March 2, 1889, Congress gave it to the City of Chamberlain as a park. By 1911 the channel on the west side was closed when the Milwaukee made a fill. For many years it was connected to the east bank by a pontoon bridge, and in 1905 by a railroad pile and barge bridge that was converted to steel in 1918. The state highway bridge, whose piers still show upstream, was built in 1925, and a golf course, race track, athletic field, and picnic grounds were developed by Chamberlain and used until the waters of Ft. Randall Dam covered it in 1953. Well timbered, it was a stopping place for explorers, fur traders, steamboat men, and recreationers for a century and a half, and Forts Aux Cedres and Pilcher's Factory or Ft. Recovery used it as a woodlot, farm, and pasture in the 1820s.

Oacoma, South Dakota · United States