Before white settlers arrived, this vicinity was inhabited by the Yankton tribe of the Sioux nation, and reminders of their presence remained in burial mounds, storage cellars, and artifacts found there. Fisher Grove was established in 1878 after Frank I. Fisher, a lawyer from Indiana, stopped here while traveling down the James River. On the riverbank, traces of an old wagon trail marked the place as Fisher’s Ford, later called Belcher’s Ford, where the rocky river bottom provided a crossing for Indians and settlers’ wagons. A large sod barn for the stagecoach line operated by Fred Rodgers was built here on the direct route from Pierre to Watertown, and Rodgers also operated the first post office here from 1879 until 1883, when it was moved to nearby Frankfort, named for Frank’s Ford. A sequence of events, including the move of Drifting Goose and his band to a reservation, brought white settlers to the area in greater numbers. Fisher Grove became a state park in 1946, and one of the first rural schools in Spink County, built in 1884, was moved to the park in 1961.