Until the 1870s, the region of Kingsbury County was a land of buffaloes and Indians, with Indian mounds at Spirit Lake. In 1838 the Nicollet-Fremont party skirted its northeast corner, and in 1857 Inkepaduta's renegade Indians passed through with two white women taken in the Spirit Lake massacre in Iowa; in a skirmish near Lake Thompson, Agency Indians killed several of the renegades. Noble's Trail was built in 1857 west of the area, passing south of the lake, and the Yankton Sioux ceded the region to the government in 1859. The area was part of Buffalo County in 1864 and Hanson County in 1870 before becoming Kingsbury County on January 8, 1873, named for George W. Kingsbury of Yankton. After surveys from 1873 to 1875, general settlement began in 1878, the railroad arrived in 1879 and 1880, and the county was organized on February 18, 1880, by H. W. Palmer, H. J. Burvee, and Benjamin Loken. De Smet, the county seat, was named for Father Peter John De Smet, and by 1880 the county had 1,102 people, rising to 8,562 by 1890. Its lakes include Thompson, Henry, Spirit, Preston, Whitewood, and Albert, and its pioneer era was later depicted by former residents in the novels of Rose Wilder Lane, the children's stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and the paintings of Harvey Dunn. Lake County, named for its beautiful lakes, had been the realm of the Dacotah Sioux with few white intruders until the Yankton tribe ceded it in 1858. In 1857 Noble's Trail crossed its northeast corner, and that year Mrs. Wm. Marble, a captive of Inkepaduta's renegade band, was rescued at Lake Herman by two Christian Indians. Created in 1873 from parts of Brookings, Minnehaha, and Hanson Counties and organized on October 6, settlement had begun in 1870 when Wm. Lee, John Walker, and Herman N. Luce built the first log cabin. Madison, named for Madison, Wisconsin, and Herman, named for Luce, soon grew on the shores of Lakes Madison and Herman. By 1880 the population was 2,657, and the railroad's arrival that year shifted the county seat from Old Madison to Madison laid out by C. B. Kennedy on July 6, 1880; the first train arrived on January 12, 1881. The Swiss colony at Badus was founded in 1878, followed by Wentworth in 1880, Winifred in 1882, and Ramona in 1887. Madison State Normal was established in 1881, with classes beginning in 1883, and its later name, General Beadle State College, honored President W. H. H. Beadle, known as the Savior of the School Lands. From 1890 to 1932, the Lake Madison Chautauqua brought culture and entertainment to thousands from a wide area.