John A. Samuelson was born in Sweden in 1837, immigrated to the United States in 1868, lived for one year in Iowa, and in 1869 came to Dakota Territory and filed a 160-acre homestead in section 13 of Split Rock Township, Minnehaha County, becoming one of the township's first settlers. In 1872 he married Anna L. Johanson in Sioux City, Iowa. Their first home was a dugout on the wooded slope overlooking Beaver Creek, where their first child was born, and eight more children were later born in an oak log cabin built in 1875 from locally harvested oak logs. The cabin's main floor contained a living area and the parents' bedroom, while stairs led to a loft divided into two bedrooms for the children. Soon after construction, wooden lap-siding covered the logs, and the downstairs interior walls were probably plastered, so that by 1887 it no longer looked like a log cabin. In 1897 Samuelson moved his family to a ranch in Hughes County northeast of Pierre, leaving the older children, John Jr. and Anna M., to care for the homestead. In 1905 Anna died on the ranch, and John later lived in Pierre until his death in 1927 at age 90; both were buried at Riverside Cemetery in Pierre. In 1910 Samuelson built a new four-room house just southeast of the cabin, after which the cabin was used as a work shed. In 1940 the cabin floor was replaced with cement for a workshop, beds remained in the bedroom and loft for the children, and the lean-to on the north side was turned into a garage. Arvid Peterson, John Samuelson's grandson, farmed the original homestead until it was sold to the State of South Dakota in 1967.