In the 1870s in eastern Minnehaha County, Dakota Territory, the beginnings of Garretson grew out of two developments: the founding of the now-vanished village of Palisade above Split Rock Creek after C. W. Patten built a flour mill there in the early 1870s, and the arrival of scores of pioneer families in nearby townships who claimed homesteads and created a customer base for Palisade businesses. In 1889, when the Sioux City and Great Northern Railroad planned a junction with the Willmar and Sioux Falls Railway at Sherman, Sioux City investors shifted the junction to a site two miles north of Palisade. Investor A.S. Garretson then offered commercial lots and paid to move mercantile buildings from Palisade to the new site, drawing a druggist, doctor, barber, and the owners of a general store, lumber yard, hardware and implement store, dray line, grocery store, and bank. This rapid transfer of businesses doomed Palisade and created the town of Garretson, named for Garretson. A quartzite stone quarry opened in the early 1890s and supplied material for notable local buildings, including two banks, an opera house, and general and department stores. By 1915, Garretson had 63 businesses, including a cigar factory and the Grand Hotel. The town also became known for parks featuring Sioux quartzite outcroppings: Split Rock Park, begun as a Works Project Administration project in the 1930s with a dam, bathhouse, and bridge; Devil’s Gulch Park, associated with Dakota Indian traditions about Spirit Canyon and with the 1876 escape of Jesse and Frank James; and Palisades State Park, bordering the former site of Palisade.