About Yankton
A Welcoming Town
Yankton, South Dakota, is especially devoted to being a welcoming place to families, students and all who come to town.
Campus is less than 5 miles away from Lewis and Clark Recreation Area and Lake Yankton, where outdoor activities in the summer include boating, swimming, hiking the trails and camping, and winter sports include snowshoeing and sledding.
Yankton has a community theater, miles of urban hiking and biking paths, street sculptures and fountains, shopping, history, culture and fun restaurants. Visit 's site to learn more about , arts and entertainment, restaurants and shopping.
Long before this modern community was established, Native Americans enjoyed life in the cottonwood forest by the river. Our city鈥檚 very name, Yankton, means 鈥淓nd Village鈥 in the Lakota language, indicating that this was the last camp on the Missouri River. The Lakota welcomed the explorers Lewis and Clark, who paddled through in 1804. Decades later came the steamboat captains, politicians, entrepreneurs, town builders, railroaders, farmers and immigrants.
Yankton was founded in 1861, and President Abraham Lincoln soon proclaimed it the capital of the huge Dakota Territory. Governors and senators and other pioneers walked many of the same streets we travel today, occasionally in the shade of some of the very same old cottonwood trees.
Yankton, now a modern and thriving city of 15,000, still plays a major regional role in government, religion, education and healthcare.
The Greater Yankton area features beautiful boulevards and public spaces, including Riverside Park, which lies on the old river port and now includes a classic baseball diamond鈥攐n which the MMU Lancers play home games鈥攚ith a water view. Another local green space is known as 鈥渢he duck park鈥 because geese and mallards live year-round on a tiny lake near the university. Our campus is an 80-acre, tree-shaded hilltop with a blend of old and new architecture. It's unlike anything else you鈥檒l find in the Great Plains. Hiking and biking trails wind around the town and lake and connect directly to campus.
The beautiful waters of Lewis & Clark Lake are just a few miles upstream from campus. Sailors, water skiers, swimmers, anglers and weekend sunbathers congregate there. The river stretch that runs from Yankton to Sioux City is also an amazing water corridor鈥攐ne of the last wild, free-flowing stretches of the great Missouri where eagles fly and giant paddlefish swim, while the rest of us kayak, canoe and tube. The river鈥攕o natural and pristine that it has been declared a national park鈥攂orders the south side of our campus. Wild turkey, Canada geese, white-tailed deer and other winged and four-legged creatures of God sometimes wander up from the river valley for a look.
Yankton is home to two major hospitals, including , which is adjacent to the university complex. Yankton is also home to the Mickelson Center for the Neurosciences, a highly respected mental health facility. And the high-quality with 40 top physicians is just across the street.
The city also boasts a robust entrepreneurial and manufacturing sector. We create high-tech electronics, archery equipment (did you know that we are home to the ?), construction equipment that can crush rocks and radio towers designed to look like pine trees.
View more Yankton area businesses .