Verendrye Site

Verendrye Site is an archaeological site in Stanley County, South Dakota, United States, in the city of Fort Pierre. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1991.

At the time of the designation in 1991, it was stated:

Here, in late March 1743, the Verendryes, the first Europeans to explore the northern plains region of the present United States, secreted a lead plate beneath a pile of stones. Sixty-one years before Lewis and Clark first arrived in this area, these French explorers, in search of a Northwest Passage to the Pacific, lay the basis for French sovereignty on the Upper Missouri, seeking to define the bounds of French Louisiana to include the entire Mississippi River drainage.