William Henry Harrison Beadle

Educator, born in Liberty township, Parke Co, Indiana, USA. He studied civil engineering at the University of Michigan and rose to the rank of brevet brigadier-general during the Civil War. He went to the Dakota Territory (1869), and as surveyor-general for that area, he put all his efforts towards the judicious and cautious use of the public school lands. He wrote the education article in the South Dakota state constitution, and was president of the Madison State Normal School (1889–1906). South Dakota placed his statue in the US Capitol.

William Henry Harrison Beadle
(NSHC statue)

William Henry Harrison Beadle (January 1, 1838 – November 15, 1915) was born in a log cabin in Parke County, Indiana, and grew up on the frontier.

In 1869 President Ulysses S. His journeys through the territory and his previous frontier experience convinced him that school lands were a trust for future generations and should be sold at their appraised value and never for less than $10 an acre ($2,500 per km²) . Beadle drafted the school lands provision at the South Dakota constitutional convention of 1885. When Congress accepted the state constitution in 1889, it was so impressed that similar provisions were required for North Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming.

Beadle served as president of the Madison State Normal School from 1889 to 1906, and as a professor of history until his retirement in 1912.

In 1938, the state of South Dakota donated a bronze statue of Beadle to the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection. Beadle County, South Dakota is named in his honor.