Tabor, the Czech community located in Southeastern South Dakota, in Bon Homme County is home to 417 Residents (as of 2020 Census).

Czech immigrants started coming to Dakota Territory in the late 1860’s to escape having to serve in the military for the Austrian-Hungarian army and to find a better way of life.  The country was becoming smaller because the number of inhabitants kept growing and famine and poverty was starting to run out of control.

Czechs coming into South Dakota can be divided into about five different times.  The first period would start in 1869 when the first Czechs started to settle in Yankton and Bon Homme Counties.  In 1879 the Czechs started moving further west and settling  in Brule County and the western part of Charles Mix County.  In 1895 the eastern half of Charles Mix County was opened to white settlers who could purchase land from the Indigenous people.  There was a huge fourth rush in 1904 when the western part of Gregory County was opened and finally the fifth rush in 1909 when an additional piece of the Rosebud Reservation was opened in Tripp County.

All during these times Czechs were settling in all parts of South Dakota, but not in significant numbers.  In 1905 the Milwaukee Railroad expanded from Chamberlain to Pierre and the Northwestern Railroad expanded from Pierre to Rapid City carrying many more Czech pioneers.   

It was in June of 1868, naturally in a bar, in Chicago that was owned by a Frank Bem who formed a Czech Agricultural Society.  The Society was started to establish new Czech communities in the west.  Back then when in Chicago, everything was in the west.  Dues to belong to this organization were $1 per person.  The first trips west started out in 1869 and included the states of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Dakota Territory.  Many Czechs homesteaded in these states.  The Bohemians as they are sometimes called came from the countries of Bohemia, Moravia, and  Czech Silesia.  Most of the Czechs in this area came from the Bohemia region and there were also a few Moravians.

Most Czech pioneers started to settle on land around the Lakeport and Tabor area.  The local Yankton residents heard that there were many Czech immigrants headed for Dakota Territory and so they purchased as much land as they could west of Yankton so the immigrants had to settle further west.  When that land was taken up, they moved further west taking up land in Dante, Wagner, Fairfax, Bonesteel, Burke, Gregory, Colome, Kimball and ending up in Martin.  All of these communities have a large Czech population.

The Sioux City to Fort Randall Military Road ran west of Yankton and had a layover stop at Lakeport, so the pioneers could travel that trail.  A few years ago, Richard Hermanek and Tim Peterson mapped out the Sioux City to Fort Randall Road in Bon Homme County.  It starts on Hwy 50 just across the Yankton and Bon Homme County Line.  The two men marked each mile east to west in Bon Homme County.  The markers are on green posts with a small blue and white plate with a picture of a cannon on each post.  Many of the blue and white markers are gone because the wind was not friendly to these markers, but the green steel posts are still located in the fence line, if you want to follow the trail.  The first marker is located on the south side of Hwy 50 in the fence line just west of the farm driveway for you to start the path west to the Bon Homme/Charles Mix County line. 

When a new Czech settlement was started, four buildings were most important for the new settlers to construct.  A church to hold worship services in, a grocery store to exchange farm products for supplies, a school to educate the children and finally a bar for the men to socialize at.

The majority of these first Czech settlers were Roman Catholic.  The first Czech Catholic Church was built on the Frank Nedved ground in the early 1870’s.  This was located five miles north of Hwy 50 on 432nd Avenue which is where Hwy 52 joins Hwy 50 by the huge B-Y Water tank. The Nedved cemetery is located there on the east side of the road.  The church sat on the west side of the road.  It closed in the 1880’s and was sold, moved, and used as a granary on the Albert Mudloff farm west of Tabor.  It was purchased by the Czech Heritage Preservation Society in Tabor and restored back to a chapel and is part of the Vancura Memorial Park.

The second Catholic Church at Lakeport was completed in 1884 and has been renovated and is used once a year for services in September.  This church is constructed out of chalk rock which was quarried from the Missouri River bluffs south of Lakeport.  The altar and pews in the church were moved from Tabor’s chalk rock church after their new church was built in 1900.  This is located on 431st Avenue one half mile north and one-half mile west.  The road passes through a farmyard and dead ends at the church.

The first Czechs in the area were not settles but were soldiers. They started to arrive in 1863 to 1866 and were commissioned to fight against the Indigenous people, if there was trouble for settlers coming into the area. 

In 1862 a man named John Dufek aged 17 from Milwaukee, volunteered to fight with the union army against the south. After the war Dufek settled in Yankton in 1867.  He opened a shoe store and spoke Czech, English, and German and was very helpful to the Czech settlers coming into the area.  He died in 1918 in Yankton at the age of 73.

The Tabor Czech pioneers started arriving around 1869.  Bon Homme County was one of the first four counties organized in Dakota Territory along with Clay, Union, and Yankton.   The courthouse for Bon Homme County was located in the river town of Bon Homme on the banks of the Missouri River.

Johanna Kocer and her sister Katherine left their native country of Bohemia in 1870 not knowing how to speak a foreign language, to them that was English, and with no experience in traveling as they had never been out of Bohemia.

The two girls arrived in New York on their way to join their parents who came earlier and stopped in Spillville, IA.  The Kocer girls gave their money to a stranger for train tickets, and he disappeared with all their money.  They were left penniless, could not speak or understand English, and were pretty much helpless.  Another stranger who could speak a little Czech felt sorry for the girls and gave them enough money for a ticket to Spillville and made sure that they got on the right train.

The Kocer sisters arrived in Spillville and met their parents who were waiting for them with another Czech family.  The party set out for Dakota Territory in 1872 by oxen drawn wagons and arrived in what is now Tabor.  That same year Katherine married one of the young men, John Souhrada, who accompanied them from Iowa and who was active in the construction of the Fort Randall Chapel because he was a mason by trade.

Johanna Kocer who was 23 years old decided to take a pre-emption of 160 acres of land in the northeast quarter of section 23.  A single person had to pay $2 to record the federal transaction, erect a dwelling of sod or logs (not less than 12’ x 14’) break at least five acres of the land, sleep there one night each month, and then at the end of six months, pay the government $205 for the deed.

This does not sound like much to own 160 acres of prime prairie land but being a woman, coming from a different country, not speaking English, and penniless, this was a big order.  At the end of six months Johanna did everything like she was supposed to except she was broke and she did not have the $205 for the deed.

Another young lady by the name of Sophie Janda took over the Kocer land and low and behold after the six-month period she was also broke and turned the land back over to Johanna.  You should note that both young women came to Dakota Territory with their parents.  Both sets of parents were working their own 160 acres and did not have any extra cash to help their daughters buy the land.

The number of Czechs in the area had increased substantially and they started talking about starting a town.  The group had formed a literary society and Johanna Kocer was approached by the literary society about purchasing her 160 acres.  It was on April 15, 1872, when the land was purchased from Johanna and surveyed shortly afterwards.  There was considerable discussion on what to name the town.  Since the pioneers had been living in makeshift camps, they decided to name the town Tabor which translates from Czech to the word camp in English and there was also a city named Tabor in the Czech Republic which many of the pioneers came from that area.

Size of the lots were discussed, and it was decided that each lot would be 286.75’ x 220’.  There would be 15 blocks with four lots in each block.  There were 55 lots selected by drawing names out of a hat and one lot was given to each member of the Society.  One lot was set aside for a church, a cemetery, a rectory, two partial lots for schools, and a lot for Tabor Town Use.  The town was surveyed and names of Hakl, Vyborny, Cechie, Janda, Bon Homme, Springfield, Dakota, Chicago, Yankton, and Ziskov were used to name the streets. 

Before the survey took place, Sophie Janda’s father passed away along with two of her sisters and they buried them in the lot set aside for the cemetery.  However, when they surveyed the blocks, the Janda’s were buried too far to the south and so there is a jog in Yankton Street which is the street on the South side of the church because the people did not want to move the bodies after they had been buried. 

The plat was filed on May 25, 1873.  That same year a school district was formed, and the first schoolhouse built of logs was constructed.  Logs were cut by hand and hauled five miles from the Missouri River.  The school was also used as a church and has been restored.  It sits on main street next to the post office and is part of the Czech Heritage buildings.

The St. Wenceslaus chalk rock church was started in 1872 and completed in 1874.  It was replaced by a much larger church made of bricks that were hauled from the train depot in Lesterville in 1900 by horse and wagon which is still in use today.  A new rectory next to the church was constructed in 1913 which replaced the original one which was built south of the cemetery.  Also, a new three-story Catholic school was constructed in 1903 which included a dormitory for students to stay in from other towns.  The school was used until 1960 when a new school was constructed.

A number of different nationality priests have served Tabor throughout the years.  In the early years of the parish, most of the priests were Czech or could speak the Czech language.  This was the case as Tabor was settled by Czech immigrants.  Over the last 150 years, Tabor has only had 20 full time priests that served the parish.  The longest serving priest was Msgr. E. A. Bouska, he served the parish for 48 years, next came Rev. Raymond Koman, who served 23 years, then Msgr. Carlton Hermann who served 19 years and then Rev. Joseph Puthenkulathil serving 9 years.  In the early years, the priests served around 7 years.

A Czech pioneer, Charles Andera of Spillville, Iowa was born near Tabor, Bohemia and came with his parents to America in 1862.  He was the youngest of ten children.  He was a wooden craftsman making furniture and caskets and sold them out of his furniture store.  He also designed and sold cast iron grave markers.  Many of the Czech Catholic cemeteries have his grave markers.  They are marked with a C.A. on the back of the marker, so you know that they came from him. He started to make the crosses in 1875 and they come in 11 different sizes and styles.  The crosses have been found in Alaska, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Texas, Michigan, and of course Iowa.

In South Dakota, most crosses are in Bendon (Brule County southwest of Kimball) Kimball, Lakeport (between Tabor and Yankton) Scotland, Tabor, and Vodnany (west of Scotland).

Many women associated with Tabor have played a very important role in its development over the years from its beginning including Johanna Kocer and Sophie Janda.  These women have gone on to become contributors in whatever road they have taken.

Katherine Mudloff, the only woman murdered in Tabor because she did not believe in banks and kept her money at home.  A roughneck was hired from Sioux City to come and scare her and in the scuffle in her house a gun went off and shot the woman dead.

There were women who managed the hotel, dress shops, millinery shops, and cafés throughout the years.  A nun from Tabor, Sister Constantine (Catherine) Koupal, was involved with the starting of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN; Sister James (Veronica) Souhrada, worked unselfishly in the Sacred Heart Nursing home for many years and when the home expanded had a wing named after her.  She was a niece to John Souhrada.  Later, women like Helen Vlasak were very active in the American Legion Auxiliary on the National Level, Cheryl Hovorka, who was head of South Dakota Girl’s State was also very active in the Legion Auxiliary.  Maxine Petrik Schuurmans Kinsley an author of local history, was John Souhrada’s great granddaughter; Cecelia Rokusek who is now the President/CEO of the National Czech and Slovak Museum in Cedar Rapids is from Tabor.  Aesli Grandi, now living in California,  helped produce a documentary film on Tabor, Little Town on the Prairie.  Pam Rezac, a graduate of Tabor High School, was the CEO of Avera Sacred Heart Hospital and spearheaded many new innovations,  Jean Hunhoff who is a very active Legislator and former Mayor of Yankton is promoting progress in the area; and my wife Sherry who with her determination started a Lasting Legacy project during the South Dakota’s centennial by creating and still maintains the Tabor Public Library. These are a few of our Tabor connection women leaders.