I recently met Andrew McCrea to visit with him about local historic items for his nationally syndicated radio show American Countryside.

We talked about Hobo Day, Nick’s Hamburger Shop and a third vignette about Judge Wilmot Brookings, our town’s namesake. 

I’m not a big Wilmot Brookings fan, so I didn’t have much good to say about the guy. 

I told Andrew that I believed Brookings should be renamed Mathews, honoring a former local attorney, George Mathews. You should be reading this column in the Mathews Register.

Mathews was married to Mrs. Horace Fishback Sr.’s sister and lived in the beautiful home where Pat and Bob Fishback reside today.

Mathews was a tireless Brookings advocate. He was our first mayor.    

Then there’s Wilmot Brookings. 

He was in Brookings just once in his life – some say maybe twice.  

Even giving him that, it sure doesn’t qualify him as one of the town’s favorite sons or a big local mover and shaker. In fact, the editor of The Brookings Post years ago called Judge Brookings “a sorehead.” 

Brookings, the man, had wooden legs, the result of an accident in January 1858 while he was traveling in a blizzard from Sioux Falls to Yankton for Dakota Territory’s legislative session. 

His horse slipped crossing appropriately named Slip Rock Creek. Brookings was thoroughly dunked. By the time he and his horse got back to Sioux Fall, his legs were frozen stiff as tent poles and had to be amputated. 

He was fitted with wooden prostheses complete with hinges. It is said he squeaked when he walked unless properly oiled up. 

Brookings was a railroad man and land developer. Other wealthy men on a distant board of directors gave Brookings City its name, honoring one of their own. 

It was common practice for the big wigs. They named towns along their railroad lines after themselves, their wives, their sons and daughters and maybe even their dogs.

The “judge” preceding Brookings’ name wasn’t in recognition of his judicial expertise, although he was a lawyer. It was a title he received after serving on the Dakota Territorial Supreme Court, a political plum he got from President Grant in 1869.

His one known visit to Brookings was in 1882. He squeaked into town to expound upon his qualifications as he sought votes to be elected as the Dakota Territorial delegate to Congress. 

The Brookings Sentinel reported that while his speech here was billed to be on the “interests of Dakota,” it became a litany on the “interests of the judge himself.”

Reported The Sentinel: “He delivered his speech with as much vigor as if he was addressing thousands instead of dozens. The speech was eloquent, the audience attentive and the meeting adjourned with no harm done.” 

The competing Brookings Press wasn’t as kind. Wrote Editor George Hopp: “... his was a very poor harangue ... and an egotistical, bombastical [sic] eulogy pronounced upon himself. It was the worst tooting of one’s own horn ever heard in our town.” 

Brookings voters apparently weren’t much impressed, either. Brookings, the man, got 178 votes here. His opponent garnered 1,125.

Brookings left railroading and became a banker. He dabbled in Sioux Falls real estate, published the Sioux Falls Argus Leader from 1883 to 1885, and owned a canning factory and a linen mill there.

Born in Maine on Oct. 23, 1830, he graduated from Bowdoin College in 1857. With others he established the Western Town Lot Company.

In 1907 on a visit back east, he died while riding in a Boston streetcar.  

His last requested was that he be cremated and his remains buried in South Dakota. But that didn’t happen in the town bearing his name.

He’s buried in Yankton at his request, where his political clout, his money and an occasional knee squeak, often reverberated. 

Next week in this Mathews Register, I’ll tell you what George Mathews did for our little town on the prairie.

If you’d like to comment, email the author at cfcecil@swiftel.net.