Governor # 8: Frank M. Byrne

Pierre, South Dakota

In office 1913-1917

Frank Byrne arrived in South Dakota in 1879 when he drove a team of oxen From Iowa to Sioux Falls. Years later, as governor, he oversaw the first planning and construction of the state highway system, abolished capital punishment, and, in 1914, established the state buffalo herd.

Byrne's statue, by sculptor James Michael Maher, stresses his self-education (His rural school teacher was Coe Crawford, also a future South Dakota governor). The statue shows a studious Byrne reading a passage from the meditations of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius on the transitory nature of fame.

Transitory, that is, unless you're famous enough to be turned into a bronze statue on the Trail of Governors.