Pumpkin Riots of 1923

By far the city’s most tumultuous moment came in the form of the Pumpkin Riots of 1923, a four-day outbreak of violence and looting. They began in the town's Falls Park on October 16, before spilling out into the main commercial district and surrounding lower-class neighborhoods, and ended on October 19. Tension among the town's residents had been escalating for several months over the threat of a pumpkin shortage due to inhospitable weather conditions in the Great Plains prairie regions. The region had only begun to recover from a severe plague of grasshoppers two decades prior. There is dispute over how the unrest began. One common version is that the riots began on the evening of October 16 after a young boy named Patrick Stanton stole a pumpkin from a vendor at a farmer's market in Falls Park, located just north of downtown alongside the Big Sioux River. Stanton was purportedly bringing home the pumpkin to his sick mother, Martha, who was suffering from tuberculosis. At the sight of the young boy running away with the pumpkins, other residents followed suit, operating under the assumption that the farmer's market was running out of usable gourds, and so absconding with the pumpkins before none were left. Other versions contend the myth of Stanton was invented by citizens after the riots, in an effort to make sense of the events for young children. The riots spread from Falls Park into the town's warehouse and meatpacking districts, both of which suffered disastrous fire damage as mobs took to the streets in protest. The Morrell meatpacking plant and nearby stockyards were completely destroyed. Five people died in the riots, 28 people were reported injured, hundreds were arrested, and countless local businesses were forced to shut down from the looting and irreparable fire damage.

External Tubes

 * Sioux Falls Historical Society