Wayne Fanebust

Topics: American Old West, Black Hills, Civil War, History, Native American, South Dakota, Veterans/Military History

Community: Sioux Falls

Program Types: Speakers Bureau

wfanebust@gmail.com | 605-496-8730

No Justice for Agnes
This presentation based on Fanebust’s book of the same title deals with the tragic American experience of 16-year-old Agnes Polreis, an immigrant from Austria-Hungary who died June 1, 1906, at the Sioux Falls Hospital. Agnes had been employed as the live-in maid of Emma Kaufmann who was arrested for murder after it was discovered that Agnes had been buried with forty-nine wounds on her body. There were two trials amid scandalous national newspaper coverage.

Chasing Frank and Jesse James
Fanebust’s talk reveals their improbable and amazing escape through southwestern Minnesota, Dakota Territory and Iowa, following their botched bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota. The Younger brothers and other members of the gang were either shot or arrested and jailed. Not so for the James brothers who were never apprehended. Special emphasis will be given to the mythical story regarding the jump across Devil’s Gulch near Garretson, SD.

Outlaw Dakota
This presentation is based on Fanebust’s book about the criminal justice system in Dakota Territory as seen through the life and lens of Peter C. Shannon, chief justice on the Dakota Territorial Supreme Court from 1873 to 1882. Shannon presided over many noteworthy trials, some that received national attention, including the trial of Jack McCall for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood in 1876.

Senator R. F. Pettigrew
This program is based on Fanebust’s biography of Senator Pettigrew, who along with G. C. Moody, was chosen as one of the first two U. S. senators when South Dakota was admitted to the Union in 1889. Prior to that Pettigrew had been a frontiersman, a Sioux Falls booster and a member of the territorial legislature.