Technical School, Sioux Falls Army Air Field

This handbook contains information about the Technical School, Sioux Falls Army Air Field, Sioux Falls, S. D., and its many services for the school personnel, including telephone service. Also, there is a map of Sioux Falls and city information which may be helpful to you.

I am here at the School to help you get the best telephone service that is possible under difficult wartime conditions. Telephone lines are crowded as never before and the materials required to build more lines are going into military equipment and munitions. We will do our best for you with the lines and equipment available.

Sioux Falls, largest city in South Dakota, is located at the falls of the Sioux river, named after the warlike Sioux Indians and called by them “Te-han-kas-an-data” or “Thickly-wooded-river.”

White men found this part of the country occupied by the Dakotas, the most powerful member of the great Sioux family. Here these hard-riding, hard-fighting Indians hunted buffalo and battled intruders. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were among their great war chiefs; Custer’s Massacre is their best known victory over the white men.

Sioux Falls was first settled in 1857, but after the Sioux Massacre in southern Minnesota in 1862, it was abandoned until 1865 when Fort Dakota was established at this site. The present city dates from the coming of the soldiers who afforded protection for pioneer settlers.

The Technical School, Sioux Falls Army Air Field, adjoins the residence part of Sioux Falls on the northwest. Started in the summer of 1942, it is one of the largest training schools of its kind anywhere.