Ionia Volcano

#Wednesday

From Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail:

Unless you’re from Nebraska, you’ve probably never heard of the Ionia Volcano. 

On August 24, 1804, the men of the Expedition traveled up the Missouri River, passing a bluff that caught their attention. Clark wrote that it appeared to be on fire and still very hot: “we Set out at the usial time and proceeded to the Commencement of a blue Clay Bluff of 180 or 190 feet high on the L.S. Those Bluffs appear to have been latterly on fire, and at this time is too hot for a man to bear his hand in the earth at any depth.”

Later, fur traders frequently noticed dense smoke and fire in the area. In 1839, J.N. Nicollet attempted to prove that the phenomena were not of volcanic nature – he theorized that the decomposition of beds of iron pyrites in contact with the river water resulted in a heat capable of igniting other combustible materials (a reaction similar to what happens in those little pouch hand warmers we often use today).

But prior to Nicollet’s theory, early settlers continued to refer to the bluff as Ionia Volcano, giving it the name based on the nearby village of Ionia. An earthquake in 1877 aroused new fears of an impending volcanic eruption and in 1878, the Missouri flooded and eroded the bluffs with a large section falling into the river. The flood nearly destroyed the village of Ionia and volcano “stories” soon died out after the Ionia post office closed in 1907.

Ionia was located northeast of present day Newcastle, which is about 15 miles south of Vermillion, South Dakota. 




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