The honey-producing and hog-butchering center of Sioux City (pop. 85,013) is not most people’s idea of a vacation treat, but it does offer a few diversions to the road-tripping traveler. Grain elevators and huge brick warehouses fill the riverfront district, an immaculately restored City Hall dominates downtown, and the gorgeous brick and glass-block Sioux City Art Center (daily; free; 712/279-6272) at 2nd and Nebraska includes pieces by Grant Wood, Salvador Dali, David Hockney, and James McNeill Whistler. The Sioux City Public Museum (daily; free; 712/279-6174), a mile north of downtown at 2901 Jackson Street, fills an 1890s mansion with all the usual displays tracing the Native American, pioneer, and agricultural histories of the area.
Lewis and Clark buffs will also want to stop south of Sioux City at the Floyd Monument, where a 100-foot stone obelisk marks the place where expedition member Sgt. Charles Floyd—the Corps of Discovery’s only fatality—died of appendicitis in August 1804, two months after setting off from St. Louis. Besides the historical homage, the site offers a great panorama of the Missouri River. Fact collectors might want to know that this little-known marker was the first official National Historic Landmark in the United States.
