In 1952, the waters of the Missouri River rose behind the newly closed Fort Randall Dam, creating a huge reservoir later named Lake Francis Case and completely inundating White Swan, a traditional and self-sustaining community on the Yankton Indian Reservation. Other reservations in South Dakota had been or would be affected by the system of large dams that the United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed on the Missouri River between 1945 and 1966. Tribal communities such as Lower Brule, Fort Thompson, and Cheyenne Agency were moved to higher ground and reestablished. The White Swan community, however, was completely dissolved and its residents dispersed to whatever areas offered housing or land, including communities on other Sioux reservations. Those former residents of White Swan still living retain fond and vivid memories of their predam homeland and recall the trauma of being forced to break connections with their environment, their neighbors, and their past. The Army Corps of Engineers seized their property by right of eminent domain, and the federal government generally failed to provide them with either fair compensation or support adequate to reestablish themselves in a similar environment. Many community members never fully recovered either emotionally or financially from the obliteration of White Swan.