top of page

Chessboard

Date: 1860

 

Description: This chess/checkers board was made by Louis Dace Letellier, another early settler from Sioux City. According to the label attached to it, this board was used by many of Sioux City’s early greats, including Theophile Bruguier, Joseph Leonais, Dr. John Cook, and Letellier himself. Frontier life was taxing, and there was usually little time for recreational activities. However, learned men like these could devote some of this precious time to intellectual games like chess. Chess games could help facilitate relationships between people on the frontier, as often these people lived far away from each other and may have seen each other rarely. As cities like Sioux City were founded people could live closer together, but chess still remained a conventional pastime. The pieces shown here hand carved by Dr. James A. Ross, a medical doctor in Sioux City during the Civil War.

 

Donor: Dace G. Letellier

© 2015 by the Sioux City Public Museum. Museum website

  • Facebook Social Icon

All images used on this site are copyrighted by the Sioux City Public Museum. Images may not be copied, shared, or used without proper permissions. To obtain or use in any manner any of these images, please contact the Sioux City Public Museum.

The Sioux City Public Museum's Virtual Collections site is made possible by the generous support of the Gilchrist Foundation.

bottom of page