Benjamin Reifel, or "Lone Feather" born September 19, 1906 in a log cabin on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, near Parmelee, South Dakota, was the first Native American to be elected to the US Congress. His mother was a Lakota Sioux and he became a public administrator and politician for the Lakota Sioux tribe.
He worked for the Department of the Interior starting in 1933 and served during WWII, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel. He retired from the South Dakota area administrator of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in March 1960 and ran for Congress. He was elected to the 87th Congress and served four more turns, from January 1961-January 1971.
He passed away from cancer in January 1990.
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