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Hot Water and Old Bones

By John Andrews

Last summer our family spent an afternoon at Evans Plunge in Hot Springs. Its warm-water pools have attracted people for decades, but it was the first time we had ever been there. I wasn’t prepared for the rocky bottom in the main pool, but the kids enjoyed the water slides, games and watching other swimmers try to cross the width of the pool Tarzan-style by swinging from ring to ring (neither of them were tall enough to try on their own).

Hot Springs is the seat of Fall River County, which encompasses 1,749 square miles in the far southwestern corner of South Dakota. As is the case with much of arid West River, rain is tough to come by. The county averages 20 inches or less of rain a year, which is why it seems so remarkable that water played such a tremendous impact on life in that part of the state.

We can say it began 26,000 years ago, when an enormous sinkhole formed on what would eventually become the southern edge of Hot Springs. The prehistoric creatures that roamed the continent — mammoths, giant short-faced bears, camels — ventured to the oasis to drink, only to discover its banks were too slippery to ascend. They died and were buried there, lost for millennia.

Visitors file past mammoth bones that lay buried for thousands of years. Photo by Chad Coppess/S.D. Tourism.

Then in 1974, Philip and Elenora Anderson began to develop that land for a housing project. Dirt work stopped immediately when a bulldozer unearthed a huge tusk. The Andersons donated the land to a nonprofit organization that built an enclosure over the site. Dr. Larry Agenbroad of Chadron State University in Nebraska oversaw the initial paleontological work there and stayed until his death in 2014. Today, visitors can stroll through the 23,000-square-foot Mammoth Site on walkways that provide views of volunteers working to expose fossils. The most recent count says that scientists and volunteers have discovered 61 mammoths, plus fossils from other land and sea creatures.

Fred Evans capitalized on water when he arrived in the Black Hills in about 1875 and heard about Minnekahta, or the warm water springs where Native Americans sought healing. The springs that eventually became Evans Plunge had a relatively inauspicious beginning. One early settler who owned the land on which the main spring is found reportedly sold it for a horse valued at $35. Evans built a grand sandstone hotel and enclosed the spring in 1890. He advertised its mineral waters, flowing from the earth at a steady 87 degrees, as a cure-all.

Hot Springs’ Freedom Trail follows the Fall River through town.

People came from throughout the country to test the springs’ medicinal qualities. The wife of a Nebraska senator visited and returned home feeling like a new woman.”Mrs. Paddock has fully recovered after many years of suffering, a result wholly due to the mineral properties of the Hot Springs water,” reported the Hot Springs Star. I don’t recall feeling particularly rejuvenated after our visit last summer, but the fun we had surely did something for our spirits.

If water could make a Fall River County town, it could also break it. A few years ago, a freelance photographer submitted a batch of photos he’d taken on a trip through Ardmore in the far southern reaches of the county. He thought at the time that maybe a couple of people still lived there, but it seems to be considered a ghost town today. Old cars, buildings and even the town’s water tower still stand, but there’s no life to be seen. Ardmore sprang up as a railroad town in 1889, but water was scarce. Hat Creek proved an unreliable source. A train car brought the last load of water into town more than 40 years ago. Still, Ardmore holds a special place for the people who grew up there. They still comment on the photo gallery we created from that batch of photos, almost four years after we originally posted it.

Old cars and a water tower are among the remains of Ardmore. Photo by Joel Schwader.

Fall River County is also the source of some historical oddities. The community of Igloo was created in the early 1940s when the U.S. Department of Defense located the Black Hills Ordnance Depot in rural Fall River County. Hundreds of dome-shaped structures resembling igloos began to rise across the prairie. Thousands of people lived at Igloo until the government cut the depot’s funding in 1967. Look closely when you pass on Highway 471; the strange ruins are still visible.

The canyons around Edgemont are home to mysterious petroglyphs that are thousands of years old. Several years ago, I talked to John Koller, who grew up on a 2.500-acre ranch along the Cheyenne River east of Edgemont.”I was told they were there, but as a kid out here, you work,” he said.”So when you pick up a rock and throw it at a cow to get it out of a box canyon, you don’t have time to stop and look at these wonderful finds. I crawled around these petroglyphs all the time, but didn’t pay attention.”

Later in life he began to appreciate the ancient art that surrounded him. He estimated one drawing to be at least 8,000 years old, while others were between 2,500 and 3,000 years old.

Hundreds of dome-shaped structures were constructed when the Black Hills Ordnance Depot located in rural Fall River County in the 1940s.

Perhaps the most interesting oddity I discovered while poking around Fall River County is a map that Hot Springs businessman Orlando Ferguson used to support his theory that the earth was square and stationary. Ferguson had the map printed in 1893. It resembles a bundt cake pan turned upside down. The continents and oceans lie around an indented ring, while the North Pole is raised in the center. The sun and moon are attached to an actual pole rising from that point.

His astronomical principles were based on a very literal interpretation of the Bible, beginning with the reference to angels visiting the four corners of the earth. From there, he developed his square and stationary idea. He claimed the sun was 30 miles in diameter and just 3,000 miles from earth. His reasoning? If you stand at the equator on March 21, when the sun is directly overhead, then the distance you can walk north or south without casting a shadow is equal to the diameter of the sun.

He also shunned the idea of gravity. Instead he thought atmospheric pressure held people down and pushed the oceans up the sides of his indented map. Stop by the Pioneer Museum and take a look at the map and a pamphlet he had printed. Chances are you won’t buy what Ferguson was selling, but there are plenty of other natural and historical wonders to be found in Fall River County.

Editor’s Note: This is the 34th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Inspired by McCook County

By John Andrews

We drive Highway 81 when we travel from Yankton to my hometown of Lake Norden. Whenever we approach Salem, my 10-year-old daughter scans the skyline for the steeple of St. Mary’s Catholic Church. Monsignor Bernard Weber oversaw construction of the pink quartzite church in 1898. I suspect the stately steeple stood out on a prairie vista that included just a few trees and Salem’s early buildings. Perhaps it acted as a source of inspiration for the early settlers of McCook County, whose descendants seem to have carried on the desire to provide hope and help to others.

McCook County was established in 1873 and named for Edwin McCook, the secretary of Dakota Territory. McCook belonged to the famous”Fighting McCooks” family from Ohio whose dedication to the Union was unparalleled. Brothers Daniel and John McCook all served in the war, as did 13 of their sons. McCook saw action in battles at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson and in the Vicksburg, Chattanooga and Atlanta campaigns and was severely wounded three times.

He was appointed secretary of Dakota Territory in 1872. The following year, a dispute over the Dakota Southern Railroad put him at odds with Yankton banker Peter Wintermute, who shot and killed McCook over the disagreement at a meeting in downtown Yankton in September of 1873.

McCook County covers 577 square miles halfway between Mitchell and Sioux Falls. Interstate 90 bisects it from west to east, and Highway 81 halves it from north to south. Salem, the county seat with the noticeable church steeple, sits just north of that busy intersection. Another source of inspiration is found in Canistota, south of the interstate and east of 81.

Salem is the seat of McCook County. The steeple of St. Mary’s Catholic Church can be seen in the lower left corner.

In the early 1900s, farmer Amon Ortman discovered that his hands possessed a healing touch. When his work was done in the fields, he often encountered friends or neighbors complaining of a sore neck or other such malady. He’d have them sit on a wagon tongue or a bucket and provide relief as only he could. His unique touch turned Canistota into a destination for people around the world who seek treatment. Since Amon and his brother Noah opened the Ortman Clinic, four generations of Ortmans have treated more than 3 million patients. The influx gives the town of 600 a steady boost.

Canistotans can also learn a lesson in entrepreneurship from Tom and Ruth Neuberger. In 1984, they fattened 3,500 geese and then found themselves without a market. They decided to process the birds and hit the road in a refrigerated bus, selling town to town. Their formula became a huge success, and the Goosemobile has crisscrossed the state hundreds of times.

John Alvarez and his wife, Dee Ann, run My Fishing Pond, a therapeutic retreat near Bridgewater.

Across the county in Bridgewater, John Alvarez uses fishing to help brain injury survivors. Alvarez survived a horrific car accident in 1994 near Tucson, Arizona, but was left with a severe brain injury. He had to relearn basic skills and grew frustrated living in a busy urban environment. So he and his wife Dee Ann moved to a small acreage near her hometown of Bridgewater where Alvarez spent quiet days casting for bullheads in nearby Wolf Creek. Realizing the therapeutic value of fishing, Alvarez created My Fishing Pond, a non-profit organization that invites fellow brain injury survivors, children with special needs or the elderly to catch and release fish.

You no doubt remember the 1989 movie Field of Dreams, about an Iowa farmer who upon hearing strange voices in his cornfield builds a baseball diamond. Well, a friend of mine was recently driving through tiny Center, just south of the intersection of 245th Street and 443rd Avenue, and was surprised to find a similarly well-tended baseball field. The Center Ball Diamond became a reality in 1958, when a group of local softball players decided they wanted a ballpark near their rural homes. McCook Electric installed light poles in the middle of what was then a hayfield and the park began taking shape. More softball teams formed and soon there was a rousing league. Between concession stand sales, league dues and services donated, the park eventually became self sufficient — McCook County’s own field of dreams.

Canistota farmer Tom Neuberger started the Goosemobile in 1984.

The tiny hamlet of Center is also the setting for one of my favorite South Dakota baseball stories. The Center Store did solid business during the 1930s, and in the fall during pheasant season it wasn’t unusual to spot a celebrity or two who had come to South Dakota for a hunting excursion. Bob Feller, star pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, hunted every year between Center and Howard with his uncle, who delivered gas and oil to the store.

One day, a middle-aged hunter who nobody recognized walked in. Kenny Knutson, a local farmer on his way home from a baseball game in Salem and still in uniform, happened to be inside.

“I see you’re a ball player,” the visitor said.”I used to play a little ball myself.”

“Yeah, when?” Knutson asked, looking and the old hunter with doubtful eyes.

“It was a few years back. Maybe you’ve heard of me. I’m Ty Cobb.”

“Oh, sure, and I’m Babe Ruth!”

Wayne Porter’s 60-foot-tall longhorn towers over the prairie along Interstate 90 near Montrose. Photo by Stacey Stoddard/S.D. Tourism.

But it was true. Cobb, who had retired in 1928 after 24 seasons with the Detroit Tigers and the Philadelphia Athletics and was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, didn’t say another word. He just pulled out his hunting license and presented it to the gape-mouthed Kenny.

Wayne Porter is also living his dream in McCook County. He’s the creative force behind the Porter Sculpture Park, and eclectic mix of scrap iron creations that can be seen near the Montrose exit along Interstate 90. You’ll spot dragons, butterflies, vultures and a man’s head with a hand emerging from the top. Maybe the least out-of-place is the 60-foot-tall longhorn.

But perhaps the saddest source of inspiration comes from Spencer, a town that made headlines worldwide in May of 1998 when a monstrous tornado destroyed the town. I had just graduated from high school, but I remember people traveling there to help with the clean up. Six people were killed and several more displaced. The town’s population never rebounded to the pre-tornado estimate of 315, but many residents stayed, refusing to let Mother Nature control their lives. Spencer is now home to about 150 people.

As someone who simply passes through from time to time, I never really thought about all the inspiring people and places to be found in McCook County. But the 5,600 folks who live there see it every day — in a quartzite church steeple, the ball field in the middle of nowhere and that 60-foot longhorn.

Editor’s Note: This is the 33rd installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Pennington Revisited

By John Andrews

Ten years ago, Jerry Wilson, the former managing editor of South Dakota Magazine, wrote an article about the incredible geographic diversity found in Pennington County. Its western edge begins in the heart of the Black Hills. As you travel east, the second largest city in South Dakota — Rapid City — sprawls along the eastern foothills. The landscape gradually gives way to ranch country, the Badlands, the Buffalo Gap National Grassland and the Lakota culture of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, which sits directly across Pennington’s southeastern boundary.

We last visited Pennington County several months ago for a family vacation, and you’ll not be surprised to learn that all of those characteristics remain true. The Badlands haven’t disappeared and the Black Hills are still there, though there have been some monumental changes since the county was created in 1875. In its 142 years, Pennington County has become South Dakota’s prime tourist destination, with millions of travelers making plans to visit every year.

Badlands National Park protects over 240,000 acres of rugged landscape that spills into Pennington County.

Tourism likely wasn’t on the minds of territorial legislators when they created Pennington, Lawrence and Custer counties in one fell swoop, but current governor and county namesake John Pennington saw the move as way to help his friends and line his pockets. The governor named several of his closest allies in Yankton to lead offices in the new county rather than fill those positions with people who lived in the area. The slight became worse when the new officials chose to stay in Yankton instead of moving west. Rumors of corruption escalated even further when Pennington selected Sheridan over Rapid City as the new county seat. It was believed that Pennington held real estate near Sheridan, and its value was sure to increase with the town’s elevated status.

Locally elected officials soon replaced Pennington’s appointments, and the county seat was eventually relocated to Rapid City. But the governor remained unpopular in the Black Hills until William Howard succeeded him in 1878. Shady as his dealings may have been, we do hold a soft spot for Pennington since we publish South Dakota Magazine in his home, an 1875 brick Italianate building on the east end of Yankton’s Third Street. It’s the only territorial governor’s home remaining in South Dakota. Readers are welcome to stop by for a tour when they’re in town.

Our trip into Pennington County began on the Badlands Loop Road, a 31-mile detour off Interstate 90 that provides several scenic overviews of a landscape millions of years in the making. The kids enjoyed venturing out onto short trails, taking note of the”Watch for Rattlesnake” signs. Every now and then they would head off-trail, skipping over narrow chasms and climbing precarious points.

Mount Rushmore draws nearly 3 million visitors every year.

The Badlands Loop Road met Interstate 90 again at Wall, which meant a stop at Wall Drug. We spent a couple of hours perusing the many shops. I don’t think the kids believed that it all began with signs for free ice water, enticing motorists to stop at the town’s tiny drug store. I was impressed by the huge collection of original Western paintings that hang throughout the complex.

Our first morning in Rapid City began with coffee at the historic Fairmont Creamery building. Constructed in 1929, the space has undergone extensive renovations and now hosts several businesses, including Pure Bean.

Fully caffeinated, we made our way to Mount Rushmore, the grand jewel of tourism for Pennington County. Roughly 3 million people visit the national memorial every year. I’ve written a few stories covering different angles of Mount Rushmore, but it was nice to simply view the granite heads from the observation deck and to stroll along the Presidential Trail through the pines and see the sculpture from new perspectives.

Ellie Andrews served time in Presidential Pawn’s fictitious jail.

Back in Rapid City for the afternoon, we explored the lively downtown district, anchored by the new Main Street Square. Children laughed and splashed in the fountain while families lounged in the green space. We strolled the vibrant and ever-changing Art Alley, where business-owners gladly allow the drab back halves of their buildings to become colorful street paintings. We saw the world’s smallest taxidermied dog inside Presidential Pawn and enjoyed a meal at the Firehouse, Rapid City’s original fire station converted into a restaurant and brewpub.

For part of our trip, we stayed at Newton Fork Ranch, a former working ranch that has been converted in a series of cabins set about a mile outside of Hill City. From here, we had easy access to Prairie Berry Winery, the Miner Brewing Company and the 1880 Train, which travels round trip from Hill City to Keystone along the old Chicago, Burlington and Quincy line.

We took advantage of other popular stops in Pennington County. We traveled through Bear Country and saw mountain lions, timber wolves in captivity, and bears as they sauntered past our car. There were doubts about whether or not some in our party would be able to successfully navigate the crooked cabins of the Cosmos Mystery Area, but once the surroundings stopped spinning and the nausea became tolerable, everyone completed the tour. The Cosmos is a very weird place where tennis balls appear to roll uphill, and uneven ground proves to be completely level. Two college students discovered the peculiar place in 1952 as they searched for land on which to build a summer cabin. They immediately noticed the unusual forces and created demonstrations that have confused visitors ever since. But it really isn’t for everyone. Several people on our tour seriously struggled with balance and a few even mentioned headaches.

Joe Andrews enjoys a leisurely ride on the 1880 Train.

That sounds like a busy trip, but we truly only scratched the surface of things to do in Pennington County. We missed the amazing museum at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, and Reptile Gardens just south of Rapid City. We could have spent a day at Pactola or Deerfield lakes or made the pilgrimage to the top of Black Elk Peak, the highest point in South Dakota and the tallest peak in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. When we were there, the promontory was still known as Harney Peak, in honor of Gen. William Harney, a 19th century military commander stationed in the area. But in August 2016, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names changed the moniker to Black Elk Peak for the legendary Lakota holy man whose vision quest atop the mountain was immortalized in John Neihardt’s classic book Black Elk Speaks.

Missing out on all of those other activities simply means another trip is in order, perhaps in the summer of 2017. And I bet the ponderosa pines, the rugged Badlands, doughnuts and coffee at Wall Drug and the four granite faces of Mount Rushmore will still be there, waiting for us.

Editor’s Note: This is the 32nd installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Keeping Tabs on Jerauld County

By John Andrews

The Wessington Springs True Dakotan is one of a handful of South Dakota weekly newspapers that comes to our Yankton office, so I feel like I stay up to speed with happenings in Jerauld County more so than many other places in the state. For example, I recently read that the Carnegie Library director in Springs (you don’t need to say”Wessington” if you’re a local) is retiring. She is only the fourth director in the library’s nearly 100-year history. It was built in 1918, the last Carnegie Library constructed in South Dakota, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places because of its unique prairie-style architecture (most other Carnegies were built in the beaux arts style).

Speaking of libraries, a new Little Free Library opened this past fall in the city park in Alpena. There was a nice photo of the town’s children gathered around the book receptacle. Another issue from about that same time told of Alpena gardeners Wayne and Vicki Mees, who were surprised one day to find that one of their pumpkin plants had sent a runner up the trunk of an evergreen tree. Before they knew it, a bright orange pumpkin was growing about 6 feet off the ground.

The Anne Hathaway Cottage in Wessington Springs is modeled after the English home of William Shakespeare’s wife.

And last summer the Jerauld County Heritage Museum hosted a fashion show in which students modeled clothing that their ancestors and other town pioneers had donated. I thought it was a fun way to raise money for the museum and the historic 1905 Opera House.

You get the idea. Sometimes I feel like the character in the old Andy Griffith Show who subscribes to the Mayberry newspaper and comes to feel like he knows everyone in town. I’m not to the point of wanting to move there, but it gives me some sense of familiarity when passing through and exploring other parts of the county.

Jerauld County was officially organized in 1883 and named for H.A. Jerauld, a lawmaker from Canton who played an important role in moving the territorial capital from Yankton to Bismarck. Jerauld served on the 12-member territorial council that decided the fate of the capital removal bill. The vote was deadlocked at 6-6 with Jerauld firmly opposed until suddenly he switched his vote. No doubt the Bismarck contingent exerted enough pressure (and enough money probably changed hands) to alter Jerauld’s perspective.

The Old Grade Nature Trail features trees as many as 300 years old.

The county boasts three towns, but it nearly became two several years ago. A dispute over property taxes in Lane, a town of about 50 people along Highway 34, led to a vote on whether or not to dissolve. Residents decided overwhelmingly to retain their status as a town. I also seem to recall Lane being the destination for a teenage excursion, sort of like the Zap to Zip in North Dakota, or the Whip to White northeast of Brookings. If anyone remembers, feel free to start a conversation in the comments.

The town of Alpena is slightly larger (population 286) and is probably best known for its Jack Link’s beef jerky plant. The company is based in Wisconsin, but its Alpena production facility is its largest and employs close to 900 people. Alpena is largely a farming town with a fairly new restaurant and, of course, a new little library.

Jerauld County’s largest town is Wessington Springs (pop. 956). It was platted in 1881, and because of its location at the foot of the Wessington Hills — a crescent-shaped geological formation that curves through the county — it grew to become the region’s dominant municipality.

The area’s first settler was Levi Hain, who built a cabin near a site called Big Springs in 1876, but there was traffic nearly 20 years earlier. The spot was a stopping point on the Nobles Trail, considered the first road through present-day South Dakota. Built in the late 1850s, the Nobles Trail was named for Col. W.H. Nobles and was meant to be the main overland trail from St. Paul, Minnesota to the southern pass of the Rocky Mountains, but it never materialized as its developers had hoped.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote a letter to local school children in 1951. It is housed in the Jerauld County Heritage Museum.

Among the treasures found in Wessington Springs today are the Anne Hathaway Cottage and Shakespeare Garden. The touch of England is courtesy of Clark and Emma Shay, longtime professors at the Wessington Springs Seminary. Emma toured England in 1926, and the next year she and her husband built the garden near the school’s administration building. When they retired in 1932, they built the Anne Hathaway Cottage, modeled after the original home of Shakespeare’s wife in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The garden was a popular attraction until the college closed in the 1960s. The school was demolished in 1970 to make way for a housing project, but the garden and cottage remained. Locals organized the Shakespeare Garden Society in 1989 to buy and restore them.

Other historic buildings include the 1905 Opera House and Gov. Robert Vessey’s home on College Avenue. Vessey’s claim to fame came in 1909, when a woman in Philadelphia wrote to every state governor lobbying for day in which honor mothers. On April 9, 1909, Vessey became the first governor to establish a special Mother’s Day. President Woodrow Wilson made it a national observance in 1913.

The town also has a unique nature trail accentuated by trees that are several hundred years old. There are actually three trails that begin near downtown, but the one that ascends into the hills west of town is called the Old Grade Nature Trail. Lowell Stanley, a retired science teacher, helped establish the trail with Terry Heilman, a soil conservationist, in 1990. An oak tree along the route was core tested and dated to 1717. There are cottonwoods planted by the town’s earliest settlers and an old stone bridge built in 1895 by a mason who used no mortar in its construction.

History buffs may want to stop at the Jerauld County Heritage Museum to see a handwritten note from famed children’s author Laura Ingalls Wilder. Dated Feb. 26, 1951, the letter is a response to note she received from students at the Sefrna rural school near Crow Lake. Wilder discussed her family, her books and her desire to write again.

I’ll have to head that way again when the weather warms. I haven’t played golf at the Wessington Springs course in several years, and I’ve been hearing good things about the pork wings at the Red Hog Bar and Grill in Alpena. I’m fairly certain that pigs cannot fly, but if they do in Jerauld County I’m sure the True Dakotan will be on the spot.

Editor’s Note: This is the 31st installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Built on Fur

By John Andrews

Phil Steckley and the Newhouse No. 6.

I remember clearly walking into a shed on Phil Steckley’s farm south of Geddes. We had traveled into Charles Mix County to do a story on the rich fur trading culture that had grown there over the last two centuries, and to find people still living it out.

Steckley had traps of all shapes and sizes hanging on the walls. The largest was a Newhouse No. 6 that he said he’d used to trap a bear during an excursion north into Canada and Alaska. When I asked what they’d done with it, Steckley looked as though I’d asked if the sky was blue.”Well,” he said, somewhat incredulously,”we ate him!”

The fur trade in Charles Mix County dates back more than 220 years. Jean Baptiste Trudeau became the first European to establish a permanent residence there in 1794 when he built a trading post called the Pawnee House along the Missouri River southwest of Wagner. The French Canadian had been the first schoolteacher in St. Louis when the Missouri Company chose him to lead an expedition up the Missouri River, make contact with Indian tribes and create an agency.

Lewis and Clark mentioned Pawnee House in their journals when they passed by during their 1804 expedition up the river. Fire destroyed the structure in 1817, but by then the fur culture was firmly entrenched in the area.

Some remnants of the fur trading hey day can still be found. The town of Geddes celebrates Fur Traders’ Days every summer, and guests can tour a trading post that Cuthbert Ducharme built in 1857. Ducharme, also known as Old Papineau, came from a fur trading family in Quebec. He worked for the American Fur Company and gained a reputation as a man who was prone to violence. It was said that a small cemetery outside the post was reserved for all the men Ducharme had killed.

Ilo Vanderboom sweeping the streets of Platte.

Old Paps’ roadhouse stands in the Geddes Historical Village, alongside an old WNAX gas station, a replica Lewis and Clark keelboat and the childhood home of former governor and senator Peter Norbeck. The legend of Papineau’s gold survives, as well. Ducharme apparently grew rich and gave his wife $50,000 in gold in case anything happened to him. She buried the money, but when she died in 1900 the location became a mystery. The legend says Ducharme drove himself insane trying to find the money. He suffered a breakdown and died at the state hospital in Yankton in 1903. Did the endless search for lost treasure lead to his demise, or what is simply the result of a hard life on the frontier?

Papineau’s trading post also served as the first post office in the new county of Charles Mix. Organization began in earnest in 1858 when Theophile Brughier, Charles Picotte and John B.S. Todd — a cousin of Mary Todd Lincoln who was stationed with the U.S. Army at Fort Randall, just across the Missouri River — grew the idea of opening the land to settlers. The region was already home to the Yankton Sioux Tribe, so the speculators took a delegation from Yankton to Washington, D.C., hoping to finalize a treaty. They met Charles Mix, a clerk in the Interior Department who had connections within the Bureau of Indian Affairs and in the administration. In return for his help navigating the treaty through Congress, the new county was named in Mix’s honor upon its creation in 1862.

Charles Mix is still home to the Yankton Sioux Reservation, which encompasses 262,000 acres in the southern half of the county. A monument north of Greenwood commemorates the Treaty of 1858, and the famed Yankton chief Struck by the Ree, who died at Greenwood in 1888, is buried just north of that marker. The town of Marty is home to Ihanktonwan Community College and the architecturally impressive St. Paul’s Church. Students built pews and railings for the grand, limestone chapel, completed in 1942. The church’s spire rises 167 feet, while traditional Indian colors and themes are woven throughout the stained glass windows, murals and ceiling artwork.

The gravesite of Struck by the Ree. Photo by Chad Coppess/S.D. Tourism.

Wagner, at just over 1,500 people, is the largest town in Charles Mix County. It’s especially known for its Labor Day celebration, a four-day gathering of fun, games, music and a grand parade down Highway 46. Lake Andes is the county seat, and the 5,600-acre national wildlife refuge east of town is home to a wide variety of wildlife.

Platte, in northern Charles Mix, is home to another 1,300 people. We visited during the summer of 2004 and one of the first faces we saw was Ilo Vanderboom’s. He created the popular Boom’s restaurants found in southeastern South Dakota, but they day we showed up in Platte he was piloting a street sweeper, intent on keeping his town clean. We found busy bakery, a movie theater and a baseball field where the Platte Killer Tomatoes (maybe the best nickname in all of South Dakota Amateur Baseball?) play their summertime games.

The fur trade isn’t as important to Charles Mix County as it once was, but perhaps an even bigger change came with the construction of Fort Randall Dam, one of six mainstem dams built along the Missouri River in the 1950s and 1960s. The town of Pickstown was created solely for the workers who toiled on the project from 1946 to 1956. When the dam was finally closed, it forever altered the Missouri River Valley. Historic towns like Wheeler were flooded, and the once wild river became a reservoir known as Lake Francis Case. That’s a good reminder to anyone planning to seek out Old Paps’ lost fur trading treasure to bring swimming trunks.

Editor’s Note: This is the 30th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Getting to Know Deuel

By John Andrews

Back in my newspapering days, a colleague and I used to rib each other about our home counties. I grew up in Hamlin and he was from Deuel. The phrase”God’s country” got thrown around a lot, and we both enjoyed bragging up our hometowns and sports teams. We don’t see each other as often these days, but when we do the subject still comes up — and we’re still equally as proud of our counties as we were then.

Now I concede nothing, but after nearly a decade of working at South Dakota Magazine, I’ve learned a lot more about Deuel County. And I have to give him credit. His home county has some pretty interesting stories.

One of his favorite summer pastimes is to camp out at the Crystal Springs rodeo, held every June northeast of Clear Lake. I’d always known about Crystal Springs, but I had no idea until I came to the magazine that one of the most popular rodeos in the Upper Midwest began as a farmer’s dream.

It goes all the way back to 1936, when E.W. Weisel bought the Crystal Springs Ranch in 1936. His property included a hill that formed a circular valley where he used to imagine what it might be like to hold a rodeo there. “I dreamed it,” he told us a few decades ago.”I dreamed it was all there, with horses and cattle and the people all laughing and having a good time.”

Hundreds of people showed up the first year, so he tore down the corn cribbing and put up a permanent corral. A Clear Lake banker gave him a loan and he put on a bigger show in 1946, and he installed lights the following year.

But he never built bleacher seats, and for good reason. The surrounding hillside makes a natural outdoor amphitheater. Weisel advertised it as “America’s Most Natural Rodeo Bowl.”

The Crystal Springs Rodeo is held in America’s most natural rodeo bowl northeast of Clear Lake. Photo by Christian Begeman

Today the Crystal Springs Rodeo spans three days with rodeo performances every night. The whole city of Clear Lake gets involved, staging a parade, car show, trail ride and pancake feed.

Another dream has come true in Gary, a small town that straddles the South Dakota-Minnesota line in southern Deuel County. After Gary lost county seat status to Clear Lake in 1895, Doane Robinson, publisher of the Gary Interstate and future state historian, began advocating for the state to build the South Dakota School for the Blind on property just north of the town’s business district. Ground was broken in 1899 and students were on campus in 1900.

The School for the Blind operated until 1961, when it was moved to Aberdeen. After 1980, the campus’ buildings were mostly abandoned. But then in 2009, wind energy entrepreneur Joe Kolbach transformed the campus into the Buffalo Ridge Resort and Business Center.

The buildings of the old School for the Blind in Gary have been transformed into a resort and business center.

Satisfied guests like the quiet setting, an atmosphere that feels like a bed and breakfast, a large patio set up for barbeques and 50 pretty acres. Kolbach resuscitated Lake Elsie, which is a damming of Lac Qui Parle Creek. Guests can feel the history in the stately buildings, especially in the web of tunnels that visually impaired students once walked daily between buildings.

On a given day, the campus could see vacationers checked into some of the resort’s 19 guest rooms, along with students training across the yard (or through the tunnels) at the administration/classroom building. Meanwhile a meeting could be underway in the former school auditorium, now called the ballroom, and an outdoor wedding could be happening alongside Lake Elsie.

Guests interested in history can hike a mile west of town to place locals call Indian Lookout. A giant compass made of rocks sits on a grassy hillside. Dakota elder Elden Lawrence believed the rocks were placed there in the 1860s to guide Indians traveling from the Sisseton area to Pipestone, where they quarried native stone to make sacred pipes.

Lake Elsie, formed by damming Lac Qui Parle Creek, was restored along with the School for the Blind campus.

Deuel County is home to other legends as well, such as the blue flags that grow each spring in a region called the Hidewood. Floyd Haug discovered the flowers when he rented the land, and later discovered that they mark the graves of two pioneers.

A Norwegian settler named Per Gustav Erikson and his wife, Ida Mary originally homesteaded the land. In the early 1880s they had a baby daughter. But during the winter of 1885-86, a diphtheria outbreak struck the territory and both Ida Mary and the daughter died. Because the snow was so deep and the ground frozen, their bodies were placed in two wooden boxes built by a neighbor.

The grieving young settler kept the rough-hewn coffins in a shed until spring, when he dug two graves just to the south of his house and buried them above the Hidewood Valley. He probably had no money for a permanent marker, and instead planted blue flag flowers. That same year, he sold his claim for $300 to Peter Dahl and left Dakota Territory.

Now, almost 130 years later, the flowers still mark the simple graves. Prairie grasses have infiltrated the flowers, but the blue flags still grow thick and in the obvious rectangular shape of a grave.

Other stories aren’t as sad. Several years ago, Lowell Anderson wrote an article for us about Herman Raschke, a man he called the Goodwin Giant.

Born in 1896, Raschke lived with his brother and a sister in a clapboard house overlooking Round Lake in northern Deuel County.”I was always told that Herman stood 6 feet, 10 inches tall, and weighed 425 pounds,” he wrote.”My father claimed he weighed himself on the grain elevator’s truck scale.

One of Anderson’s favorite stories about the giant involved a traveling salesman who was driving along the Grant-Deuel county line one spring, not far from the Raschke house. His car became stuck in the soft road, and he walked to the Raschke house for help. When he knocked on the door and saw Raschke, a good 14 or 15 inches taller than he was, the salesman was taken aback.

A natural spring near Astoria has been gushing fresh water for decades.

“I’m stuck out on the road. I need help,” he said.”Would you possibly have a team of horses to pull me out?”

“Let’s go take a look,” said Herman.

“You don’t need to look. I’m stuck. For sure. The wheels don’t even touch the ground!”

“Let’s go check it out.”

The salesman didn’t argue. He followed as Herman walked directly across a plowed field, through an accumulation of spring mud, towards the road and the car.

“See, I’m really stuck,” said the salesman.

“Oh, it doesn’t look so bad,” said Herman.

And then, Raschke put his hands under the front bumper, lifted the front end of the car out of the ruts, and gently lowered it onto solid ground. He did the same to the rear of the car. The salesman was speechless.

I’ve also learned about unique traditions, including stopping your car along Highway 28 to fill jugs with water gushing from Jorstad Spring, 2 miles northwest of Astoria. Decades ago, someone stuck a pipe into the creek, and ever since — even through the dry years of the Depression — pure water gushed out from a shallow aquifer.

Another tradition is only recently discovered is the annual oyster stew feed at the Bemis Holland Presbyterian Church. The feed is featured in our September/October 2016 issue, and is coming up this Saturday, October 15. It’s been a harvest tradition for nearly 130 years, and even though numbers at the rural church continue to dwindle, oyster stew night is one of the busiest of the year.

Despite our history of good-natured banter, I’ve always enjoyed my trips to Deuel County (even though I still haven’t completely figured out that outrageously downhill par 3 at the Clear Lake Golf Course). Maybe”God’s country” knows no county lines.

Editor’s Note: This is the 29th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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History Lives in Union County

By John Andrews

A granite block marks the spot of old Fort Brule in Union County.

It’s hard not to bump into history when you visit Union County in the far southeastern tip of South Dakota. It’s among the oldest counties in the state, one of 10 created by the first territorial legislature in 1862. It was originally called Cole County after Austin Cole, a member of that legislature, but strong Union Army sentiment during the Civil War led to the name change two years later when its boundaries were redrawn.

The military played a role in the early years of Union County. The Sioux City to Fort Randall Military Trail was put into use in 1859, and crossed into present-day South Dakota at Jefferson near a railroad bridge that spans the Big Sioux River, which serves as Union County’s eastern border. Though the trail itself has all but vanished, important stops can still be found between Jefferson and Elk Point along Highway 1B. Twelve Mile House, so named because it lies that distance from Sioux City, was a post office and stage stop as far back as 1861. The structure still stands, though it is unoccupied and deteriorating. Just 2 miles away is Fourteen Mile House, a log house built in 1861 by Frenchman Frances Reandeau whose name was carved on one of the logs. Originally a post office and hotel, it has been modernized and resided, and serves as a private residence today.

History seekers can head 5 miles north of Elk Point on Highway 11 to the junction with Highway 50, another important site in Union County and South Dakota history. St. Paul Lutheran Church, built in 1863 and the first Lutheran church in the Dakotas, stands 1 mile west. Less than a mile to the east is the site of old Fort Brule, built in 1862 following the Dakota Uprising in Minnesota. Finally, just a half-mile north is a memorial to Norwegian novelist Ole Rolvaag, the author of Giants in the Earth who worked as a farmhand in Union County after his emigration in 1896.

The 14-mile house is one of several points of interest along the old Sioux City to Fort Randall military trail.

There are also historic places in Elk Point, such as Edgar’s Soda Fountain inside Pioneer Drug. Kevin and Barb Wurtz have been serving ice cream sodas, sundaes, phosphates and other old fashioned treats there for 25 years. The soda fountain made its debut in Centerville in 1906, where it served up ice cream at the local drugstore for nearly 50 years. When pharmacist Edgar Schmiedt, Barb’s grandfather, retired in the 1960s, he put the old fountain in storage. He gave it to Barb and Kevin, and in appreciation they named their Elk Point store in his honor.

Farther south at Jefferson, you’ll find tangible historic reminders of the strong faith that Dakota homesteaders possessed. Grasshopper swarms destroyed thousands of acres of crops in the 1870s and not only ruined farmers but also entire towns. Father Pierre Boucher was determined that town of Jefferson would not meet the same fate. He announced during Mass one Sunday in the spring of 1876 that he intended to lead a spiritual retreat to rid the territory of grasshoppers. The next morning, Protestants and Catholics alike met 2 miles south of Jefferson. Bearing a cross, Boucher led the group on an 11-mile pilgrimage. They placed crosses at four points, plus another in the cemetery at Jefferson. Not long after, dead grasshoppers were found near the Big Sioux and Missouri rivers.

Edgar’s Soda Fountain serves ice cream and other cold treats.

The old wooden cross in town stood until decay finally claimed it. A replacement was built in 1967, and can still be seen outside St. Peter’s Catholic Church. Other crosses are found 4 miles northwest of Jefferson on County Road 1B near the Southeast Farmers Coop Elevator and another is near the corner of 330th Street and 480th Avenue west of Jefferson.

The Adams Homestead and Nature Preserve in the very southern part of the county mixes history with outdoor adventure. Stephen Adams homesteaded on the property in 1872. His granddaughters, Mary and Maud Adams, donated the 1,500 acres to the state in 1984, wanting to create a peaceful place where visitors could recharge. In addition to its restored homestead buildings, the acreage includes 10 miles of trails that wind through prairie, stately stands of old cottonwoods and along the Missouri River valley.

The tiny hamlet of Nora was never a big town, but its historic general store draws hundreds of people during the holidays. Mike Pedersen set up an old pipe organ in the store in 1989, and hosted a party for the neighbors. People have come ever since for his holiday sing-alongs held the three weekends after Thanksgiving.

The original grasshopper crosses were erected in 1874 in a faithful attempt to ward off the insects. Replicas stand in Union County today.

The Nora store officially closed in 1962. Pedersen lived in the back room from 1973 to 1985 while seed corn was stored up front. He now lives in the storekeeper’s house next door. On sing-along weekends, Pedersen plays the organ and leads carols at the top of his lungs. Neighbor women bring cookies, and Pedersen makes coffee and cider. Guests select the tunes, Pedersen plays them, and when his fingers get tired he makes room for somebody else.

The town of Alcester also has a musical connection to South Dakota history. DeeCort Hammitt was a teller at the Alcester State Bank in the 1920s, but his real love was music. He led the Alcester Town Band, which entertained President Calvin Coolidge during his summer vacation at Custer State Park in 1927. They went to the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933 and 1934 as the official agricultural band. He wrote and published many songs, including “To a Prairie Lullaby” for Lawrence Welk, who often played at The Ritz, a dance hall near Beresford, in the 1940s. But Hammitt is best remembered for composing South Dakota’s official state song, “Hail South Dakota,” in 1943.

Thousands of cars zoom through Union County every day on Interstate 29. But it’s worth it to get off the interstate and spend a day driving the rural roads, because Union County packs a lot of history into 467 square miles.

Editor’s Note: This is the 28th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Taking a Bite Out of McPherson County

By John Andrews

McPherson County may be the tastiest county I’ve visited in my time at South Dakota Magazine.

The editor sent me there several years ago to write a story about the region’s German heritage and culinary traditions. Not realizing my fondness for German food and my stomach capacity, he probably had second thoughts upon seeing the reimbursement receipts. Nevertheless, it was a fascinating couple of days learning about how these South Dakotans have preserved their culture through food.

Several Civil War veterans initially settled the county, which seems fitting for a place named after Civil War general James McPherson, who was killed in 1864 at the Battle of Atlanta. Captain Samuel Prescott Howell was among the first, coming in the fall of 1882 and later becoming a county commissioner. Veteran Bela Dexter staked a claim near the North Dakota border. Captain E.D. Haynes was among the founders of Leola, named for his daughter.

Lake Eureka is a peaceful summertime recreation spot.

Another early homesteader was literary great Hamlin Garland. A monument to Garland stands near his later home in rural Brown County, but the writer claimed a spot about 9 miles south of Leola in 1885. It is said that he scribbled notes about his homesteading experience all over the interior walls of his shack.

Although immigrants from several countries in Northern Europe settled McPherson County after its creation, the vast majority were Germans from Russia. In 2000 (the last year the federal government asked about ethnic heritage), more than 80 percent of people in Eureka claimed a German background.

Many of the Germans who came to Dakota Territory had spent decades in Ukraine, living under favorable condition offered by Catherine the Great, who wanted to turn the region into Europe’s breadbasket. When Czar Alexander II came to power in 1871, Germans began to leave.

It’s no wonder, then, that the predominantly German town of Eureka became the greatest primary wheat market in the world. By 1897, two-thirds of the world’s wheat crop was shipped from Eureka, a rail point that served farms within a 75 mile radius. On some days, as much as 30,000 bushels left town by rail. But the heady times were gone nearly as quickly as they had arrived. Advancing railroads meant farmers could ship from points closer to their homes, and the Eureka wheat boom slowly abated.

Rhubarb, native to the Volga River area of Russia, does well in Leola, the world’s Rhubarb Capital.

Nevertheless, the town of Eureka grew into McPherson County’s largest city, boasting about 850 people today. In a twist common in many developing counties, the smaller city of Leola (pop. 457) became the county seat. Much of the credit for that is given to Charles Herreid, another early homesteader who became McPherson County’s first clerk, register of deeds and later governor from 1901 to 1903.

Leola has also proudly proclaimed itself the Rhubarb Capital of the World. The town’s rhubarb celebration began in 1971 as a simple baking contest, but grew to include parades, contests, music, rhubarb royalty and, of course, as many rhubarb concoctions as you can imagine. The next Rhubarb Festival is set for June 2017.

Food is important to the people of McPherson County, especially the ethnic German staples they ate while growing up. I visited Kauk’s Meat Market in Eureka, where Larry Kauk prepares German fry sausage that he sells in markets around eastern South Dakota and ships to McPherson County natives from coast to coast.”I’m sorry if you’re here looking for some big secret,” I remember him saying.”Because there isn’t one.”

Vicki Lapka is known for her strudels, served with sausage and carrots on German meal day at the Lyric Lanes in Eureka.

The key is sticking to tradition, and preparing sausage the way his family did near the town of Artas. People from California to New York know you can’t find it in a package labeled Oscar Meyer, which is why they turn to the hometown butcher.

Unfortunately, some of that tradition is in danger of being lost. I stopped at the Lyric Lanes, which serves a weekly traditional German meal thanks to Vicki Lapka. She is known around the region for strudels.

Lapka, a fifth-generation descendant of Germans from Russia, learned strudels and other German delicacies from her grandmother while growing up around Mound City. But after high school she and her husband moved to the Twin Cities, and those German recipes lay dormant for 15 years. In January 1992 they moved back to Eureka, bought the Lyric, and inherited its Saturday night German buffet. Lapka’s mother helped her relearn German cooking, and the weekly German meal (moved to Tuesday afternoons) remained a tradition.

Three electric skillets sat atop her counter when I arrived. She added water, lard, onions and potatoes, then set strudels on top and closed the lid.”If you open them while they’re cooking they just drop,” Lapka explained.”You’ll have flat dumplings and flat strudels. My kids learned the hard way. If I was making dumplings or strudels, they stayed out of the kitchen.”

Strudels are temperamental. If the water is just a few degrees too cool or too hot, the yeast won’t react correctly. And they must remain covered. Since Lapka can’t see them cook, she tips the pan after 30 minutes of cooking and listens to see if they are frying inside. If there’s no sizzle, she knows they need more time. Before I left, Lapka showed me freezers packed with 150 pounds of strudels to fill orders from townspeople.

Kuchen, a fruit-filled pastry, is a traditional German sweet and South Dakota’s official state dessert.

But she worries that traditional recipes will be lost if younger chefs don’t take time to learn.”They’ll come in and ask for a pan full of strudels. They could make them, but they don’t know how. It’s so easy to just come buy the strudels, go home and cook them, but they don’t want to do that. If we don’t keep this going, we’re going to lose it all.”

One German food that may stand the test of time is kuchen, South Dakota’s official state dessert thanks to the efforts of several McPherson County bakers who lobbied the legislature in 1999. They traveled to Pierre during session and presented a skit that conveyed the importance of kuchen in the lives of early pioneers. They dressed in period costumes and even brought samples. The governor said he’d sign the bill, but it was defeated in the House.

The bill was reintroduced in 2000. This time, Eurekans sent letters to towns around the state seeking support for kuchen’s candidacy. Seventeen cities replied, and the letters were brought to Pierre as evidence that kuchen enjoyed statewide support. This time, the legislature agreed.

Travelers can find kuchen in supermarkets throughout north central South Dakota, and the Eureka Kuchen Factory specializes in a variety of flavors. If I ever head north again, I’m bringing a cooler. Just don’t tell the editors.

Editor’s Note: This is the 27th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Cattle and Hogs

By John Andrews

Meade County, at 3,471 square miles, is the largest county in South Dakota, and its geographical vastness is matched by the variety of experiences travelers can have within its borders. You can don western chaps in downtown Faith or leather biker chaps in Sturgis. You can spend the night in an old missile command center or a notorious brothel and gambling den. You can enjoy the rowdy camaraderie of half a million motorcyclists during one busy week in August or the serenity atop one of the region’s most sacred places.

Meade County got its start in 1887, when voters in what was then eastern Lawrence County voted 690-26 to separate. It became official two years later and was named in honor of Civil War Union General George Meade, also the namesake of Fort Meade, a military outpost established in the new county in 1878.

The cavalry’s presence in the area began in August 1876, when a temporary camp was set up along Spring Creek near Bear Butte and named for Lieutenant Jack Sturgis, who died at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. A more permanent location was chosen two years later in the eastern foothills of the Black Hills.

The men at Fort Meade were charged with protecting new settlements in the northern Black Hills, especially the area around Deadwood, which had boomed with the discovery of gold. It was home at various points to the Fourth, Seventh and Tenth Cavalries as well as the Buffalo Soldiers. The Fort Meade National Cemetery is the final resting place of several of these soldiers, including men who survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Bear Butte, a unique geological formation, is a sacred place for several Indian tribes.

Fort Meade is also the answer to an interesting historical trivia question. In 1893, post commander Col. Caleb Carlton began the custom of playing”The Star Spangled Banner” at military ceremonies and requested that everyone rise and pay it proper respect. The song became the official national anthem of the United States in 1931.

KJ Leather Company in Faith specializes in leather chaps for locals.

But long before European settlement, Indians made pilgrimages to Bear Butte, a unique geological feature northeast of Sturgis that many tribes consider sacred. Bear Butte is the result of ancient volcanic activity that occurred about 65 million years ago. Molten magma from deep within the earth pushed upward but never broke through the crust. Over millions of years, the magma cooled and hardened and the topsoil eroded, leaving the laccolith that we see today instead of a true volcano.

The butte is sacred to the Cheyenne and Lakota, who believe it is where they can communicate with the Creator through visions and prayers. Religious ceremonies are often held there, and worshippers who make the pilgrimage to the top leave offerings, such as prayer ties and tobacco pouches, in the trees along the path to the summit.

Bear Butte stands 1,253 feet above the surrounding plains and 4,426 feet above sea level. Nearby is a small campground and Bear Butte Lake, created in 1921 when speculators drilling for oil struck an artesian well. Motorized traffic on Bear Butte is prohibited, but anyone is free to hike the 1.85-mile Summit Trail to the top, which also serves as the northern terminus of the 111-mile Centennial Trail.

Bob Hansen ran the Howes Corner store for 38 years.

Several trailblazers made their way through Meade County en route to the Black Hills. A monument along Highway 212 between Maurine and Mud Butte memorializes one such group from Bismarck, North Dakota. Boosters of that young town wanted to promote Bismarck as a jumping off point for the Black Hills and wanted a party to head west and bring back reports of gold. Ben Ash, whose father Henry operated a hotel in Yankton, and four other young men set out in December 1874. The monument along 212, dedicated in 1949, stands in the place where the group caught its first glimpse of the Black Hills, still 100 miles away.

Early homesteaders in Meade County tried to farm like they did in Iowa and Minnesota, but departed when they realized the land was best suited for cattle. Today sprawling ranches cover most of Meade County’s prairie. Faith is a cow town in the far northeast corner of the county. It sprang up when the Milwaukee Railroad bridged the Missouri River, crossed the Cheyenne River Reservation and laid track into the county. You’ll find a school, places to eat, a golf course and even a lake, but cattle keep the town alive. KJ Leather Company specializes in western chaps and there are three cattle feed stores (as opposed to one grocery store). The Faith Livestock Commission Company sells up to 5,000 head of calves at the regular Monday sales during the fall calf run. In late October, so many calves are coming off grass that there’s a special three-day sale to accommodate buyers and sellers.

The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally brings 500,000 bikers to the Meade County town every August.

Another interesting chapter in Meade County history is the presence of Minuteman Missiles. Nearly 50 missile sites dotted the landscape, ready for launch during the decades long Cold War. They are long gone except for one, which operates as a museum, but Walter and Diane Fees turned a command center into Juliet Bed and Breakfast near Opal. The federal government bought seven acres from the Fees family in the 1960s to build the Juliet 1 base, one of 15 bases that once dotted West River. When it closed in 1993, the family bought the land back and opened the B&B in 2006.

The tall fence, gate and antenna cone outdoors are the only reminders of the deadly serious business once conducted there. Inside the Feeses turned the telecommunications room into a TV room and put a hot tub in the water treatment area. Juliet also features six decorated bedrooms, a restaurant and lounge. Interested travelers can head west of Faith on Highway 212, turn south at Fox Ridge Road and follow the signs.

Poker Alice’s house stands on Junction Avenue in Sturgis.

Several tiny towns and villages lie within Meade County: Howes (with its general store) Elm Springs, Maurine, Mud Butte, White Owl, Union Center. But the county’s other major urban center is Sturgis, founded in 1878 founded in 1878 and originally called Scooptown because many of its residents”scooped up” their pay from nearby Fort Meade, according to longtime Black Hills historian Watson Parker. The name was later changed to honor Samuel Sturgis, another Civil War Union general.

Sturgis’ claim to fame is the annual motorcycle rally, which draws 500,000 people to the town of 6,600 every summer. The rally traces its existence to Clarence and Pearl Hoel, who ran an ice businesses until electrical refrigeration put a dent in their livelihood in 1936.

That’s when Clarence decided to open a shop in their garage, specializing in Indian motorcycles. To enhance the new business, Clarence organized a riding club similar to a larger club in Rapid City supported by the Harley Davidson dealer. One Sunday the club was picnicking in the Black Hills when an automobile tourist said they looked like a bunch of gypsies, and the Jack Pine Gypsies was born.

They decided to host a rally in 1937 to introduce motorcyclists to the Black Hills. The 76th such rally takes place during the first full week of August, and includes concerts, races and rides through the Hills.

Hotels and campgrounds are often booked months in advance. Some Sturgis residents rent out their homes. But visitors also have the opportunity to stay in the home of Poker Alice, a legendary figure of Black Hills history. Originally from England, Alice landed in the Black Hills and took an interest in gambling. She played professionally and worked as a dealer. Her house in Sturgis was built in 1895 and once featured a poker room, gambling and dance halls and a brothel in addition to Poker Alice’s living quarters.

Editor’s Note: This is the 26th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Upon Further Exploration

By John Andrews

It’s been a few years since my last trip through Walworth County. I was working on a travel piece for the magazine that followed state Highway 20 from the Minnesota border to the Missouri River, so that made Walworth County the last leg on that journey. I ate lunch at Dakota Maid in Selby, where the influence of a Civil War veteran is still present. I caught glimpses of the vast Lake Oahe, which has turned Akaska and Mobridge into walleye fishing hubs. Altogether, I probably spent five or six hours in Walworth County, not nearly enough time to see all the points of interest. The place probably got short shrift in our magazine story, so here’s a chance delve a little deeper.

Walworth County was created in 1873 and organized in 1883. It is named after Walworth County, Wisconsin, the home of Civil War captain Newton Kingman, who moved his family to this as-yet unnamed portion of Dakota Territory in 1883. The Kingmans had arrived in Aberdeen and toured Edmunds, Faulk and Potter counties. When they arrived in the area that would become Walworth, Kingman knew he was home. Charmed by the prairie grass, he called it “Blue Blanket Valley.”

John Hirning, Newton Kingman’s great-grandson, and Justin Randall, the Eagle Scout who put a replica cannon on the Walworth County courthouse lawn.

He learned from railroad officials that the tracks would probably cross through the center of the county, and he figured the county seat would eventually be moved to a railroad city. He chose his homestead near the town site of Bangor, and guessed properly. Farming never quite satisfied him, so he became a country postmaster, realtor, banker and published a newspaper called The Blue Blanket. He became a leading citizen of the small town of Bangor, which took county seat status from Scranton in 1884.

But in 1900, when Milwaukee Railroad officials selected a route 4 miles north of Bangor for their east-west track, that town’s demise was only a matter of time. The courthouse records and the plums that go with them were moved to Selby in 1908, and an entire block was reserved for a courthouse. Soon after the records were moved, some citizens went to Forest City and dug cedar saplings, which they planted on the borders of the square. By 1911, a beautiful brick and block courthouse was completed and it still serves as Walworth County’s seat of government. You can still see the cedar trees that surround the courthouse, but a marker south of Selby is all that remains of Bangor.

Rodney and Sheryl Stroh operate Dakota Maid in Selby, a restaurant and gift shop.

You’ll also find a cannon outside the courthouse. Even though Kingman was 63 years old when Selby was founded, he moved his real estate and abstract company north and became one of the new town’s leaders. To show his patriotism, he placed two Civil War cannons on the courthouse square, but they were melted during World War II. In 2000, Justin Randall raised money to buy a replica cannon and placed it atop a brick and concrete pedestal. The project earned him an Eagle Scout badge.

I met Justin’s mother, Sheryl Stroh, at her restaurant and gift shop called Dakota Maid, which stands along Highway 83. Stroh and her husband Rodney operated a gift shop in the basement of their home but soon ran out of space. They bought the town’s old Amoco service station along the highway in 2009 and created Dakota Maid, which became a full service restaurant, coffee shop and gift store featuring South Dakota made products.

If I’d had more time, I would have visited Lake Hiddenwood, about 5 miles northeast of Selby. The area had been home to Indian tribes for centuries, and was along a well-traveled path between Big Stone Lake and the Rocky Mountains that early explorers frequented. Walworth County settlers decided on the name Hiddenwood because they could spot no trees on the prairie until they reached the crest of hills overlooking the valley.

In the 1920s, locals decided to boost the recreational appeal of the area by adding a lake. The state Game, Fish and Parks Department began construction on an earthen dam along Hiddenwood Creek in May 1926, one of the first such structures ever undertaken in South Dakota. Skeptics doubted the technique, but toward the end of the month when work on the dam was nearly finished, several inches of rain fell in the area. The next morning, Lake Hiddenwood was full.

Even bigger water forms the western boundary of Walworth County. Lake Oahe is the creation of the Missouri River dams built in the 1950s and 1960s. The fourth-largest man-made reservoir in the United States, Lake Oahe stretches 230 miles from Pierre to Bismarck in North Dakota. It covers 374,000 acres and has 2,250 miles of shoreline. Its deep waters are full of fish, making towns like Akaska and Mobridge prime destinations for anglers from all over the world.

The Walworth County pot plane, where it landed in January of 1980.

In fact, a group of locals was ice fishing on the Missouri in January of 1980 when perhaps the biggest event ever to occur in Walworth County transpired. As the men watched their poles, a DC-7 came low over their heads, made a bank and landed about 3 miles north along Swan Creek. They assumed it was an emergency landing, so they drove in the direction of the dust cloud to see how they could help.

Two men were standing by the door of the plane when they arrived. The steps were up. One of the men said they had engine trouble. The other mumbled something about being low on fuel.

The men grew suspicious, but they became certain something was amiss when they found another pickup with Ohio license plates parked in the rough pasture. At the same time, neighbors who also saw the plane land called law enforcement. Soon, the county sheriff and highway patrolmen were at the scene, but the men from the airplane had already fled on foot.

When the lawmen boarded the plane, they discovered 396 bales of marijuana stacked window-high from the front to the rear. The drug runners had piloted them north from Colombia, and intended to land in that Walworth County field long after dark. But strong southerly breezes brought them to South Dakota far ahead of schedule.

Oscar Howe’s murals inside Scherr-Howe Arena in Mobridge.

The men were eventually apprehended and received hefty fines and jail sentences. The cargo — 25,000 pounds of marijuana worth $18 million — was hauled to Pierre and burned.

Mobridge, Walworth County’s other river city, serves as a jumping off point for travelers heading West River. The Standing Rock Reservation lies just across the Missouri, so Lakota culture is evident around town, especially inside the Scherr-Howe Arena. That’s where Yanktonai artist Oscar Howe painted 10 large murals during World War II.

Howe was a member of the South Dakota Artist Project, a Depression-era work effort that provided jobs in the arts. He was assigned to decorate the new auditorium in Mobridge in 1942. A week into the project Howe received orders to report for military duty. With help from locals, his induction was delayed two weeks. Working 20 hours a day, Howe completed his project before leaving to serve 3 1/2 years with the Army during World War II. In 2014, a team of artists guided a $100,000 restoration project to help save the murals.

Chili champ Rick Christman outside his purple cafe in Mobridge.

There are other interesting spots in Mobridge. Rick’s CafÈ is a purple, stucco building where Rick Christman has developed an award-winning chili recipe and his own line of seasoning called Rick’s Salt. The Mobridge State Bank, built in 1907, is one of only seven metal clad bank buildings known to exist in the United States. Mobridge native Ben Thompson bought the building for $250 and painstakingly restored it to its original condition. And the Klein Museum is home to several interesting collections, including a set of toy farm equipment from Calvin Anderson.

Anderson grew up on a farm near Glenham. He played with scrap metal as a boy, pretending the pieces were tractors. When he grew up, married and began to farm, he started collecting farm toys. The Andersons later retired to Mobridge, and Anderson brought his collection along. He built a special cabin on the museum grounds in which to house his vast collection.

My travels through Walworth County took me to places along the main highways. Smaller towns like Java and Lowry lie off the beaten path. It’s all the more reason to go back and devote more hours to exploring Walworth County.

Editor’s Note: This is the 25th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.