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Explorers, Cowboys and Indians

By John Andrews

In 1743, French brothers Louis-Joseph and Francois La Verendrye buried a lead plate on a hill overlooking the Missouri River. They were among the first white men to ever lay eyes on the land that became Stanley County. The area has been the site important moments in South Dakota history: a clash of cultures, the resurrection of our national mammal, the birth of a rodeo legend, the filming of an internationally acclaimed movie — and the rediscovery of that historic plate left nearly 275 years ago.

The Verendryes had embarked upon an expedition to discover a vast Western sea. When they reached the bluffs of the Missouri, they claimed the land for France by burying a plate. It lay hidden until the day in February 1913 when Ethel Roberts, Harriet”Hattie” Fister and George O’Reilly went out to play.

“It was a Sunday and it was nice and warm, just a little snow,” Roberts told us in 1989.”Hattie happened to notice something sticking out of the ground. She kicked it with her toe but it wouldn’t budge.”

Ethel Roberts with the Verendrye Plate in 1989. She was one of three children who found the plate in a Missouri River hillside in 1913.

Finally, they pried it out of the ground.”George scraped off the gumbo with his knife and we saw the writing on it. If we had studied our history, we should probably have known what it was. But we just threw it down and went on playing.”

They agreed that George would try to sell the plate for scrap, but on his way home he ran into two state legislators. After recounting his experience, they notified state historian Doane Robinson, who had studied and written extensively about the Verendrye Expedition. He knew immediately that the children had discovered an artifact that proved European exploration of present-day South Dakota much earlier than previously thought. The plate now resides in the Cultural Heritage Center across the river in Pierre, and a monument marks the site of its discovery.

By the time the kids unearthed the plate, the town of Fort Pierre had grown from a remote fur-trading outpost to the seat of Stanley County. The Missouri River fur trade began to gain momentum in the late 1700s, and by 1830 the area around Fort Pierre was a bustling trade center. Fort Pierre Chouteau, named for the St. Louis fur trader, was established in 1832.

By 1855 it had become a military post to serve as a transportation and supply hub for travelers heading west into the Black Hills. That same year, Lieutenant G.K. Warren transformed an old Indian trail heading west from Fort Pierre into a bona fide roadway for Gen. William Harney to use during his fall expedition into the Black Hills. After gold was discovered in 1874 prospectors rushed to the Hills, often along that very same 220-mile Fort Pierre to Deadwood Trail. It became the primary route to the Black Hills until railroads and other modern forms of transportation overtook wagons. In 2008, local historians used GPS devices to map the original trail and staged a 17-day commemorative wagon train.

Fort Pierre’s annual Fourth of July rodeo dates to 1822.

A lot of livestock trod across Stanley County during that ride, but that’s not unusual for a county rooted in ranching and rodeo. The annual Fort Pierre Rodeo, held on the Fourth of July, is said to be the oldest rodeo in the state. The event dates to 1822, when it was simply a series of horse-handling events between Indians and fur traders held at the confluence of the Bad and Missouri rivers that became a tradition during an annual rendezvous. It’s held at the Casey Tibbs Rodeo Arena, named for the six-time PRCA saddle-bronc champion who was born in a cabin along the Cheyenne River about 50 miles northwest of Fort Pierre.

Tibbs entered an amateur rodeo at age 14 and won four first place awards. He turned pro as a teenager, and in 1949 — at age 19 — he became the youngest man ever to win the national saddle bronc-riding crown. Between 1949 and 1955, he won a total of six PRCA saddle bronc-riding championships, a record still unchallenged.

A virtual bronc at the Casey Tibbs Rodeo Center in Fort Pierre simulates an 8-second ride.

When he died in 1989, Tibbs agreed to give many of his mementoes to his hometown. Today they are housed at the Casey Tibbs Rodeo Center, which opened in Fort Pierre in 2009. The facility also includes an exhibit to trick rider Mattie Goff Newcombe, a cowgirl from Faith who performed dangerous stunts on horseback in the 1920s. There’s a sculpture garden honoring South Dakota’s best saddle bronc riders and a virtual reality bronc that simulates an 8-second ride.

Stanley County has also been where the buffalo roam, thanks to ranchers Fred Dupree and Scotty Philip. In 1883, bison numbers had grown startlingly small. Hoping to help stave off extinction, Dupree captured five bison calves and brought them to his ranch. After his death in 1898, Scotty Philip bought Dupree’s herd and moved them to his ranch near Fort Pierre. The species rebounded splendidly. Travelers can watch huge herds grazing the prairie along the Bad River Road, a 50-mile stretch of mostly gravel that runs across Stanley County from Fort Pierre to the junction with Highway 83 north of Midland. The road passes through media mogul Ted Turner’s Bad River Ranch, which encompasses 141,000 acres that support the largest privately held bison herd in the country.

The world got a chance to see Stanley County on the big screen in 1990, with the release of Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves. Much of the filming was done on Roy Houck’s Triple U Buffalo Ranch, northwest of Fort Pierre. In 2015 the ranch was sold to Turner.

Fort Pierre historians (from left) Darby Nutter, John Duffy and Gary Grittner help maintain the Verendrye Museum, a shrine to pioneer cowboys.

Stanley County itself dates to 1873, just before it became a busy hub for travel further west. The county was named for David S. Stanley, commander at Fort Sully, a military outpost that had originally been built in 1863 about 4 miles below present day Pierre on the east bank of the Missouri. Its main task was to protect settlers from Indians. When Stanley took command in 1866, the fort was abandoned due to its low and wet location along the river. Stanley moved the fort 23 miles northwest along the river and became home to the 22nd U.S. Infantry from 1866 to 1873.

During his time at Fort Sully, Stanley grew to respect the local Indian tribes, working with missionaries like Father Pierre Jean De Smet to gain their trust and actively working to achieve peace between them and the U.S. government. Stanley served at Fort Sully until 1874, and the fort itself was finally abandoned in 1894.

Relations between Natives and non-Natives in Stanley County got off to a rocky start. During their exploration of the Missouri River, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had a tense meeting with the Teton Sioux at the confluence of the Bad and Missouri rivers. For four days, the two sides teetered between war and peace.

Communication was the main impediment. They could only speak through rudimentary sign language and the limited knowledge of Pierre Cruzatte, a member of the expedition who understood the Omaha language, but very little Lakota. On their first day there, the two sides exchanged gifts, as was customary, but then things went awry. One of the head tribal men drank half a glass of whiskey and nearly started a fight with Clark. When Clark and a few other men reached shore in a pirogue, several Indians grabbed its mooring cable and refused to let them return to their keelboat.

The frames of seven tipis stand on the grounds of the Wakpa Sica Reconciliation Center, a project meant to build bridges between Natives and non-Natives but was stymied after the loss of federal funding.

Lewis ordered in armed American reinforcements, while Indians lined the shore with bows and arrows. But tensions eased, and the next day the two sides enjoyed a great feast. The roller coaster continued until Lewis and Clark left.

The language barrier was a major obstacle, but had the explorers brought Pierre Dorion it’s possible much of the tension could have been eased. They met Dorion, a fur trader who had spent years living in the area and was fluent in the local Native language, when the party passed present-day Yankton. But instead of adding him to their crew, they dispatched him to Washington, D.C., to present a report on the area to President Thomas Jefferson. Clark lamented Dorion’s absence in his journal entry for Sept. 25, 1804.”We feel much at loss for the want of an interpreter,” he wrote.”The one we have can Speek but little.”

There have been ups and downs ever since, but perhaps hope lies within the Wakpa Sica Reconciliation Center. Established in 2000, the center is meant to improve relations between Natives and non-Natives, set up an intertribal justice system and create economic development opportunities. The campus includes seven tall tipis constructed on the prairie north of Fort Pierre, each representing one of the seven Teton Sioux bands, or council fires. But unfortunately that is as far as the project has gone. Federal funding withered several years ago and development at Wakpa Sica stalled, but tribes have shown interest in reviving the idea. Even though two French brothers once claimed this place belonged to the French, it might help show that Stanley County can be a welcoming home for everyone.

Editor’s Note: This is the 24th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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New Days in Aurora County

By John Andrews

The people of Aurora County are no strangers to trials and tribulations. They’ve seen droughts, tragic deaths and failed enterprises since the county’s creation in 1879. But there have been, and continue to be, bright spots. If there’s ever any doubt, citizens need to look no further than the very name of their homeland for inspiration.

Aurora County is named for the Roman goddess of the dawn. In mythology, Aurora is renewed each morning and flies across the sky, announcing the coming of the sun and the birth of a new day, a new beginning. In the realm of South Dakota county nomenclature, Aurora certainly stands out as unusual. Of our 66 counties, 43 were named after legislators, governors or other prominent men involved in the creation of Dakota Territory. Another 11 were named for famous national politicians or military leaders. So why would the territorial legislature turn to a female mythological figure when naming this new county?

It turns out they didn’t, because legislators didn’t name it. Aurora came from a group of women gathered in a sod hut, probably one of the first homes in the area. Ruth Page Jones, an Aurora County native and independent historian living in Wisconsin, mentioned the story at the Dakota Conference, held in late April at Augustana University in Sioux Falls. Jones is studying the early settlement of her home county and is seeking more information about who the women were and where the hut was located.

In 1880, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad arrived in Aurora County, prompting the establishment of Plankinton and White Lake. Shortly thereafter, a grand hotel was built in Plankinton to accommodate travelers. The building still stands and is nearing restoration as a wedding chapel, cultural and arts center and railroad museum.

Volunteers have spent over a decade restoring the Sweep-VanDyke Hotel in Plankinton.

The Sweep-VanDyke Hotel is one of two still standing in South Dakota along the old Chicago and Milwaukee line. As the only hotel for miles, travel-weary passengers viewed the charming two-story structure with its welcoming veranda as an oasis on the prairie, says Gayle Van Genderen, president of the Plankinton Preservation Society and publisher of the South Dakota Mail, Plankinton’s weekly newspaper.”Early accounts say people would push each other over just to get a night’s sleep on one of its feathered pillows,” she says.

The hotel is named for George and Ella Sweep, proprietors in the early 1900s, and Bert and Barbara Van Dyke, who ran it as a boarding house before it closed in the early 1970s. It was slated for demolition, but the preservation society bought it in 2004. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. A dedication is set for July 23.

Plankinton’s signature purple water tower stands along Main Street.

The citizens of Plankinton had a knack for grand buildings. Grain palaces in which to house agricultural expositions were all the rage as the town was getting on its feet. From the 1880s to the 1930s, at least 34 grain palaces were built in at least 24 towns around the Midwest, according to Rod Evans’ book Palaces on the Prairie.

Plankinton opened South Dakota’s first such palace in September of 1891. The building was about 80 feet square and stood at the north end of Main Street, but the Aberdeen Weekly News still believed it would be”the greatest display of grain ever shown by any country.” It drew a mighty crowd for its festival, including a band from Lennox and trainloads of spectators from Sioux City and Mitchell.

The next year Mitchell decided to build a grain palace of its own, and the friendly competition between the neighboring cities induced the people of Plankinton to build an even larger palace for the 1892 celebration. But in 1893 the people decided their town couldn’t support a third palace, partially due to the success that Mitchell saw the previous year. The Plankinton palace was torn down and rebuilt as a barn outside of town. Today a painted sign that advertises the 1892 exposition is among the only items to have survived. It hangs in the Aurora County Historical Society’s museum, while the Mitchell Corn Palace has become a world famous tourist destination.

About 10 miles west along the railroad tracks (eventually supplanted by old Highway 16, a popular east-west route across South Dakota) stands White Lake, a town named after the nearby body of water. The first recorded exploration of the area came from the noted artist George Catlin in 1832. Catlin was aboard the steamship Yellowstone, which was making the first ever trip along the entire length of the Missouri River from St. Louis to its headwaters. Perhaps the boat made a regular stop or ran aground on a sandbar, but whatever the reason Catlin departed and walked overland to Fort Pierre, passing White Lake along the way. While in Fort Pierre, Catlin completed several of the Native American and prairie scenes for which he became known.

Bob and Edith Zoon operate the A-Bar-Z Motel in White Lake.

The world’s attention once again turned to White Lake in 1935, when the lighter-than-air balloon Explorer II touched down. The flight had launched in frigid weather from the Stratobowl near Rapid City on Nov. 11, 1935. Explorer II reached a height of 72,395 feet, an altitude record that stood for 21 years. The aeronauts on board collected new information about high-altitude atmospheric conditions. They also provided the first photographs to show the curvature of the earth against the backdrop of space. Explorer II drifted 230 miles east, making a successful soft landing in a pasture about 12 miles south of White Lake. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the landing in 1985, local volunteers led by Howard Herrick constructed a 5-foot-tall marker made of fieldstone. You can find it on 265th Street near Platte Creek.

A stone marker stands south of White Lake where Explorer II landed in 1935.

Stickney is the third town in Aurora County. While not on the old railroad, or Highway 16 or Interstate 90, it is on Highway 281, a major north-south route through the state. Stickney was founded in 1905 and named for the family that founded Stickney in Great Britain. A descendant of that family visited for the town’s Fourth of July celebration in 1906. Stop at the 281 Diner for a burger and ice cream cone.

There has been sadness in Aurora County. In 1887 Cephas Ainsworth became superintendent of the Dakota Reform School. Ten years later, the school endured tragedy when a fire broke out in a locked dormitory and killed six girls. They lie in a mass grave marked by white chains in the town cemetery. A century later, 14-year-old Gina Score died after running 2.7 miles on a hot and muggy day. Today the State Training School is closed, but the facilities are used as a residential treatment center for youth called Aurora Plains Academy, invoking the namesake of the county that reminds us that a new day — and a fresh beginning — is right around the corner.

Editor’s Note: This is the 23rd installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Untamed Harding County

By John Andrews

Harding County, in the far northwestern corner of South Dakota, is decidedly rural. Buffalo, the county seat with a population of 330, is the largest town. Camp Crook has 100, and smaller communities like Ralph, Reva, Ludlow, Ladner and Harding might have a few ranch families. The county as a whole is home to 1,255 people, making it the second least populated county in South Dakota. Cattle and sheep outnumber people almost 10 to 1, and the most legendary stories are about a killer wolf with three toes and a rambunctious rodeo bronc that has been memorialized in bronze. Still, Harding County’s unique geography and history have drawn curious travelers and explorers for centuries.

It began even before there was a Harding County. The place was created in 1881 and named for Dr. John A. Harding, a dry goods merchant and postmaster from Deadwood who was also serving as Speaker of the House in the Dakota Territorial Legislature. Harding County merged for a few years with Butte County, its neighbor to the south, then became separate again in 1909.

On his gold exploring expedition to the Black Hills in 1874, Gen. George Custer heard stories from a Lakota guide named Goose about unique drawings etched into canyon walls. Goose brought him to the Cave Hills north of present day Buffalo, which boasts several petroglyphs dating back thousands of years.

There are drawings of bison, antelope, a warrior and spear and others even more difficult to discern because of their age and the effects of weathering. A member of the expedition is thought to have carved his initials into a rock wall that also bears the image of a large body shield and weapon. Names and initials of 20th century visitors can be found, too.

Buffalo is the Harding County seat and features a sculpture of legendary bronc Tipperary in the city park.

The Cave Hills are part of the Custer National Forest, pockets of which are spread throughout the county. The section farther to the east contains the Slim Buttes, a blend of badlands, pine forest and mesas that runs 40 miles north to south and stretches 20 miles wide. Local ranchers have named most of the peaks and buttes. There are the Seals, the Three Sisters, Doc Hodges Draw, Adam and Eve Butte and Battleship Rock. Highway 79 crosses Slim Buttes to the south and Highway 20 runs west of Reva.

One of the more spectacular features of the Slim Buttes is the Castles, one of South Dakota’s 13 National Natural Landmarks. The Castles are an L-shaped ridge of bluffs that stretch 30 miles across eastern Harding County. The twin white buttes looming south of Highway 20 contain exposed rock dating as far back as the Upper Cretaceous period (100 million to 66 million years old) through the Miocene (23 million to 5 million years old). The Castles also contain a variety of fossils, but collection is prohibited because they lie within the Custer National Forest.

Their name comes from John Finerty, an Irish newspaperman who traveled with Gen. George Crook’s Expedition of 1876. As they passed through the rugged country, Finerty compared the formation to”a series of mammoth Norman castles.” They look particularly medieval in the morning or evening light, when the white stone shines like polished granite.

The area is also historically important. A memorial and three graves just east of the Castles mark the scene of the Battle of Slim Buttes, a fight between a few hundred Indians and 2,000 cavalrymen in September 1876, just three months after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. After that defeat, Captain Anson Mills was ordered to the Black Hills to resupply. His march took him through the Slim Buttes, the site of American Horse’s camp. Troops surrounded the village of 37 lodges and opened fire. American Horse was shot through the abdomen, but refused help from Army surgeons. He died within days. Locals say you can still see scars from the bullets on ancient trees along Deer Draw Pass. Headstones mark the burial site of three cavalry soldiers who died in the conflict. The graves are east of the Castles along Highway 20.

The Island is a mesa in the Cave Hills that has attracted people for centuries.

Another gravesite in the Slim Buttes is a reminder of South Dakota’s vicious winters. During the notorious Children’s Blizzard of January 1888, Otis Bye, a scout and trapper, was away from home. His wife ventured outside to save their horses. Her frozen body was found days later, watched over by the family dog. Decades later, neighbors erected a gravestone at the site. Find it by driving east of Buffalo on Highway 20 about 19 miles to North End Road. Take a left and drive a quarter of a mile until you reach an old trail. Hike down the trail to the gravesite.

With its abundance of ranches, it’s no surprise that rodeo has had a strong presence in Harding County. South Dakota’s most famous bucking bronc was was born on a ranch by Long Pines in 1905. He bolted the first time a rider attempted to get on his back, so ranchers deemed him unfit for ranch work. Later they tried him as a rodeo bronc. Ed Marty was the first to try a ride and was immediately thrown clear.”It’s a long, long way to Tipperary!” he said, thus giving the horse his name.

For 15 years, 82 cowboys tried and failed to ride Tipperary. Then came the Belle Fourche Roundup in 1920, where Yakima Canutt became the first — and only — cowboy ever to successfully stay atop Tipperary. Despite his victory, cowboys still debated the merits of the ride because rainfall made the arena muddy. Tipperary slipped to his knees and never gained strong footing.

Members of Custer’s 1874 Black Hills expedition are thought to have scrawled initials into this rock wall in the Cave Hills. It also contains an ancient depiction of a shield.

Tipperary died during a blizzard in 1932, but people in Buffalo and Harding County never forgot their star athlete. In 1955 they erected a monument in Buffalo’s city park, and in 2009 the town dedicated a half-size statue done by cowboy sculptor Tony Chytka of Belle Fourche. There’s also an exhibit dedicated to Tipperary inside the Buffalo Museum.

A wild contemporary of Tipperary’s was Three Toes, a gray wolf that terrorized ranchers and sheepherders for 13 years, killing at least $50,000 worth of stock. Legendary sheepherder and writer Archie Gilfillan described the carnage.”Other wolves might kill one cow or sheep and eat off that and be satisfied. But Three Toes killed for the sheer love of killing. He would kill on a full stomach as well as when hungry. On one occasion he visited three different ranches in one night, killed many sheep and lambs at each one, but ate only the liver of one lamb.”

His reign of terror began in 1912, which was about the time he sustained the injury that gave him his name. One of his toes was pinched off in a trap, and from that day the tracks he left in the dirt and snow were as distinguishing as a human fingerprint.

It was estimated that 150 men tried at one time or another to capture him, but Three Toes always seemed to have speed, intelligence and luck on his side. By 1925, he was killing at a rate of $1,000 worth of stock a month. The Harding County Commission raised the bounty on him to $500. A federal hunter named Clyde Briggs, an experienced hunter of gray wolves, came to Harding County and set an elaborate network of traps that extended 33 miles around Three Toes’ favorite ranch targets. On July 23, Briggs descended into the Little Missouri River valley and discovered Three Toes caught in the snares of two traps. He was muzzled and loaded into Briggs’ car but died before they reached Buffalo.

Three Toes and Tipperary are long gone, but their legends, the cattle and sheep, the rugged buttes and mesas, the stone johnnies and 1,200 hearty souls remain.

Editor’s Note: This is the 22nd installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Kingsbury County Connections

By John Andrews

Having grown up in Hamlin County, I had plenty of chances to visit Kingsbury County, our neighbor to the southwest. We’d go to De Smet for basketball games or school tours of the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites. We went to the dentist in Arlington or visited Uncle James at his J&M Cafe in Lake Preston. My grandpa went to high school in Hetland, my grandma grew up near Badger and my aunt unwittingly became an entry in a Main Street parade while driving through Oldham one weekend.

It stands to reason that the closer you live to a certain place, the more connected you feel toward it. But it occurred to me that South Dakotans from Buffalo to Elk Point are probably connected to Kingsbury County to a certain degree. If you don’t have a Harvey Dunn print hanging in your living room, one of your neighbors probably does. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s”Little House” series sits on most of our shelves, but if you don’t own a copy of Little House on the Prairie, you don’t have to look far to find one. Many of us have even been the givers (or lucky recipients) of Beef Bucks, or cooked a rib eye on a grill made in Lake Preston.

These all trace back to Kingsbury County, 838 square miles in east central South Dakota that was created in 1873. The county is named after brothers George and Theodore Kingsbury, natives of New York who ventured to Dakota Territory in the early 1860s. Both served in the territorial legislature, and George published a newspaper in Yankton for 40 years. He also authored an incredibly detailed, multi-volume history of Dakota Territory that may be part of your library (if not, you probably know someone who owns a complete set).

Luke Latza and Ryan Fucs wait for walleye at Lake Thompson. Photo by Greg Latza.

Seven years after its establishment, Tom and Bersha Dunn homesteaded on a piece of land near Fairview, soon to be renamed Manchester. The prairies along Redstone Creek are where Harvey Dunn toiled for the first 17 years of his life. He studied art at South Dakota State College in Brookings (despite his father’s misgivings) and eventually set up a studio on the East Coast. He served as an artist with the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War I and was a successful commercial artist, but his greatest fame came from his prairie paintings. He was a regular summer visitor to Kingsbury County, sketching scenes against the steering wheel of his car. In all, he painted several hundred pictures of the grasslands around his home. Some can still be seen hanging in De Smet, but the lion’s share — including his masterpiece The Prairie is My Garden — are housed at the South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings.

About the same time the Dunns settled near Manchester, Charles and Caroline Ingalls filed on a homestead near De Smet, and watched as the town sprang up in 1880. The family soon settled in De Smet, and daughter Laura — by then a teenager — accepted her first position teaching school. The experiences of her family in De Smet are well chronicled in her immensely popular”Little House” series.

Families delight in tours at the Ingalls Homestead.

Another historical figure in South Dakota had roots in Kingsbury County. Emil Loriks grew up near Oldham. He served in the state legislature in the 1920s but made his mark as leader of the Depression-era Farm Holiday movement in South Dakota and later as president of the South Dakota Farmers Union.

The Farm Holiday’s goals were to encourage farmers to hold on to crops until market conditions improved and try to prevent farm mortgage foreclosures.”Probably some of the things we did were illegal, like closing the stockyards, but it was the only way to bring the farmers’ plight to people’s attention,” he told South Dakota Magazine in 1985.

Visit Kingsbury County today and you can see vestiges of their existence. Emil Loriks’ home in Oldham is preserved as the Loriks-Peterson Heritage House. It includes a small museum and tours can be arranged.

The schoolhouse that Harvey Dunn attended has been moved into De Smet, but sadly nothing remains of his hometown of Manchester. In 2003, an F4 tornado destroyed the village. Former residents erected a monument that lists the names of families who lived in the township. It stands just off Highway 14.

In De Smet you can still see the stand of cottonwood trees that Pa Ingalls planted on their homestead, or visit the church and home he helped build in town. Local actors bring Laura Ingalls Wilder’s words to life every summer through the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant.

Bob and Nancy Montross raise cattle on their farm east of De Smet and helped develop the Beef Bucks program.

There are other people and places to see and things to do. A statue honoring Father Pierre Jean De Smet stands in Washington Park in De Smet. The Jesuit missionary spread Catholicism over the Northern Plains in the 19th century, and though he died in 1873, settlers decided to name their town after him in 1880. The statue is a replica of the one that stands in De Smet’s hometown of Dendermonde, Belgium.

There’s good fishing in Kingsbury County thanks to the wet years of the 1980s. Lake Thompson was nothing more than a marsh, but heavy rains in 1984 and 1985 left a lake 11 miles long and covering 7,500 acres. It prompted one farm couple to turn their machine shed into a marina, and lake life blossomed. Today it covers over 16,000 acres, measures 26 feet deep in spots and features 44 miles of shoreline. It has also been protected as a National Natural Landmark, one of 13 such spots in South Dakota.

You can pull good size walleye from Lake Thompson, but my aunt and uncle specialize in another fish at the J&M Cafe in Lake Preston. Aunt Marla is the designated lutefisk chef at all Andrews family gatherings, and several years ago we asked for the secret to making a perfectly flaky filet.”We bring a large pot of water to a roaring boil,” Uncle James told us.”Put the pieces of fish in the water, and when it comes back to a good boil, the fish should be done.” Stop in December and sample for yourselves at their annual lutefisk feed.

Wally and Adam Sorenson developed Dakota Grills on their farm near Lake Preston.

Can you grill lutefisk? We’ve never tried, but maybe the Sorensons have. Since 2004, Wally Sorenson and his son, Adam, have produced Dakota Grills from their farm near Lake Preston. The two tinkered with airflow and designed a computer program that keeps meat at a constant temperature. There’s no smoke, no flare-ups and no blackened hot dogs.

There may be lutefisk in Hetland this May 17 when the tiny town with lots of Norwegian heritage celebrates the Syttende Mai. A potluck, featuring egg coffee and other traditional Norwegian foods, begins at 6 p.m., in the Legion Hall followed by entertainment from the Nordic Nimble Feet. The dance troupe, comprised of Brookings and Estelline residents, meets twice a week to practice Norwegian dancing and travels to festivals throughout the state sharing their culture. Syttende Mai celebrates the signing of the Norwegian constitution in 1814.

Arlington has a lake too, but it’s a man-made creation. It sits at the busy intersection of U.S. Highways 81 and 14, along with a veterans’ memorial. When I was a kid, we always passed by a sign that said Arlington was home to”999 happy peopleÖ and 1 grouch.” I never did discover who the grouch was, though for a time I suspected it might be my dentist. Everyone there seemed so friendly and welcoming, and over time I came to see that Dr. Larry Green was, too. The citizens once even placed an ad inviting Californians to move there following an earthquake. As I recall, a family or two even accepted the offer. So it seems that Kingsbury County’s connections extend beyond our borders, as well.

Editor’s Note: This is the 21st installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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County of Extremes

By John Andrews

Buffalo County is the answer to a lot of South Dakota trivia questions: Where is the nation’s smallest county seat? Where did South Dakota’s tallest sheriff serve? Where was the highest temperature ever recorded in the state? But none of that is to say that Buffalo County is trivial. That’s because its the home of the Crow Creek Indian Reservation, and has been a settlement site for North American tribes for centuries. The dynamic between those ancient tribes and, more recently, between Natives and non-Natives in this county along the Missouri River, have led to tragedies and sadness that can’t be ignored, but hopefully South Dakotans a better understanding of life in this culturally diverse state.

First, the light-hearted facts about Buffalo County, which was established in 1873 and named for the enormous herds of American bison that roamed the prairies. With a population of just 14, Gann Valley is indeed the smallest county seat in the nation. Several years ago, when we wrote a story about places to visit in every county, we directed readers to the Gann Valley courthouse, where Elaine Wulff was serving as Buffalo County’s register of deeds and auditor. The names of wartime soldiers are painted in calligraphy on huge signs inside the courthouse. The dead are remembered in red. There are no restaurants in Gann Valley, but locals gather for mid-morning coffee at the community center.

Gann Valley was also home to August Klindt, who at 7-feet, 3-inches was the tallest man ever to serve as a county sheriff in South Dakota (we’re not sure if that is an actual statistical record, but we feel pretty good about making the claim). Klindt was sheriff for six years in the 1940s and made a lasting impression on those who caught a glimpse of him.

August Klindt, also known as the Gann Valley Giant, stood 7 feet, 3 inches tall. He is pictured with a man and woman each said to have been nearly 6 feet tall.

Retired Brookings newspaperman Chuck Cecil was a boy growing up in Wessington Springs in the 1940s. He recalled seeing the”Gann Valley Giant” on Saturday night in downtown Springs.”We were all packed into the parked Model A with Mom, waiting for Dad to complete his Saturday ritual in the saloon just down the street … and here comes the Gann Valley Giant, cutting a wide swath through the crowd. He was a good egg crate taller than anyone else on the street — like a stalk of rogue corn in a lush Dakota field. He wore the biggest bib overalls you ever saw. The legs had been elongated with extra material that didn’t match, and the suspenders had been over-suspended and were over-taxed.”

The museum in Wessington Springs has a collection of Klindt’s belongings, including his big felt hat and a ring. The curator claims a 50-cent piece fits inside.

Finally, the highest temperature ever recorded in South Dakota came from Gann Valley, where the mercury reached 120 degrees on July 5, 1936. The record came in the midst of a sweltering heat wave that pushed temperatures above 100 degrees across much of the country. In July of 2006, a cattle rancher near Usta, northwest of Faith, who also supplies readings to the National Weather Service, reported 120 degrees, tying the long-held Gann Valley record.

A passing photographer found a group of kids playing basketball at a home along Highway 50.

But Buffalo County has also been the source of serious study. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, archaeologists from the University of South Dakota examined a site along the banks of the Missouri River where centuries earlier hundreds of Native people were massacred. The Crow Creek Site is a National Historic Landmark and is still studied in an attempt to learn more about the lives and movements of early American tribes.

The investigative team discovered the remains of 486 people buried beneath a thin layer of river bottom clay. Evidence suggests the group was vastly outnumbered and that their attackers inflicted particular vengeance. Bodies were scalped, decapitated and dismembered. The massacre is believed to have occurred sometime around the year 1325, and while no definite cause has been determined, it was likely due to tribes competing for available land.

Today that land is home to the Crow Creek Indian Reservation, where the strained relations between Natives and non-Natives were discussed in one of the most talked-about stories to ever appear in South Dakota Magazine. Ray Deloria and Alfred St. John were star basketball players attending high school at Fort Thompson. When the school closed in 1954, they moved to Gann Valley, where they played for coach Quentin C. Miles. The introduction of two Native players caused a rift among the largely non-Native Gann Valley Buffaloes basketball team and their coach.

Gann Valley won its first game 68-53 over Pukwana, with Deloria doing most of the scoring. After the game, player Marvin Speck handed in his uniform.”If this is the way it’s going to be, I quit,” he said.

Crow Creek youth bundle up for the annual cold weather cookout, part of a celebration that concludes the Christmas season.

Because Deloria stayed with the Miles family during the week, others in the community accused the coach of untoward behavior. He received a note one day from the father of one of his players.”I know you get paid to have them living with you,” the note said.”I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a girlfriend out on the reservation somewhere.”

The Buffaloes had talent and advanced to the state tournament. Unfortunately they lost in the first round, and for Deloria the story went downhill from there. He quit school and later joined the Army. He showed up sporadically at the Miles house asking for money until one day, Miles refused.”You never were much of a coach anyway,” Deloria said before shuffling away.

It’s no secret that Indian reservations are among the most impoverished places in America. Buffalo County ranks as the fifth poorest in South Dakota. But the Crow Creek tribe chooses to focus on positivity, especially in early January when they Little Christmas, one of the most unique holiday celebrations in the state.

The Lode Star Casino in Fort Thompson buys toys and clothes for children. St. Joseph Catholic Church provides meat for a Christmas potluck at the church hall, and the local Senior Center hosts a Christmas week banquet.

Maybe the most unusual component is a cold weather cookout. Children stage an outdoor program, no matter the temperature, followed by a hot dog and marshmallow roast. It could even be the answer to another Buffalo County trivia question.

Editor’s Note: This is the 20th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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A Strange Fascination

By John Andrews

There’s something about Mellette County that captivates people. Its rivers and landscapes have inspired poetry and prose that have appeared in the pages of South Dakota Magazine. Rapid City poet Donna Parks penned this piece in tribute to the White River, which forms the county’s squiggly northern border:

In a wide white bed

of seashell dust,

the winding White

goes

milky,

low,

and soundless

as snow.

Similarly, Lavonne McCurdy Banks, a native of the area, was drawn to write about her experiences revisiting the White River valley from her home in California in 2007.

“The prairie merges with lush fields of grain and an occasional green valley. Scrub oak and cottonwood trees root deeply into the soil, searching for moisture left by winter snows and occasional spring showers. Wild buffalo berries, chokecherries and blackberry vines provide luscious fruit, but it soon withers on the vine.

The White River forms the northern boundary of Mellette County. Photo by Stephen Gassman.

“Winters were often harsh and seemed endless. But spring always followed. Optimism returned, planting resumed, hearts lightened and the cycle began again.

“Adversities built character in the White River valley. Its people were never willing to kneel to nature’s temperamental tirades. Even today there is a strange fascination to this land. Perhaps God created it for dreamers to test their capabilities and endurance.”

If that’s true, there’s no better example than Anna Langhorne Waltz, who homesteaded in Mellette County shortly after its organization in 1911. Prior to statehood in 1889, land west of the Missouri River was known as the Great Sioux Reservation. Through the Dawes Act of 1887, the federal government began allotting portions of that reservation land to Indians, hoping to assimilate them into the European-style farming culture that homesteaders brought in the steady westward migration. Once allotments were made, portions of reservation land were opened to settlers.

Such was the case with Bennett, Washabaugh and Mellette counties in the fall of 1911. Even though the region had endured an intense two-year drought, 54,000 people applied for between 8,000 and 10,000 homesteads. Applicants registered at sites in Chamberlain, Dallas, Gregory and Rapid City. A drawing of lots in October 1911 determined the winners.

Main Street in the town of White River. Photo by Stephen Gassman.

Anna Waltz and her husband, Pierce, were not among the winners. But about a year later, she was notified that another family had relinquished a homestead along Pine Creek, about 10 miles west of the town of White River. Waltz’s husband was a Baptist missionary, which meant he was away from home for extended periods of time. The couple had also recently welcomed a daughter, Dorothy. Anna knew the requirements of homesteading meant living on the land until”proving up.” The prospects of doing it largely on her own while caring for an infant seemed daunting, but, she later recalled,”somehow I felt the urge to finish what I had started out to do.”

Many of her neighbors lived miles away, but her in-laws, George and Ruth Waltz, lived in the same section. They devised a system of communication that involved raising flags. If Anna was in trouble, needed to go to town or was running low on water, she would raise a flag and hope George or Ruth noticed.

Anna’s first night in her 14-by-24-foot soddie exposed her to the frightening sounds of the open plains.”I loosened my braids and was brushing my hair when, just outside the door, there was a terrible wail that almost froze my blood,” she recalled.”I sat down on a chair close by and felt limp. I could hear my heard beating loudly. I kept very still for a few minutes. Then, off in the distance, I heard an answering howl and wail that was not new to me and realized that it was coyotes. I had never heard them quite so close before. … It kept up on into the night, and I kept sitting up on into the night.” George later told her the sounds likely came from Coyote Butte, a popular hangout for the animals not far from Anna’s house.

Slowly, she adapted to life on the prairie. She, George and Ruth took occasional trips into White River to collect mail and do some shopping. She traveled to the creek to haul barrels of water back to the soddie and got to know her neighbors at picnics.

The White River’s milky water is due to sediments it carries from the Badlands.

Anna Waltz’s capabilities and endurance were surely tested and she succeeded, as did several other early settlers in Mellette County. Their descendants are still there, ranching or working in the town of White River, which has grown to nearly 600 people. It’s the county seat and largest town for many miles. Smaller hamlets like Red Wing, Gate Way, Texsam and Cody popped up during the homesteading era and vanished almost as quickly, but White River is a survivor. The county historical society has bought and restored three adjoining downtown buildings and created a museum, library and meeting space.

The museum has memorabilia from Tom Berry, a charismatic local cowboy who was compared to Will Rogers. Berry was governor during the Depression. He had many quips, including this:”the most dangerous weapon is a cocked tongue.”

You could spend a day exploring the geography and geology of Mellette County beginning with the White River, which flows easterly from the Badlands to the Missouri River. The river valley is resplendent with cottonwood yellows in autumn, but the water is also known for its coloration, due to high sedimentation from the nearby Badlands. The river valley is cut from gray and black Pierre shale, but the water is milky white. A good viewing area is at the river’s juncture with Highway 83 (between Murdo and the town of White River).

Straight east of White River (the town) are the Little Badlands, a miniature version of the grand national park found to the west. You can see several buttes — including Coyote Butte, the source of Anna Waltz’s fear in 1912 — and another feature called The Devil’s Backbone, a spiny range of mini-mountains between Norris and Cedar Butte. Over a century ago, this was the Great American Desert, land on which no one was expected to survive. But as Anna Waltz and other pioneers showed, there was — and continues to be — a”strange fascination” with Mellette County.

Editor’s Note: This is the 19th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Hyde County: Always Divided

By John Andrews

The first major story I wrote after joining South Dakota Magazine in the fall of 2007 was about the slow and steady loss of native prairie. Producers were digging into ground that had never seen a plow in order to plant corn and beans that would eventually be sold for incredible prices.

Ground Zero for native prairie loss was Hyde County. Bernie Hunhoff and I made the four-hour drive on a clear October morning. He walked around Highmore while I traveled another 30 miles north to Brady and Wendy Rinehart’s ranch. We rode cross-country in the Rineharts’ ranch truck and saw freshly turned ground, littered with huge rocks, while native prairie remained on the other side of a barbed wire fence.

The photo of that scene inspired the headline”Hyde County Divide,” but it wasn’t until long after the article was published that I learned that division has been a part of the county since its very beginning. Hyde County was first created in 1873 and named for territorial legislator James Hyde of Vermillion. Its borders were changed with passage of the Brown Bill in 1879. Lawmaker Alfred Brown of Hutchinson County sought to consolidate his county with Armstrong County and found considerable support for other consolidations throughout the territory. His bill essentially redrew the territorial map and gave many of our counties the shape we recognize today.

Division came when Governor Nehemiah Ordway, a notorious schemer, officially recognized the new Hyde County in 1883. When 150 people had established residence there, they petitioned Ordway to appoint three county commissioners to begin conducting business. Ordway, planning to benefit if the county seat was placed at Holabird, appointed L.E. Whitcher and John Falde from Holabird and A.E. Van Camp, owner of the Highmore town site. But then Ordway changed his mind and favored a town site 2 miles east of Holabird on land belonging to J.S. Harris. He expected his appointed commissioners would carry out his wishes, but he learned that Falde and Van Camp planned to vote for Highmore. Ordway responded by revoking Falde’s appointment in favor of George Dunham.

Gov. Nehemiah Ordway brought his scheming ways to Hyde County in 1883.

That led to the creation of two county commissions, each conducting business on opposite sides of Highmore. Whitcher and Dunham continued as Ordway’s puppets and were challenged by Falde and Van Camp. The Ordway group held an organizational meeting and passed a resolution calling Falde and Van Camp bogus commissioners. In the meantime, the Falde-Van Camp commission also met, organized a slate of county officers and passed their own resolution denouncing the Whitcher commission. The dueling boards eventually dissolved in September 1884. Whitcher and Van Camp then joined to form the first real Hyde County Commission.

When we visited in 2007, traces of another division were still evident. In 1882, Van Camp and rival businessman E.O. Parker each created his own business district in Highmore. Van Camp’s development was spread along Iowa Avenue, while Parker settled on Commercial. Most of Highmore’s businesses are still located on those two streets.”It is a challenge to have two main streets,” Mayor Vikki Day told us.”We’re too spread out for the number of stores and businesses we have, and it becomes a lot to keep up for a small city.”

The agricultural divide was clear. When we visited, South Dakota farmers were plowing 50,000 acres of native grassland every year. Over 7,300 acres had been lost in Hyde County alone from 2003 to 2007. Most ranchers we talked to were sorry to see the prairies disappearing, but understood the farmers’ motivations.

Hyde County was “ground zero” for native grassland loss.

To counter the loss, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has purchased easements protecting roughly 25,000 acres in Hyde County, and hundreds more East River landowners are on a waiting list. One such preserve south of Highmore is named for June Harter, a noted area conservationist. When she died in June 2002, the fate of the Harter family ranch fell to her four children. Three of them lived in California, but Richard had just returned to Highmore from Boston after a career in software. They decided to sell, but none of the siblings wanted the land plowed.”It didn’t take me long, once I got back here, to realize what they were doing to the prairies,” Richard told us.”We knew that this was grassland and we knew that it was good ranching country. To see it plowed up for nothing would have been a real offense to our family traditions.”

The Harters contacted representatives from the Fish and Wildlife Service, who soon discovered the land was a waterfowl hotbed. Instead of purchasing easements, the service bought 1,400 acres and created a waterfowl production area.

Richard Harter and his sisters turned their family ranch south of Highmore into a protected waterfowl production area.

Controversy hasn’t always reigned in Hyde County. Its citizens have a streak of light-heartedness. Before his death in 2012, Harter operated a quirky website called Richard Harter’s World, complete with editorials, jokes and witty exchanges with people all around the globe. Another enterprising publisher is Jerry Hinkle, founder of the Holabird Advocate, an online newsletter for the unorganized village west of Highmore. Hinkle launched the Advocate in 2002 and immediately tackled the controversial issue of nude dancing in Highmore. He contemplated a protest but relented. He explained why in an editorial.

“After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that Highmore will do what Highmore will do. … Hinkle was going to protest nude dancing by removing his own clothes at the establishment in question. Of course he said that when it was a whole lot warmer outside.”

Hinkle has moved to Mitchell, but he still posts periodically on a Facebook page.

Then there was this exchange when Bernie Hunhoff tried to track down John Zilverberg. Locals told him that Zilverberg was a national horseshoe champion. Bernie found him and his brother David, both in their 90s, playing pool at the senior center.

Jerry Hinkle: prairie publisher.

“I hear you’re a national horseshoe champion,” Bernie said to John.

“No.”

“You don’t throw horseshoes?”

“No.”

After a long, friendly silence, John admitted he had competed in the Senior Olympics.

“Did you throw horseshoes in the Senior Olympics?”

“No.”

“What did you do in the Senior Olympics?”

It turned out that he’d won 16 gold medals in a variety of events.

“But you don’t throw horseshoes?”

“No.”

Then, after another friendly silence, he tilted his head towards his brother and said,”He does.”

It took some work, but we discovered David had won the national championship several times over the previous decade. I’m sure the Zilverbergs enjoyed the chance to have a little fun with an out-of-towner. David passed away in 2010, but as of this writing John, age 102, is still competing in the Senior Games.

Hyde County also has its claim to fame. Two clever brothers from Ohio spent their summers in the 1890s with an uncle who lived just a few miles from Holabird. The uncle’s daughter, Clara, taught Sunday School, but when her cousins came to visit she turned the teaching over to them. They were more than qualified; their father was a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ.

The Wright brothers were summer visitors to Hyde County.

The brothers were intelligent and mechanically gifted. They took pleasure in tinkering and improving machines and in coming up with new inventions. Mildred France was barely a teenager when the boys started coming to South Dakota. She recalled their summertime visits in her diary, which was reprinted in the Hyde County history book.”With them, they carried their many models, which they delightfully showed and explained,” Mildred wrote, noting they had created versions of windmills, washing machines and churns.

“My young brothers would have cheerfully given their right arm to have had any one of those copper and brass models which the boys showed them,” she continued.”My brother came home so full of enthusiasm he went to work and built a windmill that would pump water from a large can sunken in the ground and flowed in a trough and back to the can from where it first started, less, what his little chickens would drink.”

The brothers had quite an influence on Holabird’s youth. It’s a sure bet, then, that the youngsters kept a close eye on the newspapers in December 1903, when Wilbur and Orville ó the Wright brothers ó made aviation history by successfully completing the first manned, powered flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C.

Imagine if that flight had been made over the grasslands of Hyde County? Surely its people would have been proud. Maybe others would have chided the new-fangled invention as a passing fad. That seems to be the way things have gone in a county with an affinity for division.

Editor’s Note: This is the 18th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Between the Reservations

By John Andrews

Bennett County, sandwiched between the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian Reservations in southwest South Dakota, is the home of one of the country’s most noted Indian scholars. Visitors can still see his old haunts, and while they are there they can observe wildlife found in few other places in South Dakota or see our state’s version of the sandhills that Nebraska has made famous.

Vine Deloria, Jr., was born in Martin in 1933. Before his death in 2005, Time magazine had named him one of America’s greatest religious thinkers. His literary contributions included God is Red and Custer Died For Your Sins, leaving no doubt where the author stood regarding the history of Native and non-Native relations.

Martin greatly impacted Deloria’s thinking, as he wrote years later.”My earliest memories are of trips along dusty roads to Kyle, a small settlement in the heart of the reservation, to attend dances where people danced as if the intervening 50 years had been a lost weekend from which they had fully recovered,” he wrote.”The [Wounded Knee] massacre was vividly etched in the minds of the older reservation people but it was difficult to find anyone who wanted to talk about it.”

Vine Deloria, one of the most celebrated Indian scholars of the 20th century, grew up in Bennett County.

Deloria’s father was an Episcopalian preacher who served congregations in Allen, Porcupine, Vetal, Batesland, Wanblee and Tuthill. After attending reservation schools and serving in the Marine Corps, the young Deloria studied at Iowa State University. He earned a degree in theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary; but rather than follow in his footsteps as a pastor, he chose a path as an activist educator and writer. He was the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians in the 1960s, and during that period he wrote Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. The book, published during the turbulent years when America was coming to grips with civil rights, challenged readers to reconsider cultural stereotypes, generalizations, patronization and even historical inclinations.

He earned a law degree from the University of Colorado and then taught at the University of Arizona in Tucson from 1978 to 1990, when he returned to Colorado to teach at Boulder until retiring in 2000. Along the way, he wrote and published 20 books and gained a reputation as a gifted orator and scholar.

The historic Inland Theater in Martin was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

Fewer and fewer of Martin’s 1,000 residents remember the word warrior, but life continues here just as it did during Deloria’s childhood. Situated on Highway 18, Martin is part of the Oyate Trail, a 395-mile route through southern South Dakota that stretches from North Sioux City to Edgemont. Services are still held every Sunday at the church built by Father Deloria. The rectory where the Delorias lived is standing but vacant.

Zane and Dorene Zieman’s little bookstore on Main Street has a copy of Custer Died For Your Sins on the shelves. Down the street, the town library has four of Deloria’s books. Marsha Fyler, the library director, says they are popular.”Anything with a Native American theme is in demand here, especially his. The Native American population knows about him.”

Bennett County is young compared to its 65 counterparts. It was organized in 1909 and named for Granville Bennett, a justice of the Dakota Territory Supreme Court, delegate to Congress and probate judge in Lawrence County. The land, once belonging to the Oglala Sioux people, was ceded to the federal government and opened to settlement in 1912.

Waterfowl may not jump to mind when discussing Bennett County, but it is home to South Dakota’s only wildlife refuge west of the Missouri River. Lacreek National Wildlife Refuge was created in 1935 as a refuge and breeding ground for migratory birds and other animals. Since its establishment, the refuge has grown to encompass over 16,000 acres in the shallow Lake Creek valley 12 miles southeast of Martin. It helps sustain sandhill cranes, shorebirds and other migratory waterfowl, but its primary mission is to provide wintering habitat for trumpeter swans. The birds were hunted nearly to extinction in the 19th century because their feathers were in demand for quill pens. In 1960, 20 cygnets were released at Lacreek. They were the seed for the High Plains Flock of trumpeter swans that now includes about 600 birds. The best time to view the swans is October through March.

Trumpeter swans, once on the brink of extinction, have been successfully reintroduced at Lacreek National Wildlife Refuge.

Lacreek lies on the northern edge of the sandhills, a geologic formation that Nebraska has made famous but which begin in southern Bennett County. Just take Highway 73 south of Martin. You’ll pass by farms and fields, perhaps wondering if you’ve yet reached the beginning. You’ll know when you do. The switch from what locals call”the hardland” to the sandhills is literally a line in the sand. They can’t be missed.

Jim Buckles is a third generation rancher in the Bennett County sandhills.

“There’s nothing like it in the United States, except maybe very locally along barrier islands, a few hundred yards off the East Coast, and in southern California,” says Dr. Perry Rahn.”Certainly nothing to the extent that you find in Bennett County and on into Nebraska.”

Rahn, a retired professor from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, says the history of the sandhills dates back 2 million years to the Pleistocene, or Ice Age.”The glacier never got to Bennett County and western Nebraska, but the wind from that era might have blown away the topsoil and exposed the sand.”

Though the sandhills have been intensely studied over the past century, scientists remain uncertain of their origins. As the glaciers melted about 11,000 years ago, the dunes took shape. Some call them a”desert in disguise” because the geology is much like dunes found in hotter climates. However, thanks to an average rainfall of 15 inches a year, a thin cover of vegetation makes them look more like Ireland than Africa.

So Bennett County’s sandhills aren’t necessarily a desert, but the county does have the unusual distinction of being the farthest spot from a coastline in North America. Officially called the North American continental pole of inaccessibility, the spot is specifically 7 miles north of the town of Allen.

A group of college students share encouragement and wisdom with an instructor at Wingsprings.

Bennett County is also helping build bridges between Native and non-Native people. Ten years ago architect and anthropologist Dr. Craig Howe began building Wingsprings on his family’s land north of Martin. It is home to the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies (CAIRNS). Rapid City native Eric Zimmer, a doctoral candidate in American History at the University of Iowa, says CAIRNS brings together a coalition of scholars, teachers and area residents to bridge the cultural and historical gaps separating Native and non-Native people in South Dakota.

“CAIRNS acknowledges the troubled history and current tensions between many Native and non-Native peoples,” says Zimmer.”It builds bridges through education and stands to improve not only the quality of life but to strengthen the common bonds that hold the diverse residents of this land together.”

If Vine Deloria could see it, he’d surely be proud of his home county.

Editor’s Note: This is the 17th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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A Mighty Fair County

By John Andrews

They call them”the best four days of summer.” The Turner County Fair brings tens of thousands of people to Parker every August, but there’s more to enjoy in this quaint county than prize-winning farm animals, carnival rides and meat on a stick. You can enjoy a celebration of Danish culture, see an impressive collection of fossils, watch nearly an entire town stage an elaborate theatre production or visit every one of the 158 stone bridges handcrafted during the Depression.

The fair is Turner County’s signature event. The first one was held in 1880, just nine years after the Dakota Territorial legislature created Turner County and named it for lawmaker John Turner. The annual ag expo moved from farm to farm around Parker and one year was moved to Swan Lake. The Works Progress Administration helped create the present fairgrounds during the Depression. There’s no admission to get in, but there’s all the livestock, food, music, rides and fun that you’ll find at any other fair.

Danish Days is another summertime celebration that draws huge crowds to Viborg. Originally celebrated June 5 to coincide with the Danish Independence Day, Danish Days is now held the third weekend in July. Methodist church ladies rise early to make aebleskiver for the town of 800. Legend credits Vikings with cooking the first batch of ball-shaped Danish pancakes. After a battle they noticed dents in their shields, so they filled them with batter and cooked them over a fire. In Viborg they’re eaten with powdered sugar or syrup.

With bellies full, people line Main Street for the parade and Danish dancing, performed by Sunday school children. Dancing has been a tradition in Viborg for decades. Youth practiced dancing once a month at the Lutheran parsonage during the Depression. Children also learned dances during summer Bible school, a tradition that continues today. They wear red, white and black Danish outfits that resemble those worn by Czech Beseda dancers at Tabor. Boys wear short pants, a white shirt and a tie, while girls don skirts, aprons, vests and caps.

Viborg’s citizenry dons colorful costumes to celebrate the town’s Danish heritage.

There’s more food after the parade at the Taste of Denmark, a buffet of Danish dishes. A main course is open-faced sandwiches.”In Denmark, they always used a slice of bread, usually rye bread, with cheese or ham,” says Susan Edelman, a member of the Danish Days committee.”And then they decorated them with pickles, tomatoes and cucumbers. That’s what we do.” There are Danish puffs, sweet soup served with cream or heavy milk and Êbblekage (apple cake).

Viborg is proud of its heritage, and that can be seen at the Daneville Heritage Museum. The museum’s exhibits explore Scandinavian art, 20th century politics, pioneer agriculture and storekeeping, murals by local artist Greg Preheim and other themes. Rich Skola, the museum director, says local support for the Daneville Heritage Museum has been so exceptional that, “We joke sometimes that the museum will be here long after the town.”

One of the main supporters was Alphie “Toots” Peterson, an avid historian who donated time, money and artifacts, including glassware and much of the stained glass in a recreated country chapel. Her husband, Merle, ran as a Democratic candidate for state legislature in the 1960s when Ralph Herseth and George McGovern were leading a resurgence of the party. She died two years ago, at age 94, leaving the museum some of her assets. She’s perhaps one reason why the Daneville museum has a 1960 poster of the Democratic ticket, with photos of Merle and McGovern and all the other candidates — along with a big poster of McGovern, plus an exhibit of Hubert H. Humphrey and other Democratic memorabilia.

A display in the Daneville Heritage Museum in Viborg remembers the town’s creamery.

For more colorful history visit Centerville, where notorious gangster John Dillinger and his cronies are said to have shot up a pan of perfectly good baked beans in the spring of 1934. Fred Mart had been out repairing a radio at a friend’s farm and it was nearly midnight before he returned to Centerville. He stopped at Bert Hart’s coffee house and card room known as the Bloody Bucket.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Bert told Fred. “Can you stay for awhile? I’ve got some characters in the back and I might need some help.” Bert added that a batch of his beans was just about ready.

He led Fred toward a back room where three men sat, rolling dice, with a pile of money between them. There was also a knife and “an awful big gun” on the floor.

Fred recognized one of the men as Mike Mee, owner of a local bank. Mee’s position was quite ironic considering the identities of the other two men. Years later, Bert told him who they were — Baby Face Nelson and John Dillinger.

Both greeted Fred then went back to their game. Mee and Baby Face Nelson were drinking near beer, spiked with something from another bottle, and they offered Fred one, which he accepted. He waited for Bert’s baked beans, sizzling and popping away in the wood cook stove in the corner, to finish.

After a time, Baby Face Nelson seemed to notice the stove for the first time and asked what was cooking.

“Beans,” Fred told him.

“Then he says, ‘Well let’s flavor them up!’ and he fired his gun right into the stove. Bang! Bang! Bang!” Fred recalls. “Of course, old Bert comes running from the front saying, ‘What happened? What happened?'”

Steam and smoke billowed from the punctured stove, bean juice flowed onto the floor and Bert was furious. Since it doesn’t pay to get angry at a man with a gun, though, there wasn’t much he could do. Of more immediate concern, to Fred at least, was what was in the stove.

Sherree Schmiedt with the collection of fossils that her husband, Stan, brought to Main Street of Centerville.

“I never did get anything to eat that night,” says Fred. “I decided I didn’t want any lead-flavored beans.”

With nothing left to stick around for, Fred decided to call it a night. As Dillinger let him out the back way, he reminded Fred that he had gone straight home that night. “I don’t know anything, I didn’t see anything,” Fred told him.

You can also investigate an impressive collection of fossils that longtime city leader Stan Schmiedt brought to Centerville several years ago. The items originally belonged to Alcester native Eugene Hoard, who spent years searching the Black Hills and Badlands for geological treasures. As his collection grew he tried to find a permanent home for it, but found no interest. Eventually it ended up in a storage shed in Centerville. Schmiedt heard about the collection and transferred the items to a museum on Main Street.

There are unique places to visit in Turner County’s other towns, as well. Two miles north of Marion you’ll find Ken’s, a small fishing hole that Ken Tieszen hoped to build for years. After his death, Marlo Wieman bought the land and fulfilled Ken’s dream. The lake is a popular destination for families.

Danish stonemason Lars Mogensen and his crew built 169 stone bridges, arches and culverts around Turner County during the Depression.

In Chancellor, visit the museum attached to the fire hall where you’ll find a vintage 1905 fire engine (its original pumper still works). Davis is home to about 85 people, and in March nearly every one of them helps to stage the annual Davis Winterstock theater production. The shows began in 1983 and each year they raise thousands of dollars for local charities.

In the countryside, watch for the stone bridges, arches and culverts that Lars Mogensen built during the Depression. Mogensen was a master stonemason who learned the trade in his native Denmark. He and his crew were employed under the New Deal’s make-work program creating 169 stone structures to replace the wooden bridges that were falling into disrepair. Today 158 still exist. Armed with a plate of aebleskiver and a Thermos of Danish coffee, that might be a good way to spend a day in Turner County.

Editor’s Note: This is the 16th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Faulk County’s Heroes

By John Andrews

U.S. Highway 212 probably brings more travelers into Faulk County than any other road, but we might suggest the lesser-traveled state Highway 20. It’s named after Cecil Harris, a World War II legend who grew up a stone’s throw from its pavement. He’s just one of several heroes who have called Faulk County home — despite the roguish reputation of the county’s namesake.

Faulk County was created in 1873 and named for Andrew Faulk, third governor of Dakota Territory. Faulk was a native of Pennsylvania, where he studied law, edited a newspaper and became involved with the Democratic Party. He switched allegiances because of the slave issue and supported Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election.

Andrew Faulk, Faulk County’s namesake and third governor of Dakota Territory.

The following year, Lincoln appointed Walter Burleigh to be the Indian Agent for the Yankton Sioux in Dakota Territory. Burleigh used the position to line his own pockets and made graft a family affair. He appointed Faulk, his father-in-law, chief clerk of the Yankton Agency. Burleigh’s daughter was kept on the payroll as a teacher, even though there was no school on the reservation, and paid his 13-year-old son $80 a month as a clerk.

When Gov. Newton Edmunds investigated Burleigh’s tenure as Indian Agent, Burleigh brought his own fraud charges against Edmunds and asked President Andrew Johnson to replace the governor with Faulk. Johnson complied, and Faulk became governor in August 1866.

During his three years as governor, Faulk became increasingly interested in the potential wealth hidden in the Black Hills. Although his official position remained that the Hills belonged to the Lakota, he privately advocated opening the area to settlement.

After Faulk’s time as governor, he remained in Yankton, where he served as mayor and stayed involved in territorial politics, including the push toward statehood. He died in 1898.

Cresbard native Cecil Harris become one of the Navy’s most decorated pilots during World War II.

Fortunately Faulk’s reputation hasn’t influenced the Faulk County citizenry, including its famed Naval pilot. Harris grew up in Cresbard and was a student at Northern State Teachers’ College in Aberdeen in 1941. He joined the Navy before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and embarked upon a long and distinguished military career. His most memorable mission came on Oct. 12, 1944, when he shot down four enemy aircraft and saved two of his Fighting Squadron 18 teammates at Formosa. His heroics earned him the Silver Star. On two more occasions he shot down four enemy planes without taking a bullet. By November 25 he had earned a total of 24 and a new nickname — Speedball. After the war, Harris served as a teacher and high school principal in Cresbard. He returned to active duty during the Korean War and became a career Navy officer, retiring in 1967. He died in 1981 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. In 2009, the state renamed Highway 20 through Faulk County the Cecil Harris Memorial Highway.

Congressman Pickler’s home is known as the Pink Castle because of its unusual color.

The county’s seat and largest city is Faulkton, home to another politician whose political views are seen as heroic. Major John Pickler was a Civil War veteran who moved to Faulkton in 1882. He became South Dakota’s first Congressman upon statehood in 1889. While in Washington, he championed causes such as women’s rights, rural free delivery and fair treatment of Native Americans. Susan B. Anthony and Theodore Roosevelt were among the many famous guests to visit Pickler’s home, known locally as the Pink Castle because of its unusual color. Visitors can still tour the home today.

Another Faulkton hero was Abbie Ann Jarvis. She grew up in Faulkton and became frustrated because there was no doctor in town. Jarvis went away to medical school in Chicago and became a physician at age 38 so she could move home and help her neighbors. She was the first woman licensed as a physician in South Dakota. Over 30 years of service, she delivered 650 babies that came to be known as”Jarvis babies.”

An Early Start, painted by Charles Greener in 1913.

Faulkton was also home to one of South Dakota’s best-kept artistic secrets. Locals know Charles Greener well because many of them have an original Greener oil painting hanging on their wall. Outside of Faulk County, few people know about the landscape painter who captured Snake Creek, the Orient Hills and other local landmarks so realistically.

Greener was a Wisconsin native who moved with his family to Dakota Territory in 1883. The family settled in Faulkton after statehood, just before Greener went east to study art. He was back in Faulkton by the early 1900s, running a photo shop, helping in his family’s grocery store and painting on the side. He did murals for the Faulk County courthouse and a special commission for President Calvin Coolidge to commemorate his summer in the Black Hills. One of Greener’s untitled works hangs in the South Dakota Magazine office.

Faulkton’s historic carousel still offers rides on certain days. Photo by Mike Gussiaas

Summertime visitors to the Pink Castle or the courthouse might take a ride on Faulkton’s historic carousel. It was built in 1925 and has 19 of its original horses. Bob Ketterling bought the carousel at auction in 1981 and brought it to Faulkton. The city offers rides on Wednesday nights and weekend afternoons.

An unheralded Faulk County hero was Rosalia Schmidt, the matriarch of Onaka. When we last wrote about the tiny town in 2004, there were about 25 souls there. Schmidt was a storehouse of information about Onaka. When anyone had a question about the town’s history, she was the person to see. People like Schmidt are important to the fabric of small towns, especially those that are slowly unraveling. In the last decade, Onaka’s population has dwindled to 15. And the matriarch is no longer there. Schmidt passed away last summer at age 100.

Curtis and Shirley Wik turned a century-old grain elevator at Norbeck into a summer home. Photo by Bruce Selyem

You could call Curtis and Shirley Wik heroes for preserving a part of South Dakota history, but they probably wouldn’t have agreed. Their unique home at Norbeck — a renovated grain elevator built in 1900 — attracted hundreds of visitors and even appeared on HGTV. The elevator held the family’s wheat harvest when Wik was a child. In 1974, when he bought the homestead and inherited the elevator, he began using a portion of it to work on old tractors. Then he built a bathroom inside, and the idea of creating a summer home blossomed. Spiral staircases connected its five stories, and the third floor housed an antique soda fountain from Jones Drug Store in Miller.”Everybody knows a grain elevator is no good without a decent soda fountain!” Wik told us in 2005.

It seems heroes come in all shapes and sizes in Faulk County.

Editor’s Note: This is the 15th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.