Category: columns-66-counties

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Badlands and Good People

By John Andrews

This place isn’t Shannon County any longer. That’s because the members of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation didn’t want to live in a county named for a man complicit in the woes of their people. So they got out the vote and picked a new name, one more representative of the 13,500 people who live here. This is now Oglala Lakota County, and if you visit you’ll see the vibrant Lakota culture juxtaposed against places that tell the sometimes sad story of their past.

The county was formed from neighboring Fall River County in 1875 and named for Peter Shannon, chief justice of the Dakota Territorial Supreme Court from 1873 to 1881. After his judicial career, Shannon found his way onto a committee with former Gov. Newton Edmunds and James Teller, of Ohio, to negotiate land sales with tribes on the Great Sioux Reservation west of the Missouri River. They endeavored to acquire 11 million acres. In return the government promised 25,000 cows and 1,000 bulls to be divided across the remaining reservation land.

“The commission had to obtain 3/4 of adult male signatures per tribe,” says Jesse Short Bull, who helped lead the name-changing effort.”It was not a popular concept. The interpreter, Samuel D. Hinman, was accused of intimidating people to sign or face military removal. Hinman also acquired signatures from children as young as 5 years old at area day schools on the Pine Ridge Agency.”

It took the efforts of two more commissions before the signatures were finally obtained and the land transferred. Short Bull says it seems like Shannon was the odd man out on the commission, but he nevertheless played a role in shaping Lakota life.”When you think of the line of incompetent military officers to ill prepared Indian agents that the tribes had to deal with, Shannon was not in their category. He was a smart man, and vowed no wrong doing on his part when the Edmunds Commission was being questioned. With that being said, he was still part of the driving force that changed the course of history for the tribes and everything that came with that — the breakdown of Lakota culture and the introduction to a new way of life.”

So after 140 years of the Shannon name, the issue was placed on the November 2014 general election ballot. Residents voted overwhelmingly (2,161-526) for the change. After several legislative formalities, Shannon County officially became Oglala Lakota County.

Big Bat’s is the busiest gathering place in Pine Ridge.

The county contains the Pine Ridge Reservation, home to the Oglala Lakota Nation. It’s consistently ranked among the poorest counties in the nation, but there are bright spots. Mark Tilsen and Karlene Hunter created Native American Natural Foods in 2005. Headquartered in Kyle, they produce the Tanka Bar, a mix of cranberries and ground bison modeled after a traditional food called wasna. They began the venture with four employees, but now 16 people work on various Tanka products including Tanka Dogs, Tanka Bites and Tanka Wild, a derivation of the buffalo and cranberry bar that includes wild rice.

You can’t pass through Pine Ridge, the county’s largest city, without a stop at Big Bat’s. Sure, you can get gas, oil and junk food at this convenience store, but its walls also contain art by Lakota artists like Donald Montileaux. A fire devastated the store in 2001, but Bat and Patty Pourier invested $1 million and rebuilt the busiest gathering place in town.

You can find even more art inside The Heritage Center at the Red Cloud Indian School. Its annual summertime art show runs through Aug. 9 and features more than 50 Native artists each year.

Pow wows feature dancers in brightly colored regalia. They dance in several categories, including traditional, fancy and grass.

Summer is also pow wow season on South Dakota’s reservations. They feature men and women in traditional regalia dancing to the beat of the drum. Oglala Lakota College’s Graduation Wacipi is June 19-21 in Kyle, and the annual Oglala Lakota Nation Wacipi Rodeo and Fair is July 30-Aug. 2 in Pine Ridge.

If you want to explore nature and are up for rugged adventure, the Stronghold Unit of the Badlands National Park lies in the northern part of the county. Most travelers zooming across South Dakota on Interstate 90 only see the Badlands from a loop that runs south of Wall. The Stronghold is less developed and contains a mix of parkland and private land. Its 133,000 acres of rugged badlands and mixed grass prairie was used as an aerial gunnery range during World War II. It was added to the park in 1976.

Paved roads are few and far between in the Stronghold, but they are nonexistent in an even more remote section of the Badlands called the Palmer Creek Unit. It’s nearly inaccessible for vehicles and surrounded by private land. Only exploration on foot is recommended, but you must seek permission from landowners before crossing their land on the way to Palmer Creek.

Oglala Lakota County contains two remote regions of the Badlands. Photo by Carl Johnson.

One of the most visited spots in Oglala Lakota County is the Wounded Knee Massacre Site northeast of Pine Ridge. This is where, in December 1890, 300 men, women and children belonging to Big Foot’s band of Lakota died at the hands of the Seventh Cavalry. They are buried here in a mass grave.

It’s a sad chapter that people here will never forget, but with entrepreneurs like the Pouriers, Tilsen and Hunter the future is bright. After all, if you can change the name of your county then anything seems possible.

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

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The Land and the Sea

By John Andrews

Look at a detailed road atlas of Marshall County in northeastern South Dakota and you’ll see a distinct divide. The western half is an almost undisturbed patchwork of county roads leading to towns like Britton, Langford, Kidder and Amherst. East Marshall County is pockmarked with glacial lakes, ponds and sloughs, meaning the distance between Lake City and Fort Sisseton as the crow flies is much different than actual drive time.

We talk much about the cultural differences between West River and East River South Dakota, but I doubt they pertain to Marshall County. This is farm country through and through, although the lakes do add recreational fun and historical mystique.

Marshall County was created in 1885. Day County, which then extended north to the 46th parallel, was cut nearly in half. The new northern county was then named for Marshall Vincent, a New York native who homesteaded near Andover in 1881 and was a county commissioner at the time of the split.

An 1886 history of the area credits Charles Bailey as the first occupant of Marshall County; he homesteaded in Victor Township in 1881. But of course Plains Indians inhabited the region for centuries. In fact, the western boundary of the Lake Traverse Reservation runs diagonally north to south through the eastern quarter of the county.

Families glimpse 19th century life at Fort Sisseton. Photo by S.D State Parks.

Legends passed through oral history are an important part of Native culture. Several lakes in eastern Marshall County have names with origins rooted in ancient stories. Emma Lake lies along the Marshall and Roberts County line, just north of Highway 10. It is named for Emma Mato, who had a lodge on the lakeshore. One winter her lover tried to walk to her home across the frozen pond but fell through. Emma paced the shoreline for months calling his name, but he never returned. Locals began calling it Emma’s Lake.

A huge buffalo herd became trapped in the thick trees around a chain of lakes in southeastern Marshall County during a four-day blizzard. Pleased with their kill, Indians named the place”The Buffalo Hunt in the Woods,” later shortened to Buffalo Lakes.

Long Lake near Lake City could hold buried treasure. A Santee named Gray Food told his sons on his deathbed in 1910 that he buried a flour sack full of gold coins worth $56,000 between two willow trees on the lake’s east shore. His sons tried many times to find the gold, but always left empty handed.

The Indian presence in the area was the reason behind building Fort Sisseton in 1864. The fort lies southwest of Lake City and hosts an annual historical festival (June 5-7). Visitors can walk the grounds and step inside the original officers’ quarters, stone barracks, guardhouse and other buildings. New this summer is the display of a rediscovered 38-star post flag. The staff believes it was the last flag to fly over Fort Sisseton before it was decommissioned in 1889.

There are other unique places to visit around Marshall County. Several years ago a writer stopped in Eden, pop. 91, and discovered that the bar and grill called Club Eden hosted an all-you-can-eat bullhead fish fry every Friday night. Since then, about 20 local investors bought the business and replaced the bullheads with chicken wing Wednesdays.

If you look hard enough in Britton, you’ll find the 1930s.

A farm just outside of Langford features a tribute to a young homesteader who died aboard the Titanic in 1912. Ole Olson’s parents were from Norway and homesteaded near Langford. He grew up there and later moved to Canada. He was returning from a trip to Norway when the Titanic sunk.

In 2003, Olson’s grandnephew Harlan was refurbishing the granary when he found Ole’s name carved into the wall. They figure Ole did it sometime between 1885 and 1912.

We were surprised in Britton one day when we encountered an entire 1930s Main Street. There was a saloon, hotel, bank and gas station with vintage cars parked outside. It’s the creation of Don Schumaker, who runs Schumaker Home Furnishings. He and his wife Norma operate the unique setup as Apple Valley Rentals.

“I’m a sucker for clouds,” Marshall County photographer John Front told us. “I often don’t go out unless there are clouds.”

We’ve met plenty of interesting people from Marshall County including Frank Farrar, who served as governor of South Dakota from 1969-71. The 85-year-old was the subject of a recent television news story about his athletic and aerial exploits (he’s a pilot and triathlete). We’ve been meaning to get to Britton to catch up with Frank.

Another was John Front, who provided a window into Marshall County through his photographs. When we met him in 2004 he was 85 and had a collection of about 30,000 images, many of them taken in his home county. You’ll see John Front photos hanging in businesses around Britton today, and we used several of them to illustrate a book called South Dakota Farmscapes. He showed us why landlubbers and sailors alike enjoy their time in Marshall County.

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

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Not Just Ranches and Rodeo

By John Andrews

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of articles profiling each county in South Dakota. Click here to read other installments.

Two things came to mind when I started thinking about Perkins County: ranches and rodeo. It worked out perfectly for alliteration’s sake, but as I investigated further I realized there’s much more.

Perkins is one of 10 West River counties created after statehood, and one of six organized in 1909. The county is named for Henry E. Perkins, a Vermont native who moved to Deadwood in 1883 to take a job with Seth Bullock and Sol Star at their hardware store. By the end of the decade he had settled in Sturgis as bookkeeper of the Meade County Bank. Perkins eventually became mayor and served several stints in the South Dakota Senate. He was instrumental in passing legislation to carve what would be called Perkins County from Harding and Butte counties in 1908.

Perhaps no one had greater influence on the area than Ed Lemmon, a rancher and founder of the town that bears his name. Lemmon was born in Utah and trailed cattle from Canada to Texas as a teenager, but he found a home in western South Dakota.

Cowboy Ed Lemmon helped create the town that bears his name in 1906.

As the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad snaked west, Lemmon bought several thousand acres of land along the proposed route, hoping to cash in on a new town site. His first choice was about four miles east of the present-day town, but it sat in North Dakota, then a dry state.”In order to make Lemmon a real boom town, the saloon with its attendant evils would have to be tolerated,” he later wrote. The town ended up on the South Dakota side.

Lemmon died in 1945, but his legacy is still evident in town. The Grand River Museum sells copies of The West As I Knew It, a collection of newspaper columns Lemmon wrote for the Belle Fourche Bee from 1932 to 1936, and another book called Boss Cowman. The town’s annual summer celebration borrows Lemmon’s nickname. Boss Cowman Days, held every July, includes a supper, fireworks, parade and a three-day rodeo.

Boss Cowman Days pays tribute to the town founder with a three-day rodeo. Photo by S.D. Tourism.

Spend more time digging around Perkins County and you’ll discover an artistic spirit that you may not have expected. In the 1930s, amateur geologist Ole Quammen had a vision of an outdoor museum that would showcase the region’s unique stones and fossils. It may have been a low priority for others living through the Great Depression, but money became available through federal programs designed to put men to work. Soon Quammen and a team of workers were gathering petrified wood, unusual rocks and fossils and bringing them to downtown Lemmon. They built cone-shaped trees, waterfalls and other oddities. Today Quammen’s Petrified Wood Park is among the biggest tourist attractions in northwest South Dakota.

Lemmon is also the hometown of John Lopez, an artist who has become known for his uncanny ability to turn scrap iron into lifelike sculptures. Our current issue has a lengthy feature on Lopez and photos of many of his creations, including Triceratops Cowboy, which stands outside the Grand River Museum.

Ole Quammen’s Petrified Wood Park is like a moonscape in the middle of Lemmon. Photo by Paul Horsted.

Twelve miles south of Lemmon on Highway 73 near Shadehill Reservoir stands another unique sight. Frank Rosenau and his son, Joel, used a crane to lift a Cessna 310 to the top of an old radar tower. It could be the world’s largest wind vane.

Head south and west and you’ll find Bison, population 338 and the Perkins County seat. People across the county took notice of Bison in 2007 when a book called Bygone Days was published. It featured the photography of John Penor, then 97 years old and living in the same sod house in which he’d grown up. The photos provided a glimpse into everyday life in Perkins County all the way back to the early 1920s. They showed picnics, parades and local youth goofing around. They were charming in their innocence, and caught the attention of celebrities from New York to Los Angeles. But he didn’t attend book signings in either place.”It’s no place for an old sheep herder,” he told us, before saying he’d never been east of Minneapolis or west of Montana.

Perkins County has also been the setting for two of South Dakota’s great literary works. Dakota: A Spiritual Geography captures the essence of rural life. The book is based on the experiences of Kathleen Norris, who moved into her grandparents’ home in Lemmon in the 1970s and immediately became immersed in the nuances of small town life.

Hugh Glass’ ordeal began near Shadehill Reservoir, a 5,000-acre lake created in 1951. Photo by Lemmon Economic Development Corporation.

Lord Grizzly, by Frederick Manfred, is a novel based on mountain man Hugh Glass’ extraordinary fight for survival after being mauled by a grizzly bear. Glass was part of a fur trading expedition along the Grand River when the bear attacked. Glass was gravely injured, and the rest of his party left him for dead. Incredibly, Glass crawled 200 miles across West River to Fort Kiowa along the Missouri River. To see the historical marker, take Highway 73 south of Lemmon for 13 miles, watching for Hugh Glass Road. Go west about 3 1/2 miles. The monument will be on the right, overlooking the Shadehill Reservoir.

One thing you won’t find in Perkins County, or anywhere close for that matter, is a McDonald’s fast food restaurant. Several years ago I discovered that people in Perkins County lived farther from the nearest McDonald’s than anyone in the country. I guess they still do, since no one has seen any golden arches going up in Prairie City. Don’t let that dissuade you from a visit, though. A thick steak beats a Big Mac any day.

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Too Many Counties?

By John Andrews

South Dakota’s 66 counties have been arranged like this since 1983.

Does South Dakota have too many counties? It’s a long-discussed topic that resurfaced at Augustana College’s annual Dakota Conference in April. Bill Peterson, a former legislator from Sioux Falls, discussed the county consolidation proposal he brought to the legislature in 1998. It would have required South Dakota reorganize into no fewer than 15 counties and no more than 30 by 2005. Despite touting its cost savings — something that generally catches the attention of frugal South Dakotans — the plan got very little traction.

Neither did a joint resolution that appeared before the legislature in 2009. It would have placed a constitutional amendment on 2010 general election ballot to limit counties to 25,000 people or 5,000 square miles, whichever was less.

Peterson and his co-presenter, Joe Kirby, cited the dramatic population shift from rural to urban areas of South Dakota. It’s been happening for decades and it’s very likely to continue, meaning some form of reorganization is probably inevitable. Yet here we are in 2015 with the same patchwork of 66 counties that we’ve known since 1983, when Washabaugh County was absorbed into Jackson County and became South Dakota’s last county to be eliminated.

A few years ago, we embarked on a search to find one interesting spot in every county that we thought people might like to see. After our”66 counties tour” feature appeared in the magazine, several readers wrote to tell us that they had set out on their own South Dakota road trips, magazine in hand, to see the places we’d written about.

There are fun and interesting things to be found in each county, so while we still have all 66, let’s celebrate them. Beginning today, and continuing every two weeks, we’ll pick one South Dakota county and write about the unique facts and places that we’ve discovered in our travels there. As always, we encourage additions to our reports. Please leave a comment if you’re a resident, a South Dakota native reading from afar or anyone with an interest in the featured county.

Our first installment features Bon Homme County, officially organized in 1862. Its recorded history reaches back to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which floated into the area in the late summer of 1804. The explorers noted in their journals passing a large island in the Missouri River called Bon Homme Island. The exact origins of the name are unclear, but some speculate that a Frenchman lived on the island and was considered a good man (“bon homme” in French) to local Indians, who bestowed that title upon the land.

The area’s earliest settlers relied on the fur trade for their livelihoods. The first trading post in the county was opened by Emanuel Disaul in 1815 at the mouth of Emanuel Creek west of Springfield. Zephyr Rencontre built a station on Bon Homme Island in 1828.

The county was effectively opened to non-Indian settlement after an 1858 treaty that required the Yankton Sioux Indians to relocate west of Chouteau Creek, just beyond the present county’s western boundary. John Shober and several families from Minnesota arrived in 1858, just before the treaty was signed. Soldiers from nearby Fort Randall, charged with keeping trespassers off Indian lands, disassembled their log homes and threw them into the river. They returned in 1859 and began a more permanent settlement.

Shober and his party are credited with establishing the first schoolhouse in what would be Dakota Territory. Ten students enrolled in the spring of 1860 under the tutelage of Emma Bradford. The original school building has disappeared, but a replica still stands a few miles east of Springfield.

A replica of the first schoolhouse in Dakota Territory stands near the Missouri River in Bon Homme County.

Bon Homme County’s land appealed to settlers from across the ocean, as well. Hutterites, long oppressed in Europe, sent scouts to Dakota Territory in the early 1870s, looking for a place to establish a colony. They liked what they saw along the banks of the Missouri River and bought 2,500 acres of land in 1874 from notorious Indian agent Walter Burleigh. Bon Homme Colony became the first Hutterite colony in North America, and has been continuously occupied ever since.

Bon Homme County is the resting place of six unknown soldiers belonging to George Custer’s Seventh Cavalry. The men were camped along Snatch Creek in May of 1873 when several soldiers contracted typhoid fever. Seven men — six unknown and one identified — were buried along the banks of the creek. Later they were moved to the Bon Homme Cemetery, where a large stone marks their burial place.

Veronica Sanders helps prepare kolaches at the Tyndall Bakery.

Every county most likely has a skeleton in its closet, and Bon Homme is no different. The first tumbleweed ever reported in North America was found near Scotland in 1877. Its origins were probably in a shipment of flax seed from Ukraine.

Today just over 7,000 people live on farms and in Bon Homme County’s five towns — Avon, Scotland, Tyndall, Springfield and Tabor. Immigrants from Czechoslovakia settled around Tabor beginning in 1869, and their culture is still evident at Czech Days, the town’s annual June festival. If you don’t make it to Czech Days, you can still buy kolaches — a traditional fruit-filled Czech dessert — at bakeries in Tabor and Tyndall.

Tyndall, the county seat, boasts a miniature replica of the Eiffel Tower on the courthouse lawn. County commissioners voted to erect the tower as a memorial to South Dakotans who fought during the Spanish-American War.

Tyndall’s miniature Eiffel Tower.

On our most recent trip through Scotland, we met Victor Settje, who is carefully dismantling St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, built in 1886. He’s hoping to find new uses for every board, including the old wooden cross.

The town’s VFW Hall boasts a new 5-by-10-foot painting by Menno airbrush artist Mickey Harris that honors a local World War II veteran. Leon Woehl was aboard a B-17 that crashed in Germany in 1944. Harris’ painting depicts the crash and the Nazi soldiers looking for Woehl and the eight other crewmembers who hid in the woods until their capture.

Springfield sits right on the Missouri River, so it makes sense that Greg Stockholm is in the midst of crafting a 68-foot boat. You can see the work in progress outside his shop at 811 College St.

Avon is the hometown of Sen. George McGovern, whose father served the Methodist church in town before moving his family to Mitchell. The museum includes memorabilia from the McGoverns.

The history, the river and the ethnic traditions all make Bon Homme County fun to explore, especially if you enjoy the kolaches and ignore the tumbleweeds.

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of articles featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here to read other installments.