Category: columns-history

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The Day Davis Nearly Disappeared

By John Andrews

In the last 15 years, powerful tornadoes completely destroyed the town of Manchester in Kingsbury County, and nearly wiped Spencer off the map. In 1928, the town of Davis in Turner County almost met the same fate.

Tom Firney of Scotland sent us a photo showing the aftermath of the late summer storm. He found it while combing through old family photographs and planned to simply throw it away, but something about the compelling image made him hold onto it. I invited him to send it to our Yankton office.

The photo shows three people sitting on a curb, surrounded by piles of debris. Townspeople (presumably) are in the frame, surveying the damage. A note written on the back says,”Mamma and Dad were over Sept. 14, and said it was a pitiful sight.”

That day — September 13, 1928 — the town of Davis fell victim to a tornado outbreak in southeastern South Dakota and northeastern Nebraska that killed eight people and caused over $1 million in damages. At the time, 250 people lived in Davis. Almost half of them were injured.

Much of the damage occurred just across the Missouri River in Nebraska, where a twister demolished four country schools as it headed toward Sioux City. At the first schoolhouse, a nearby farmer who was watching the storm ran to the school and helped the teacher herd the children into an adjacent storm cave. Everyone survived, but the children at the next school were not as fortunate. There, the teacher told students to lie on the floor and hold hands as the powerful tornado lifted the schoolhouse and swept it away. Two students were killed. At another school, a farmer loaded his car with children and drove them to safety. He offered to take the teacher, but she refused. Her body was found after the storm with the doorknob of the schoolhouse in her hand.

The twister stopped just short of Sioux City. To many people, that justified an old Indian legend that the city is naturally protected from tornadoes because three rivers — the Missouri, the Big Sioux and the Floyd — converge there.

The event was surreal for those who lived through it. One survivor said the day”was like a person experiences when taking ether.” Those who lived through the Manchester and Spencer twisters would agree.

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Ballin’ in South Dakota

By John Andrews

Carroll Hardy of Sturgis was one of South Dakota’s noteworthy athletes.

This week I got my registration form for the annual history conference in Pierre. I’ve never attended, but this year’s focus on our sports history looks especially interesting. Conferences like these love to focus on the political or economic aspects of our history, which are important. But cultural and social components like athletics are just as important, and sometimes overlooked.

One of the speakers is Mel Antonen, who grew up across the street from the baseball field in Lake Norden and became a national baseball writer. He’s going to talk about how baseball games in Yankee Stadium and South Dakota are alike. I’ve heard the presentation before, and it’s well worth hearing again. Not to steal his thunder, but he’ll probably tell the story of covering Cal Ripken when he was going through contract negotiations in Baltimore. He ultimately decided to stay with the Orioles, and when Antonen asked why he turned down more money and bigger markets, Ripken said,”Mel, you just don’t understand baseball in a small town.”

South Dakota has a rich sports tradition. A few years back we asked longtime Yankton sports writer Hod Nielsen to compile a list of 12 of our greatest athletes. That’s not to be read,”the 12 greatest athletes in South Dakota history.” It’s simply a list of impressive athletes that Nielsen saw during his decades of work for the Yankton Press & Dakotan.

He chose all-time greats like Billy Mills, the Pine Ridge native who won the 10,000-meter race at the 1964 Olympics.”Smokey Joe” Mendel briefly held the world record in the 100-meter-dash when he ran it in 9.5 seconds as a senior at Yankton College. Sturgis native Carroll Hardy made an impact on professional football, but he’s probably best known as the only man ever to pinch-hit for the great Ted Williams.

And South Dakota’s athletes continue to make history this week. The University of South Dakota women’s basketball team is in the WNIT for the first time. They welcome Drake to the DakotaDome in Vermillion Thursday at 7 p.m. Also Thursday, South Dakota State University’s men’s team makes its first ever appearance in the NCAA tournament. The Jacks play Baylor at 6:30 p.m., on truTV. And SDSU’s women, in the tournament for the fourth consecutive year, play Purdue Saturday at 12:30.

If you’re near a television or radio, watch and listen. You might hear names we’ll be talking about 50 years from now at another history conference.

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Recapturing Custer’s Trail [Video]

We are big fans of Black Hills photographer Paul Horsted. That’s why we were so thrilled to see Fox 7 News in Rapid City do a three-part series on his re-photographing projects, where he captures a South Dakota scene or landscape based on a historical photo.

Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer’s 1874 Expedition passed within a mile of Horsted’s house. That closeness to history led Horsted and writer Ernest Grafe to retrace the Expedition’s Black Hills footsteps in their 2002 book Exploring with Custer. The two teamed up again along with historian Jon Nelson on a companion volume called Crossing the Plains with Custer, which follows the entire Expedition route from Fort Lincoln.

When we featured the books in our Sept/Oct 2009 issue, Horsted told us “I’m really excited by anything that connects us to history in a more direct way.” That includes photographing the same scenes the Expedition’s photographer captured 138 years ago and finding cartridges, buttons and horseshoes soldiers left behind.

PART 1:

PART 2:

PART 3:

For more information on Paul or to order books, visit Dakota Photographic.

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Pheasants: We Salute Them and Shoot Them

By John Andrews

I was putting my extensive knowledge of South Dakota to good use a couple weeks ago. My wife was crafting a quiz for her eighth-graders, and for extra credit she wanted to test their knowledge of our state symbols. She asked me what they were, rapid fire style: State Animal? Coyote. State Fish? Walleye. State Insect? Honeybee. State bird? Ring-necked pheasant.

Then there was a pause.

“Are we the only state that hunts its state bird?” she asked.

I had to think a minute before I turned to Google, the giver of all knowledge, to answer definitively. The answer is yes, South Dakota is the only state to hunt and eat its state bird. We’re also one of three states whose state bird is not native to the United States.

It made me wonder how Chinese ring-necked pheasants made it across the Pacific Ocean. I discovered that the first batch of 60 pheasants arrived in Port Townsend, Oregon on March 13, 1881. United States consul general Owen Nickerson Denny shipped the birds and a variety of other Chinese plants from Shanghai, hoping to establish them in their home state of Oregon. Most of them died on their way to Portland, but a few survivors were released on the lower Columbia River. No one knows for sure if any of these birds survived, but we do know that Denny imported more pheasants in 1882 and 1884. Those did survive, and pheasants began a new life in America.

Breeders tried introduction efforts in South Dakota as early as 1891, but none took root. The first successful release happened in 1908, when a group of farmers near Redfield bought three pairs of birds from an Oregon farm. They turned them loose in Hagmann’s Grove just north of town, and the birds made themselves at home. State officials were pleased with the success, so the game department purchased 48 more birds in 1911 and released them near Redfield. From 1914 to 1917, 7,000 pheasants were released in the thick brush of the James River valley in Spink County.

Soon South Dakota boasted enough birds to hold a one-day pheasant-hunting season held October 30, 1919. Fewer than 200 birds were bagged on that cold, rainy day, but a tradition had been born. The pheasant became so important to our culture and economy that the legislature deemed it our state bird in February 1943.

South Dakota remains the nation’s pheasant capital. In 2005 more than 10 million birds lived here. Read our current issue to find out how we know that. So this fall, when you head out for”the opener,” tip your cap to our state bird before you fill him with pellets.

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Cavour’s Lady Leatherheads

By John Andrews

In our November/December 2011 issue, Roger Holtzmann wrote about the Lady Leatherheads of Madison, an all-girls football team fielded at Dakota State University during World War II, when many of the school’s men were serving in the military. They effectively saved the school’s homecoming in 1945 by staging a football game.

We deemed it the first”powderpuff” game ever played, and even reported our find to Wikipedia, which promptly changed its powderpuff page to reflect the discovery. Hopefully the online encyclopedia’s editors are willing to make one more change.

After our article appeared, LeRoy Barton, a former executive at the Huron Chamber of Commerce, sent us a newspaper clipping about a girls football team at Cavour High School in 1926. What’s more is that the team defeated the Lake Preston boys squad 13-7.

Boys were in short supply in Cavour that year, so the school’s girls decided to fill the void. A photograph of the team shows 20 girls and their coach, a Miss M. Dauwen, smiling brightly for the camera. All are wearing jerseys (one with a number 10, another with a capital C), short pants and leather helmets. They played exhibitions against each other prior to Huron College football games and apparently played against other high schools.

I couldn’t dig up any details of the girls’ game against Lake Preston, but it did become national news.”Cavour woke up one morning to discover that it had the only nationally famous high school football team in America,” one newspaper announced.

One player from the Madison team recalled that their game wasn’t as rough as she was led to believe it would be. But Cavour fielded Marjorie Gilchrist, who reporters called the”low-tackling demon of the team and a female Red Grange,” after their first game of the season in early October.

“The girls exhibited surprising ability,” a reporter wrote.”A fumble was a rare occurrence. Line plunges were much in evidence. Marjorie Gilchrist looked like a real football player. She goes low on tackles, unhesitatingly diving through the air. She is fast and she can handle the ball.”

Little else is known about the team and its 1926 season. If you have any information, please comment below.

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Wild Bill and Calamity Jane: A Love Story?

By John Andrews

We’ve all heard the stories about Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane being more than just friends. But of course we know better. James McLaird, a longtime history professor at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, debunked the myth pretty forcefully in his book Wild Bill and Calamity Jane: Deadwood Legends. He proved the two knew each other for only a brief period in Deadwood, and were certainly nothing more than casual acquaintances.

But that’s not what The Days of’75-’76 would have you believe. The 1915 silent film was the first movie to link the two romantically. Audiences haven’t seen the film in decades, but it reappears this weekend, the opening of the Historical Film Series at the Black Hills Roundhouse in Lead.

Scholars at the University of Nebraska discovered the film in their archives over a decade ago. They were unable to identify the locations or characters portrayed, so they contacted Wayne Paananen in Lead. Paananen owns the largest private collection of historical films in the state, and was able to piece the story together.

The Hart brothers, filmmakers from Omaha, shot the picture in the Black Hills, Badlands and Fort Robinson in Nebraska. Its run time is about 70 minutes, much longer than other films produced 100 years ago. And it’s clear the directors did not strive for historical accuracy.”It takes tremendous liberties,” Paananen says.”For example, Jack McCall vies with Wild Bill for the affection of Calamity Jane early in the film.”

It includes typical Western scenes depicting Indian uprisings and stagecoach robberies. One of the final scenes shows Jack McCall on trial in Yankton for the murder of Wild Bill.”It is truly a real piece of Americana, not only portraying the true Western format of filming, but it was done at a time when movies were the rage,” he says.”It was a totally new form of entertainment.”

Paananen says the film is exciting for two reasons. First, you get a feel for the filming techniques of the day.”When they had an indoor shot, they only built a three sided set with no roof, and they used all natural light and shot from the open side,” he says.”That was really a great technique, except in this film when they are supposed to be indoors the tablecloth and papers on table are blowing around because of the wind.”

Audiences also get to see the Deadwood of a century ago. A scene at Mount Moriah Cemetery shows the second of two statues that once stood over Wild Bill’s gravesite. Souvenir hunters regularly chipped pieces from the monuments.”You can see it’s already been attacked by tourists and starting to look ugly,” he says. It was eventually removed and is now displayed at the Adams Museum in Deadwood.

The Days of’75-’76 screens at 7 p.m., tonight through Saturday. Future films include Homestake: The Legend and Legacy (Feb. 15-18), World War II films (March 14-17, and a film festival and competition open to amateur filmmakers in April and May. Information on each film and the upcoming festival can be found at www.bhroundhouse.com.

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Gideon Moody: Scrupulous Senator, Knife Fighter

By John Andrews

Don’t let anyone tell you that Facebook and Twitter are worthless wastes of time. As it turns out, you can learn a lot about important figures in South Dakota history through social media. For example, this week I learned that one of the most scrupulous politicians in South Dakota history was once prepared to plunge a bowie knife into a fellow legislator.

My research into the life of Gideon Moody began a few days ago when a friend posted this to his Facebook and Twitter accounts:”Apparently, the gov of Indiana recently described a famous duel w bowie knives involving former SD Senator Gideon Moody. Anyone hav details?”

My friend was referencing a speech delivered by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. The fight Daniels alluded to involved Moody, and occurred while the Republican served in the Indiana state House of Representatives in 1861.

In his History of South Dakota, state historian Doane Robinson explained that the issue was states’ rights, an especially hot button topic in the months preceding the Civil War. One legislator attacked the governor and Moody came to his defense so vociferously that he was challenged to a duel using bowie knives. They crossed the border into Kentucky to consummate the challenge and were promptly arrested and fined $500 each. The bowie knives remained in their sheaths.

Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that Moody was willing to fight. Duels and other physical confrontations were common solutions to problems among men, particularly politicians, in the 19th century. Stories abound involving territorial legislators engaged in barroom brawls in Yankton over disagreements large and small.

It appears Moody’s fighting spirit (at least in the physical sense) abated when he came to Dakota Territory with his family in 1864 to supervise construction of the Sioux City to Fort Randall military road. When he discovered the road could be built for far less than the money already appropriated, he paid the farmers he had recruited to work on it double the money originally intended. It raised the ire of the federal government, but he earned the respect of thousands of South Dakotans.

Moody served in the House of Representatives, was a judge in Deadwood and became one of our first U.S. Senators in 1889. He cultivated an unparalleled reputation for honesty. During one court case in Deadwood, litigants worried over the trial’s probable outcome against them tried to find someone who would bribe Judge Moody. They found an old law partner of Moody’s from North Dakota and brought him to town. When he heard their plan, he shouted,”My God, men! Do you expect me to tackle that man on any such proposition? Why, I should be in the penitentiary in 48 hours. If that is what you got me here for, I might as well leave for home on the coach tomorrow.” And he did.

When he faced defeat in his bid for re-election to the Senate in 1891, several legislators suggesting supporting Moody in exchange for certain privileges.”He told them that if one dollar were used in buying a vote for him he would refuse to qualify for the office or accept it, and more, that he would assist in prosecuting both the man offering the money and the man accepting it,” Robinson wrote.

Moody ultimately lost the election. He practiced law before moving to California in 1900. He died four years later.

Were all our founders so bold? Watch Facebook and Twitter and maybe you’ll find out.

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Is There a Pilgrim in Your Family Tree?

By John Andrews

Many South Dakotans trace their heritage to the tens of thousands of Norwegians, Swedes, Finns, Czechs and Germans who first laid eyes on America in the late 19th century, when they left their homes to settle what was then a vast prairie wilderness. But a few among us have been here a bit longer — 392 years to be precise.

About 250 South Dakotans have proven they are descended from one or more of the 102 men and women who sailed the Atlantic Ocean aboard the Mayflower and arrived at Plymouth in 1620. They are members of the South Dakota Chapter of the Mayflower Society. Today there are over 10 million Mayflower descendants scattered around the world. There may be many more who can claim to be descendants but who fear the daunting work of tracing their genealogy through four centuries. But it’s never been easier.

Margaret Bobertz is the group’s historian. She’s traced her family to Mayflower passengers Myles Standish, John Alden, Richard Warren and Henry Samson. Her family arrived in South Dakota in 1950, when her father came from New Jersey to attend law school, and then opened a private practice in Platte. Bobertz still lives there. She owns a consulting firm called the Thule Group.

When South Dakota’s Mayflower Society formed in 1956, proving you belonged meant sifting through pension and census records and birth, marriage and death certificates. They were often scattered around the country, and sometimes difficult to find.”If people moved West, the records didn’t always follow,” Bobertz says.

More and more records are finding their way online. Plus, a series of recently published books called The Mayflower Families traces the Pilgrims and their descendants through five generations.”When I started you had to write a letter just to find how much a birth certificate cost. It took forever,” she says.”I think I probably make more progress in one year than I did in 15 before computers.”

Of course research still involves visits to courthouses and library archives, but in general it’s much easier. That may be why the society has seen a steady uptick in members.

“A lot more people can [prove their lineage] than do,” Bobertz says.”I’m surprised. We have every year 10 or 12 people in the state that we add to our rolls, and it’s always amazing where they come from. People who didn’t think they qualified, but somebody married somebody, who married somebody, and we can verify it.”

If you think your family tree might start aboard the Mayflower, or if you’ve been stymied in your own research, Bobertz is willing to help. Just call (605) 337-3737 or e-mail sdmf@midstatesd.net.

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Christmas at the Poor House

By Katie Hunhoff

History tells us that memories of hardships will fade with time, but kindnesses shown are long remembered.

In the 1930s, down-on-their-luck families sometimes lodged in county poor farms. Herschel and Hilda McKnight ran the Charles Mix County Home for the Poor in those years. It was housed in a four-story building that was once the Ward Academy in Academy, S.D., south of Mitchell. Before her death, Hilda told of her experiences to Marian Cramer, a Bryant farmwife and teacher who has written several articles for South Dakota Magazine.

Several times through the years, we’ve related Hilda’s story of a 14-year-old girl’s Christmas at the Home for the Poor. Here’s an abbreviated version.

Hilda said she always remembered the day that Carol arrived with her mother.”It was never easy to welcome people to a poor house. Herschel moved quickly to the door and opened it. He had a special way of putting people at ease.”

The McKnights strived to provide clothing so the kids wouldn’t look out-of-place at school. The mothers and two WPA seamstresses sewed and repaired donated clothing. Carol befriended the McKnights and offered to help in the laundry and sewing room as well. But one day in the fall she told Hilda,”I know how hard you and Mr. Mac worked to get us nice clothes. It really doesn’t matter, I guess. I have this lovely skirt and they still call us ‘poor house kids’ at school.”

Hilda gave Carol a hug, and to hide her tears she fussed with a missionary barrel that had just been delivered from a church in the East.”Let’s see what treasures we can find,” she said. Together, they laughed as they pulled out wool pants with the seat worn thin, a pair of long underwear with holes in the knees and elbows, and other useless things. But way at the bottom, Carol pulled out a chiffon scarf. Though threadbare, it seemed lovely to her eyes.

“Would you like to keep it?” asked Hilda. Carol’s answer was to hold it closely and nod. The scarf was her doorway to dreams. She would sit on her bed and finger the soft chiffon. She was not in the Charles Mix County Home for the Poor. She was far away. She always neatly folded her scarf and put it away.

The holidays came in 1933 despite the dust. Hilda and the women baked cookies and decorated the poor house with paper chains. The county allowed one clothing gift for each resident, so the McKnights shopped carefully to make it worthwhile.

A few days before Christmas, Carol tapped on the McKnights’ door.”You have been so busy for all of us, but you won’t have any Christmas presents, any Christmas,” she said.

Hilda assured the girl that they would celebrate Christmas together as one big family.”You are all our family, Carol. We are happy.”

On Christmas morning, Carol hesitantly returned to the McKnights’ room. First, she approached Herschel.”I don’t have a present for you,” she said.”Just a hug.” Herschel was a big man, and he enfolded the slim girl in his arms.

Then Carol said,”Mrs. Mac, I have something for you.” She handed Hilda a box wrapped in paper, and watched like a hawk as she untied the string. Beneath the crackling paper was the girl’s chiffon scarf.

Hilda fought back tears as she fingered its softness.

“It’s all I have, Mrs. Mac,” Carol said.

Hilda told our writer that she treasured it forever:”The frayed chiffon scarf is forever my symbol of Christmas and a true gift of love.”

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How Will the Corn Palace Look in 10 Years?

By John Andrews

Louis Beckwith would still recognize Mitchell’s Corn Palace if he were alive today. The corn murals, spires and flags are similar to those that adorned the first palace in 1892, built after Beckwith and fellow businessman L.O. Gale marched up and down Main Street and collected $3,700 in pledges toward its construction.

Unfortunately times have changed. Visitors aren’t coming in droves today like they did for the 1892 Corn Belt Exposition, for which the original palace (built two blocks further south) was constructed. Doug Dailey and the Tourism/Corn Palace Area Development Committee are trying to figure out how to reverse that trend. The solution might lie in a $20 million to $50 million renovation of the 90-year-old Corn Palace and the neighborhood surrounding it.

“We’re wondering if it’s starting to get tired and showing its age,” says Dailey, a Mitchell attorney who grew up in town.”Being from Mitchell, you don’t recognize the importance of tourism when you’re younger. I graduated in the Corn Palace, I went to youth wrestling in the Corn Palace, and every August there’s a weeklong carnival. There are a lot of memories for a lot of locals, but we think there’s memories to be made for people from all across the state.”

The current palace is the city’s third, built at the corner of Main and Sixth in 1921. It’s unique because not only is it a tourist attraction advertised around the globe, it’s also the city’s events center, hosting meetings, athletic contests and other functions. And that’s part of the problem.”It’s tough to host tourists with events and vice versa,” Dailey says.”We want to try to accommodate both.”

In the committee’s early days, there was talk of a”fourth generation” corn palace, an entirely new structure built in a different location.”But we recognized that the current corn palace is very iconic and recognizable to people worldwide, so we want to preserve the building we have now and improve it,” Dailey says.

In the short them that’s meant incorporating a historical video that plays regularly throughout the summer and adding Cornelius, a fiberglass corn statue outside the palace that makes for a good children’s photo op. But the committee has bigger ideas: added seating and better sightlines, green space, an outdoor stage, more parking and a return to the more ornate corn decorations found in early photographs of the Corn Palace.

“We think there’s been a change in tastes among tourists,” Dailey says.”The Corn Palace is something you can look at and appreciate its history, but people are more interested in ‘edutainment,’ a combination of education and entertainment. They don’t discern between the two. Right now there are less things for kids to do there. The Corn Palace itself is not really a destination. It’s maybe a stopover.”

Ultimately the renovation could include the Corn Palace neighborhood and the entire downtown business district. The committee is getting help from an architectural firm, and plans to hold a public input meeting Jan. 5 before concepts are presented later in the month.

Dailey equates a Corn Palace makeover to Sioux Falls’ Phillips to the Falls project that refurbished an area of downtown.”Everybody’s very proud of Mitchell and the Corn Palace,” Dailey says.”We want to get others around the state to recognize that it’s not just a tourist trap but something special.”