Category: columns-travel

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The Enchanting Black Hills

By Christian Begeman

This spring I was able to do something I had been wanting to for some time. From Memorial Day weekend to mid-June, the fine folks of Sylvan Lake Lodge of Custer State Park allowed me to sit in as an artist in residence. I got to meet folks from all over the county in the afternoons and evenings. Then was free to roam the area with my camera at night and morning. Two full weeks wandering the Black Hills area is a great gig for a guy and his camera. Believe me.

I love to visit this part of the state in spring. There are wildflowers on the prairie hillsides and newborn wildlife to be seen in prairie dog towns and bison herds. This spring was a little on the dry side so the flowers were a bit harder to find. Even so, there was still plenty of color flying through the air with brilliant mountain bluebirds, red-headed woodpeckers and so much more. It also seemed to be butterfly season. I hiked Hell Canyon near Jewel Cave and was rewarded by seeing one of the largest concentrations of Eastern swallowtail butterflies as well as the all-black American swallowtail.

The real treat for me, however, was hanging out at Sylvan Lake and watching the sky change over one of South Dakota’s prettiest bodies of water. From storm clouds in the afternoon to vivid sunsets in the evening, the view never gets old. Towards the end of my stay, I witnessed an incredible lightning storm approach the lake right as daylight faded. It was calm and cool after a warm day. The music of distant thunder rumbling over the hills and faint scent of rain on the breeze still lingers in my memory. Moments like that aren’t few and far between at Sylvan Lake. Maybe that is why it is such a magical place.

Speaking of magic, one of my favorite drives in the world is Highland Ridge Road to Red Valley Road in the northern part of Wind Cave National Park. At early morning or late evening light, you almost always see something amazing. Elk move out into the prairie and coyotes sing to each other while moving through the prairie dog towns. Pronghorn and bison use the road and sometimes walk within a few feet of my vehicle, allowing for interesting close-up photos. One morning this time around, I was lucky to spot a burrowing owl pair in a ridge-top prairie dog town. One was flying scout and the other was in an old burrow with its head not quite halfway out. The owl slowly levitated upwards for about 20 minutes until I could see its whole body, all the while looking towards me with a suspicious eye. When I opened my door to get a better angle the pair flew off to a safer perch. I figured I’d bothered them long enough and decided to move on. Even so, spending an unexpected half hour with these unique birds was magical. As was my two weeks in the area. There’s truly nothing like the Black Hills in spring.

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Cattle and Hogs

By John Andrews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bob Hansen ran the Howes Corner store for 38 years.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Upon Further Exploration

By John Andrews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chili champ Rick Christman outside his purple cafe in Mobridge.

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

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

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

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

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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 66 County Tour

By Katie Hunhoff

Veronica Sanders helps make kolaches in the morning at the Tyndall Bakery.

South Dakota Magazine writers explore our state’s culture, history and people in about 50 articles a year, printed in six issues. We put care and dedication into each magazine, but there is a lot more of South Dakota to explore, so several years ago we launched a website, http://www.SouthDakotaMagazine.com. The content is completely different than what you find in your mailbox. We share ideas, stories and recipes and update every day — something you can’t do in print.

One web series that we are particularly proud of is our “66 County Tour.” Managing Editor John Andrews is doing a fun piece on each of our counties. Each article includes history, news, fun facts and interesting tidbits on the featured county. And each article could be used as a unique road trip guide.

For example, spend a day in Bon Homme County and you could see the miniature Eiffel Tower in Tyndall, the county seat, and visit the resting place of six unknown soldiers from Custer’s Seventh Calvary at the Bon Homme Cemetery. We recommend stopping to taste a kolache — a traditional fruit-filled Czech dessert — at a bakery in Tabor or Tyndall, and ending your trip with a stop in Scotland to see a new 5-by-10-foot mural that remembers a local veteran, painted by world renowned airbrush artist Mickey Harris. The painting is in honor of Leon Woehl, who was aboard a B-17 that crashed in Germany in 1944. The mural shows the crash, and Nazi soldiers searching for Woehl and the other B-17 crew members who hid in the woods until their capture.

John has completed 18 of the 66 counties. All 18 are unique, and surprised us with little-known facts. Did you know that Sully County was once a refuge for African Americans fleeing from racial persecution? A man named Norvel Blair, a slave from Tennessee, created the Sully County Colored Colony in the 1880s. And did you know that a tiny town in Campbell County really wants you to move there? Herreid, pop. 403, offers $5,000 for families purchasing a home or building a new one in town.

Visit our County Tour to learn other fun tidbits, like which county has buried treasure from Mexico, which county is known for its lawnmower races (mowers are divided into three classes; stock, modified and outlaw) and which is the home of the first Lakota to serve in Congress.

Our website is also where we showcase some of our state’s finest photographers, share great ethnic recipes and local events. Our print magazine is our baby, but we love staying in contact with our readers in between print editions. Stop by and say hello!

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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.