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A Pheasantless Huron?

By Michael Zimny

The World’s Largest Pheasant has been a mainstay in Huron for 60 years. Now its future may be in doubt.

Pheasants Forever is the name of one pheasant-concerned conservation group, but can any pheasant — even the World’s Largest Pheasant — truly live forever?

The World’s Largest, a prominent piece of Huron’s skyline since 1959, has sustained serious damage to its structural integrity in its 60 years, and that damage — paired with the fact that the ringneck’s perch is not on city-owned property — presents Huron with the possibility of a pheasant-free future.

The city has a lease agreement — which requires some light pheasant maintenance — with the owners of the structure built around the bird. That lease, negotiated 20 years ago with prior owners of the property, expires in 2020. Meanwhile, current ownership wants to sell the property.

Laurie Shelton is President of the Huron Chamber and Visitor’s Bureau. She says the phesant’s future is subject to the whims of any potential new owner. “If that owner did not want it there, then we have looked at what the cost would be to build a new pheasant, and then to put that on city-owned property,” Shelton says.

However, a move might not be an option. “We have had engineers look at it,” Shelton says, “and they do not feel, because of the integrity of the fiberglass, that it would be able to be moved soundly.”

Schaun Schnathorst is an engineering technician for the city of Huron. He has repaired and repainted the bird twice in the last eight years. (The last touch-up was just a few weeks ago). He agrees that moving the bird would be a risky endeavor. “When you can lean up against that bird and you push it in — in almost any given area because that’s how thin the fiberglass is — it’s definitely going to be a challenge to move it,” Schnathorst says.

Over the course of 60 years, the fiberglass pheasant has been nested in by hundreds of pigeons, bombarded with UV rays and hailstorms, infiltrated with water, and even taken a lightning strike to the head. “If you look up inside that pheasant you can see daylight,” says Schnathorst, adding that some of the original steel mesh frame inside the fiberglass is nonexistent. “So how are you going to strap on to a pheasant and lift it, and not have it cave in with its own weight?”

The Chamber conducted a local survey and found broad support for preserving the pheasant as long as possible. “We like the old pheasant,” Shelton says. “If we could work something out as far as the lease, that would probably be the least expensive [option]. It’s really kind of a dilemma, and it’s not one that’s been easy to deal with. We wish that it was on city-owned property because then we wouldn’t be having these discussions at all.”

“I really think, through social media and how many likes and comments it got after I did a little touch up to it, that the people of Huron want to try to keep it, and keep it in good shape for as long as they possibly can,” Schnathorst says.”Unfortunately, there will probably come a day when it’s just run its course. It’s not Mount Rushmore. It’s not made out of stone.”

Huron commissioned sculptor Robert Jacobs of Idaho to create the city’s massive fiberglass pheasant in 1959. The ringneck stands 28 feet tall, and measures about 40 feet from beak to tail.

The dedication ceremony, held on the pheasant season opener, starred former governor and pheasant hunting enthusiast Joe Foss, who reportedly fired several blanks from his shotgun at the bird as he departed in his helicopter. Sen. Francis Case and Congressman George McGovern were also on hand.

The initial funding for the project was provided by the local Jaycees, but the owner of the Plains Motel, in front of which the bird stood, had to cough up an outstanding $5,000 at the last minute to keep the disgruntled sculptor from torching his bird.

The World’s Largest Pheasant still makes headlines, and for that reason, you can’t count it out. The bird weathered adversity as new owners took over its roost. One such scare in the late 1990s even had other towns giving him the poacher’s eye.

He stands for now, barrel-breasted, proud-beaked, with a fresh coat of paint, unfazed by the uncertainty in the ground beneath his feet.

Michael Zimny is the social media engagement specialist for South Dakota Public Broadcasting in Vermillion. He blogs for SDPB and contributes arts columns to the South Dakota Magazine website.

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An Original River Town

By Chloe Kenzy

John McNeill, pictured with his wife Susan, has written many songs about the Missouri River.

The ever-growing delta of the great Missouri borders Springfield on the south, and a state prison housing 1,200 men sits on the north side of town. But you can’t pigeonhole Springfield as a river town or a prison town. It’s more complicated than that. Ask John McNeill, a singer-preacher-teacher who moved there with his wife, Susan, in 1976.

The McNeills settled in Springfield because it had an excellent library on the college campus, good water and not a single stoplight. They’re known to country music fans in southeast South Dakota as regular performers at Gayville Hall, where they do tribute concerts to the likes of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. John also serves as pastor and resident musician for the Springfield Community Bible Church, and he taught for years at the prison and the college that preceded it.

John also writes music, including more than 100 songs inspired by the life and hard times of the river valley.”We have a unique history that’s different from other farm communities,” he says.”This is an old river town that had many hopes, most of which never materialized quite the way the people wanted. Springfield was promised many things that ended up in places more prominent and politically connected.”

Springfield was established along a chalkstone bluff on the Missouri River in 1870. Town leaders hoped to land the state’s university, but it went to Vermillion. They fought for the prison, but it was built in Sioux Falls.

However, there were victories. A small teacher’s college was established in 1881, and the campus became the pride of Bon Homme County. Construction of Gavins Point Dam, 28 miles downriver, in the 1950s gave the little college town a lakefront and boosted the population over 1,000 in the 1960s. But dark clouds were circling; civic leaders were constantly worried that penny-pinching state officials might close the college, and finally it happened in 1984 when the governor and legislators decided South Dakotans needed less classroom space and more prison cells.

Losing the school was gut wrenching, and about that same time it became obvious that the new lake was becoming shallower due to sediment flowing in from the Nebraska Sandhills via the Niobrara River.

The town lost some families when the college closed, but most stayed and found ways to adapt. A number of today’s 800 un-incarcerated residents — like McNeill — transitioned from jobs at the college to work at the prison. In fact the institution is named for the late Mike Durfee, a heavyweight wrestling champ and football star for Southern State of Springfield in the 1960s and a popular coach and teacher at the college in the 1970s who became a prison administrator.

Greg and Sandy Stockholm at the helm of a big sailboat dry-docked in downtown Springfield.

Midway between the prison and the river, in a small downtown business district that shrank even more when the college closed, Greg Stockholm has been working on a 72-foot sailboat for the last 14 years. In the beginning, the frame of the boat was upside down alongside the body shop and looked like a shiny beached whale.

Stockholm continued to repair automobiles and sold his motorcycle, cars and an airplane to help pay for the project. Even though he found most of the metal at salvage prices, it has still been costly in time and money. The ship, yet to be named, will weigh 30 tons and hoist 3,500 square feet of sails.

Townspeople and visitors often stop by for a look. Stockholm’s wife, Sandy, maintains a website (sailingdakota.com) so interested observers can monitor the ship’s progress.”Doubting Thomases” are slowly converting to believers, especially after Greg turned the boat on its bottom in 2007 and it began to look like a vessel.”People don’t think I’m so crazy anymore,” he says.”I like to remind them that amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.” He hopes to finish by 2018.

The boat will sleep 12 in six cabins and feature space for a vegetable garden, solar panels and a 175-horsepower John Deere combine engine. Most importantly, it will be sturdy enough to withstand storms at sea.

The Stockholms might eventually use the boat for a charter business but first they hope to sail around the world, starting somewhere below the dam at Yankton. They may suffer a tinge of homesickness if they sail past the White Cliffs of Dover in England, geographic cousins to the chalkstone bluffs bordering the Missouri River where Greg learned to sail as a youth. Such bluffs, formed over eons by calcified mineral deposits from sea plankton, are found only along the Missouri River in South Dakota, Dover and a few other spots in the entire world.

Pioneers used Dakota chalkstone as a building stone a century ago. Some homes and churches built of the stone are standing today, but it never became popular because it was considered too porous. Still, the soft texture makes it the perfect stone for Ron Livingston, a white-bearded artist in overalls who has a studio not far from the sailboat.

Ron Livingston creates art from the chalkstone of the Missouri River bluffs.

Livingston has lived in Springfield for 28 years. He awakens before sunrise to begin carving images in the chalk. He prefers fish designs but he aims to please, so he also does other prairie wildlife and even entertains requests. The son of a Yankton auto body repairman, he has never taken an art class and is uncomfortable being called an artist — but he’s not the type to argue and there’s no better word for his popular creations.

Livingston quit drinking a year ago and the change has affected his output.”My creative juices don’t work as good anymore but my work sure has gotten better,” he jokes. The bluffs’ chalk rock seems inexhaustible, but the Corps of Engineers forbids him from collecting it along the lake’s 90-mile shoreline. Instead, he salvages material from the ruins of old buildings.

Between Stockholm’s sailboat and Livingston’s studio sits a building with a nondescript exterior that serves as the Schneider family’s private winery. Dallas Schneider stores his grandfather’s 1937 Nash Lafayette hunting car in the front of the building, and in the rear he ferments fruits grown nearby.

Schneider came to Springfield 30 years ago to work at the state prison. He bought land on the east end of town along the river and soon began clearing brush and planting trees. Today his well-tended orchard includes peaches, apples, plums, apricots, gooseberries, rhubarb, raspberries, cherries, pears and grapes. It’s a hobby, but in good years the winery produces enough bottles for family and friends and extra fruit that he shares with Springfield’s popular senior nutrition program.

Schneider, acknowledging the plethora of interesting projects going on around Springfield, thinks that the town,”is off the beaten path and so quiet and peaceful that you can get things done.” That would explain artist Cheryl Halsey’s bursts of creativity. She and her husband, Jim, live and work on the family farm north of Springfield on a gravel road. Giant cottonwoods surround a big farmhouse that became even larger when an old country church was moved to the farm and attached. Now the house has a cathedral ceiling, stained glass and ample room to display Cheryl’s art.

She calls her space Blue Heron Studio, fitting because the heron navigates air, earth and water. Likewise, Halsey works in various mediums and methods that include jewelry, painted cylinders, sculpture, masks and paper. Halsey also enjoys making intricate jewelry from leather with unique designs. She had the opportunity to use leather from the singer Madonna’s world tour when she helped her son, Travis, who is a costume designer in Chicago.

Giant cottonwood trees shade Cheryl Halsey’s farmyard north of Springfield.

Like McNeill, Schneider and many other Springfield area residents, Halsey was employed in the prison for several years, working with inmates to develop their artistic skills. Now she does stints in schools as an artist-in-residence, helping students expand their imaginations.

The town has other unexpected finds. Workers at a factory called Rush-Co design and manufacture fabric buildings, boat canopies and other custom covers. Another small business, Mr. Golf Cart, refurbishes gas and electric carts. And perhaps coolest of all, Dennis DeBoer makes a career of building kits of model submarines and spaceships like the USS Enterprise. He works from an inconspicuous shop in a residential district.

McNeill, the songwriter, thinks the town’s historic”ups and downs” might explain the originality and creative spirit of its citizenry.”Springfield never got anything easy and it didn’t get anything without some sweat and heartbreak,” he says.”Some of that probably provides grist for the artists’ mill. Cheryl Halsey can paint it and Ron Livingston can sculpt it and people like me can put it to poetry and song.”

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the November/December 2016 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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On the Quartzite Trail

By John Andrews

There’s a geologic treasure in southeastern South Dakota that has been here longer than our famed petrified forests or the prehistoric fossils painstakingly brushed from the soil. Outcroppings of ultra-hard, 1.6-billion-year-old Sioux quartzite protrude from grassy prairies and riverbanks over 6,000 square miles from the James River eastward into Minnesota and Iowa.

Jim Kersten

People have placed significance upon the unique pink rocks for centuries, but Jim Kersten believes that what he calls”quartzite country” holds even more potential. He’s spent years creating the Sioux Quartzite Outcrop Trail that takes people to 10 primary sites, nine secondary locations and over two dozen historical attractions in South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa that feature quartzite naturally or architecturally.

Kersten became interested in quartzite while operating a bed and breakfast in Alcester from 1995 to 2005. He often hosted kayaking ventures along the Big Sioux River and bicycle tours through southeastern South Dakota. Quartzite was right under his nose, though he never thought of the region as a destination until he served on the Big Sioux Recreation Council.”I ended up being the historian because I liked it,” says Kersten, who today runs a painting business with his twin brother in Aberdeen.”I decided to inventory some sites along the river from Dell Rapids to Sioux City. I found that a lot of my sites along the river were quartzite sites. I finally figured out that was the common denominator, especially in areas where outcroppings go across the river. I could develop a lot of themes, but the quartzite was the key.”

Quartzite is easily the oldest feature in eastern South Dakota, and it confounded early European visitors like artist George Catlin and explorer Joseph Nicollet, both of whom visited pipestone quarries in the 1830s.”The single fact of such a table of quartz, in horizontal strata, resting on this elevated plateau, is of itself a very interesting subject for investigation; and one which calls upon the scientific world for a correct theory with regard to this time when and the manner in which this formation was produced,” Catlin wrote.

Kersten says Nicollet and others offered a variety of scenarios to explain quartzite’s origin, including one with Biblical origins. But they had not heard the theory of Swiss geographer Louis Agassiz, who in 1837 became the first scientist to propose that Earth had endured an Ice Age, in which he argued that rocks — including Sioux quartzite — were shaped, transplanted and uncovered by huge, slowly-advancing glaciers.

Today’s impressive river formations began as fine grains of quartz no bigger than half a millimeter. They were deposited on the bottom of a shallow sea that once covered large portions of North America. The particles, rounded by water and compacted by heat and intense pressure, slowly built and hardened over millions of years. Then glaciers swept across the continent, revealing what Kersten considers,”the Black Hills of East River.””The Black Hills are gorgeous, but there’s little rock in the Black Hills as old as this,” he says.”This is as old as rock in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and there you’re looking at 1.7 billion years of strata going down.”

Kersten’s”Quartzite Country” extends from Redstone, at the junction of the Cottonwood and Minnesota rivers in Minnesota, and runs to the James River near Mitchell. Exposed stone is found between Flandreau and Canton, but quartzite has been discovered during well digging as far west as Stanley and Jones counties in South Dakota, and across the Missouri River into northern Nebraska.

His tour of 10 primary quartzite sites — selected because of the significant outcroppings or association with Indian history — begins in Sioux Falls. The trail loops 370 miles through eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota, and ends at the Dells of the Big Sioux River near Dell Rapids.”The whole picture is bigger than its parts,” he says.”Each one of these sites has its own story, and it’s about much more than the rocks. Prairie is being restored at a number of places, including all the primary outcroppings.”

Take time this summer to explore the Sioux Quartzite Outcrop Trail and see the unique role prehistoric rocks have played in developing the frontier.

Queen Bee Mill & Falls Park, Sioux Falls

Queen Bee Mill and Falls Park. Photo by Greg Latza

Sioux Falls town builders were awed by the powerful torrents of water cascading over the quartzite boulders that comprise the falls of the Big Sioux River. About 7,400 gallons of water drop 100 feet over the course of the falls every second. Richard Pettigrew, a city father, politician and businessman, sought to harness that power in 1878 when he began construction on the seven-story, state-of-the-art Queen Bee Mill.

The new mill was capable of producing 1,200 barrels of flour a day. But soon after it opened in 1881, investors realized that Dakota farmers couldn’t produce enough wheat to keep the mill solvent. By 1883, it was closed.

Entrepreneurs tried various businesses in the old quartzite mill, but each venture failed. The structure became a warehouse in 1929, and much of it was destroyed by fire in 1959. Its upper floors were demolished after the blaze for safety. Its ruins still stand on the riverbank.

Today the city of Sioux Falls has transformed the 123-acre Falls Park into a popular destination for families with a cafe, picnic space and trail system.

Mary Jo Wegner Arboretum and East Sioux Falls Historic Site, Sioux Falls

Arrowhead Park, East Sioux Falls. Photo by Christian Begeman

Construction is finishing on the Mary Jo Wegner Arboretum and East Sioux Falls Historic Site at the junction of Highways 11 and 42. Sioux Falls’ newest park is the brainchild of Mary Jo Wegner, a local environmental advocate who envisioned a natural haven of gardens, plants and wetlands as an escape from the urbanity of South Dakota’s largest city. When completed, the area will include six gardens, interpretive exhibits and an extension of the Sioux Falls Bike Trail.

The 115-acre park sits on land rich in quartzite history. East Sioux Falls was once a thriving community of 600 residents, many of whom relied on local quartzite quarries for their livelihoods. A number of quarries were operating in Sioux Falls by the end of the 1880s, but the largest opened at East Sioux Falls in 1887. By 1890, nearly 500 men toiled there, cutting stone to ship via rail to cities like Omaha, St. Louis and Chicago for street paving.

An economic downturn in 1891 followed by the Panic of 1893 slowed production at the Sioux Falls quarries. As concrete became the building material of choice, workers began to leave East Sioux Falls. The city gave up its charter in 1913.

Jasper Pool, Gitchie Manitou State Preserve, South Dakota/Iowa Border

Jasper Pool. Photo by Christian Begeman

Just across the Big Sioux River in Lyon County, Iowa, the oldest exposed bedrock in that state is preserved at Gitchie Manitou State Preserve. From the 1890s to 1920, a quartzite quarry operated in the northeast corner of the 91-acre preserve. The remains have filled with water, creating the Jasper Pool.

Another feature of Gitchie Manitou is a series of conical mounds near its southern edge. Archaeologists are still determining their significance, but they may be part of a larger complex found at Blood Run, South Dakota’s newest state park along the South Dakota/Iowa border that was home to the Oneota people for 8,500 years.

Queen Rock, Palisades State Park, Garretson

King and Queen Rock, Palisades State Park.

South of Garretson, quartzite cliffs and rock formations rise 50 to 60 feet along the banks of Split Rock Creek. Among the most unique formations are two spires called King and Queen Rock.

At just over 150 acres, Palisades is South Dakota’s second smallest state park. Still, it boasts a campground, a lodge and four hiking trails, including the King and Queen Rock Trail. The 0.2-mile route passes the King and Queen and the rest of the park’s most impressive quartzite formations. The trail also winds past the site of Palisades, a small town formed in 1870 after homesteaders built a large flourmill along the creek. But A.S. Garretson, an entrepreneur from Sioux City, made sure a railroad junction was placed two miles north on land he owned, spawning the town named for him and facilitating Palisades’ demise.

Adventurers come to Palisades for kayaking and rock climbing, which poses special challenges. The surface of the quartzite ranges from gritty to slippery smooth, the result of glacial weathering.

Devil’s Falls, Devil’s Gulch Park, Garretson

Devil’s Gulch. Photo by Christian Begeman

Outlaws Frank and Jesse James robbed a bank in Northfield, Minn., in 1876 and rode west. Legend says that as they eluded a posse, Jesse spurred his horse and jumped a 20-foot chasm across Split Rock Creek on the edge of Garretson.

If it’s true, Jesse probably didn’t have time to appreciate the quartzite-lined gulch or the nearby waterfall. Some geologists speculate that an ancient earthquake split the quartzite and created the fissure. Today an iron footbridge spans the gap where Jesse is said to have leapt. A hiking trail leads to the falls and other quartzite features, such as Devil’s Kitchen and Devil’s Stairway.

Touch the Sky Prairie, Rock County, Minnesota

Here the trail turns east into Minnesota and stops near Luverne at Touch the Sky Prairie, site of a major prairie restoration project. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Brandenburg Prairie Foundation, led by local photographer and filmmaker Jim Brandenburg, have purchased 1,000 acres of land northwest of Luverne. Fences and old farmstead buildings have been removed to make room for native plants and animals. The acreage also features a mile-long quartzite ridgeline that served as a buffalo rub. Some of the outcroppings have surfaces as smooth as glass, the result of centuries of rubbing.

Blue Mound State Park, Luverne, Minnesota

Homesteaders traveling west across the prairie noticed a strange mound with a blue tint as they neared South Dakota. They soon discovered the”blue mound” was a 100-foot tall outcropping of Sioux quartzite, one of many at Blue Mound State Park, an 1,800-acre oasis of prairie grasses and flowers north of Luverne.

Local historians believe Plains Indians first utilized the mound as a buffalo jump because of the large number of bones recovered at the outcropping’s base.

Pipestone National Monument, Pipestone, Minnesota

The pipestone quarries near Pipestone, Minn., just across the state line east of Flandreau, have been sacred to Plains Indians for centuries. A Brule legend told by Lame Deer in the 1960s relates their importance in the creation of the Lakota people. It began with a flood that inundated all the land except a hill next to the sacred quarries. People clamored to the hilltop, but rising waters killed everyone except a young girl saved by a bald eagle that flew her to safety in the Black Hills. The Lakota people were descended from that union. Meanwhile, the blood of the flood victims turned to pipestone and created the vast quarries.

Indians have journeyed to the quarries for at least 800 years to extract pipestone from the layers of Sioux quartzite that jut from the Earth at the Pipestone National Monument. The monument was created in 1937 to ensure Indians of all federally recognized tribes had access to pipestone, used in making ceremonial pipes. A feature of the monument is a quartzite outcropping that forms a 10- to 15-foot cliff line that runs north to south along the entire length of the 301-acre site.

Jeffers Petroglyphs, Comfrey, Minnesota

Flat slabs of quartzite dot the prairie at the Jeffers Petroglyphs Historic Site near Comfrey, Minn. Here, Plains Indians — including the Lakota and Dakota — scratched over 4,000 images into the hard stone. The oldest drawings could be 9,000 years old, while the newest were done within the last two centuries. They tell of important events, sacred ceremonies, legends and stories of hunting and other daily activities. The age of the drawings indicates that Jeffers is among the oldest continually used sacred sites in the world.

Dells of the Big Sioux, Dell Rapids

Little Dells. Photo by Christian Begeman

The trail concludes at the Dells of the Big Sioux River, south of Dell Rapids in Minnehaha County. Quartzite was key to Dell Rapids’ development. Many of the 39 buildings in the downtown business district were constructed using locally quarried quartzite. Even the high school mascot is a”quarrier.”

At the peaceful dells, the river flows between 40-foot quartzite walls sprinkled with lush trees and prairie grasses.

Along the Way …

Kersten has identified nine secondary outcroppings along his quartzite trail. The first is Arrowhead Park in Sioux Falls. The 131-acre park features two quarry ponds that were once part of the bustling East Sioux Falls quarry scene. Dale Weir donated the land to the city of Sioux Falls for development as a park. Ducks and geese frequent the ponds, which are connected by a walking trail that also passes an 1888 barn designed by Sioux Falls architect Wallace Dow.

At Split Rock Creek City Park in Garretson, and Split Rock Creek State Park in Ihlen, Minn., quartzite walls tower over the placid stream. Kayakers enjoy paddling the stretch through the Garretson park, which includes a dam, bridges, a rock wall and a bathhouse built in 1936 as a Works Progress Administration project. All the structures are made of quartzite.

Rockport Hutterite Colony.

The Red Rock Falls and Red Rock Dells in Cottonwood County, Minn., feature more quartzite outcroppings. A 0.34-mile trail skirts the edge of some boulders and through a gorge to the small waterfall. Keep heading east toward Redstone, the eastern edge of quartzite county near New Ulm, Minn. An active quarry on the eastern edge of town has been operational since 1861.

Kersten’s trail re-enters South Dakota at the Three Sisters quartzite formation in the Big Sioux River near Dell Rapids and two sites of early construction: the Dell Rapids Mill and Saint Olaf Roller Mill and Power Dam in Baltic.”There are 20 mills in a pretty tight radius of Sioux Falls,” Kersten says.”Every town had a mill. My next project could be on the grist mills of southeastern South Dakota.”

The final stop is Rockport Hutterite Colony along the James River south of Alexandria. It marks the western edge of significantly exposed quartzite. Huge slabs lie between the colony buildings and the lazy river, along with quartzite foundations of buildings that comprised Fort James, built in 1865 to maintain peace between homesteaders and Indians. Soldiers occupied Fort James — one of the only stone cavalry forts in the West — for a year before it closed in 1866.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 2013 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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The Comeback City

By Paul Higbee

Children dance to live music in Huron’s Campbell Park. Family Nights are held each Thursday during the summer.

It’s my favorite South Dakota trivia question: Who were the two U.S. senators born in Huron?

Lots of South Dakotans answer quickly although, I’m sorry to say, they’re almost always wrong. You’ll find the answer later in this article, but my point is that South Dakotans generally say they know Huron well when, in fact, they could benefit by taking a closer look.

South Dakotans think they know Huron because so many of us have traveled there year after year, since childhood, for the State Fair. What’s more, Huron historically has been South Dakota’s center — not its geographic center, but for decades the approximate center of East River. It’s been known as a center for homesteading, organized labor, women’s suffrage and basketball — for many years it boasted the state’s premier arena for state high school hoops tournaments.

Dakota Avenue is Huron’s main street, where you can find everything from homemade donuts in the morning to live music at night.

Jeanne Cowan remembers moving to Huron as a child in the 1950s after her father contracted polio.”St. John’s Hospital was a regional center for polio treatment,” she said.”I grew up thinking Huron was the best town anywhere. It had the big Armour plant, lots of railroad traffic, recreation at Ravine Lake and professional baseball in summer.”

In the 1950s and’60s it seemed Huron had everything a major South Dakota community could want — except for something it once worked hard for but couldn’t swing: the state capital. In 1890, when South Dakotans voted to select their capital city, Huron was a 10-year-old town bursting with energy and confidence. Established by the Chicago and North Western Railroad as a construction camp, railroad of officials named the community for the indigenous Huron people several hundred miles east. It seemed an odd choice considering there were plenty of local American Indian names to celebrate, but the moniker stuck. Huron grew quickly as a jumping off point for homesteaders after a land office opened in 1882. Thousands of farm families began working the surrounding land as the 1880s progressed. Huron civic leaders in 1890 were confident they could land capital city designation because of their town’s easy access by rail, and because South Dakota’s population spread so evenly from this booming center.

But voters thought otherwise and gave Pierre the nod. In 1898 Huron gained a measure of revenge when Pierre University, a Presbyterian school, moved east to become Huron College. John and Mamie Pyle worked diligently to bring the college to town, and after John’s death Mamie devoted years to ensuring the school’s success. Yet that’s not why she’s remembered a century later. Mamie and her daughter Gladys led the movement to win South Dakota women the right to vote. Gladys not only voted, but in 1922 she became the first woman elected to the South Dakota State Legislature. Later she was elected South Dakota Secretary of State and, yes, she’s one half of the answer to that trivia question. In 1938, Pyle won an election to complete the last two months of the late Sen. Peter Norbeck’s term. When she retired from politics, Pyle reinvented herself as a successful Huron businesswoman and was active in community affairs for most of her 98 years. After her death in 1989, her home was made into a fine museum that remains open today.

Cousins Gus Marcus (left) and Todd Manolis run Manolis Grocery, started by their grandpa, Gus Manolis, in 1921. Today the store is famous for lunch sandwiches and cold beer – and for the interesting local characters who hang out there and were captured in oils by local artist Doug Dutenhoffer in a mural that hangs high on the shelves.

As Pyle made a name for herself in politics, a talkative and affable young man was working in his dad’s Huron drugstore and considering a career in pharmacy. Other vocational interests came into play, though, and Hubert Humphrey went on to win election as Minneapolis mayor, U.S. Senator from Minnesota and Vice President of the United States. Not surprisingly Humphrey is the most common reply to the trivia question about Huron-born senators but, in fact, was born in Wallace. In the 1960s especially, during Humphrey’s vice presidency, countless travelers moving across South Dakota via U.S. Highway 14 stopped to visit the Humphrey Drugstore. It stood second only to Wall Drug as a South Dakota pharmacy turned tourist attraction. Visitors learned about Humphrey’s early life here and discovered this was where he met Huron-born and Huron College-educated Muriel Buck. The two married. After his vice presidency, Humphrey again represented Minnesota as a senator, and when he died in office Muriel was appointed to succeed him until a special election could be arranged. So, two Huron-born senators, both women, Pyle a Republican and Humphrey a Democrat.

Half a century ago Huron was launching other big time careers, too, as baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies and then the Chicago Cubs fielded farm teams within view of actual farms at Memorial Field Stadium. One of the best-remembered players is Larry Hisle, destined for a fine career with the Twins and Brewers. In 1968, Dallas Green managed the Huron Phillies, 12 years before he managed the Philadelphia Phillies to the team’s first World Series title. Key contributors to that 1980 world championship were catcher Greg Luzinski and infielder Manny Trillo, both of whom played for Green at Huron.

The state fairgrounds hosts several livestock exhibitions, including a 2014 show where Jack Bratland, of Willow Lake, brought his sheep, Jetta.

But by the time those three Phillies celebrated in 1980, things weren’t going so well in their former South Dakota summer home. There was less railroad activity everywhere, and when South Dakota’s two interstate highways had been completed, Huron sat far removed. Some observers saw Huron as emblematic of the challenges South Dakota communities would face without direct access to I-90 or I-29. Huron experienced plant closures over the next several years, including Armour Meat packing in 1983 and Dakota Pork in 1997. There was some talk, although it never got far, that maybe the State Fair would do better at an interstate highway location. Huron College became Huron University but struggled with finances. It dropped its Presbyterian affiliation as a series of owners tried to nudge the school toward profitability. Its final iteration was as Si Tanka University, owned by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. But the university closed in 2005 after 108 years in Huron.

It was then that South Dakotans most definitely had to take a harder look at Huron to see past gloomy headlines. Yes, forecasters in the 1980s had been right. Huron would know struggles but, as this state’s history proves over and over, struggles can bring out the very best in South Dakotans. Huron’s residents stepped forward with ideas and, in many cases, their own dollars to move their community forward. Today Huron is a city of 13,000 with a promise of employment for skilled workers. Manufacturing turns out products ranging from tractor and combine parts to steel prison doors. Welders are especially in demand. In 2007, a Hutterite- owned turkey plant, Dakota Provisions, opened and today employs about 800 people who process more than 20,000 birds daily.

Melanie Harrington had a vision of run-down Ravine Lake becoming a family-friendly destination. She worked with the city to clean up the lake area and create Putters and Scoops, where visitors can rent paddleboats, play mini-golf and indulge their kids with old fashioned hard ice cream.

The new industries have attracted a culturally diverse workforce, including Hispanic men and women and refugees from Burma.”Over the past six or seven years we’ve seen cultural changes, and that’s been good for Huron,” says chamber of commerce director Peggy Woolridge.”As a state, I think we need that diversity. In Huron we’re seeing some of these new residents starting to serve on boards and take on other types of leadership, which means they consider this home.”

Huron remains a center for many of the state’s agricultural agencies, notes Jim Borszich, president and CRO of greater Huron Development. Those include the state offices of the Farm Bureau, Farmers Union and Farmers’ Home and Rural Development. Where better than Huron?”We have lots of other things contributing to the local economy, but what drives the market in Beadle County is agriculture,” Borszich said.”Our farms have done well in recent years as far as production, but of course commodity prices are a concern.”

When Borszich describes Huron to outsiders who might consider bringing a business here, he stresses excellent schools and healthcare and a quality of life for families that some Americans can no longer imagine.

Melanie Harrington certainly could, though.”Living in Denver, our hearts bled to come to a place like Huron to raise our kids,” she recalls. She and her family arrived in Huron a few years ago, and today Harrington is a woman Huron residents cite over and over as a contributor to local quality of life. Working with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, she used flowers and quality ice cream to transform an area adjacent to Ravine Lake and a golf course. A 1930s swimmers’ changing house became Putters and Scoops, featuring South Dakota State University ice cream and other menu items, plus golf cart, paddleboat and kayak rentals and rounds of miniature golf.”But flowers are our signature,” Harrington says.

Owner Kevin Tompkins is renovating Huron’s historic Hattie and Henry Drake octagon house, built in 1893. The wrought iron fence bordering the property came from a cemetery at De Smet. Tompkins and a partner are also restoring Huron’s Masonic Temple into an events center.

Another colorful addition to the community is Splash Central, a sprawling water park that opened in 2013 in the middle of town. Because it sits amid mature trees, newcomers might guess it’s been a park for generations, although the waterslides are obviously new. Actually Splash Central occupies the former campus of Huron College. To the best of anyone’s knowledge it’s the world’s only university reincarnated as a water park (two campus buildings survive, used as a fine arts center and community learning facility).

Through the years Huron has maintained its status as a favorite center for big gatherings, beginning with the State Fair. The fair is doing fine now with a tight, five-day schedule in late summer. Unlike some other state fairs, South Dakota’s hasn’t lost its agricultural focus. It is, in fact, an agency of the state Department of Agriculture. Other huge gatherings at the fairgrounds have included the Wheel Jam truck show and in 2014 the National Red Power Roundup, a celebration of six decades of International Harvester machinery. The roundup drew nearly 19,000 admirers from 45 states, nine Canadian provinces and seven other nations.

Huron is also home to a full season of auto racing, the South Dakota Women’s Expo, the Spirit of Dakota award dinner and autumn events related to pheasant season.

Speaking of the famous game bird, there’s a quirky image just about every South Dakotan associates with Huron, one that’s made its way into all of our photo albums over the years. That would be the World’s Largest Pheasant, R.F. Jacobs’ 40-foot-high cement creation on the east side of town. It dates back to the 1950s. A few years ago, as the town was re-establishing itself on many fronts, citizens raised funds to refurbish the giant bird. Some towns would have decided there was more important work to tackle, and that they could let a relic from the’50s go, but not Huron. Jobs, schools, recreation and medical services are vitally important in sustaining a community. But a town certain of itself doesn’t forget those things that simply give it unique character.

Editor’s Note: Since this story appeared in our September/October 2014 issue, Mike Rounds, another Huron native, was elected to the U.S. Senate. We trust that Paul Higbee has updated his trivia question. To order a copy of that issue or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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The Story Behind the Square

By Bernie Hunhoff

Rapid City’s Main Street Square is abuzz with activity at festivals held throughout the year. Photo by Destination Rapid City.

Mitzi Lally loved children, so you might imagine her dismay when she discovered that Rapid City citizens were spending $6.5 million on a new plaza to be known as Main Street Square even though there was a porn shop just down the street. The square was envisioned as a gathering place for families, yet it would be neighbors to Video Blue, a dark-windowed fixture on Main Street for more than 30 years.

Ray Hillenbrand, Mitzi’s younger brother, runs Prairie Edge Trading Company from a second story office across the street from the square. He remembers when his 80-year-old sister climbed the stairs to register her complaint.”She wasn’t happy about it, that’s for sure,” Ray said. So he called for help from Dan Tribby, his right-hand man at Prairie Edge.

Tribby hasn’t forgotten the incident, either. After all, it’s not every day that your boss orders you to go buy a porn shop.”Trib” (as he’s called by friends) balked at the idea, but before the day was out he was walking through the front door of Video Blue for the first time.

Tribby grew up in Sturgis, the son of a car dealer, so he knew how to close a deal. But a porn shop? He decided it was best not to let on that he was there for Mitzi, or even that he intended to raze the structure. As it turned out, the owner knew the plaza was coming and had already thought about selling because he saw the proverbial”writing on the wall.” All it took was $300,000.

Enthusiastic proponents of Main Street Square included (from left) Dan Senftner, Ray Hillenbrand and Dan Tribby.

Buying property is sometimes like eating potato chips. You can’t stop. Hillenbrand and his family soon purchased four neighboring buildings at a total cost of nearly $5 million, because they thought that the other stores — while not offensive — were not the right mix for the square.

The Hillenbrands and Tribby restored the buildings, and went to great lengths attracting the perfect entrepreneurs.”We probably had 80 or 90 applicants for the 18 shops,” Tribby says.”We studied each and every one of them. We decided we didn’t want franchises. We thought we had enough local talent.”

“We found that they were wonderful people with good ideas, and we wanted them to be a team,” Hillenbrand says.”We told each of them that the idea wasn’t for us to make money but for them to add something to the community.”

So as Main Street Square opened to the constant laughter of children playing in splashing fountains, the shops began opening — a gift shop, bakery, coffee house, outdoor store, pub, ice cream parlor, several eateries and, of course, a toy store.

South Dakota’s towns and cities share a modest prairie sameness. Those with more people have more parks and pretty buildings, but big or small they can usually be described as functionalism guarded by square blocks of square houses, all inhabited by easy-to-please citizenries that don’t expect much more of their municipalities than to plow and police the streets.

Families enjoy hot cocoa and free skating on an ice rink larger than the frozen pond at Rockefeller Center in New York City.

Rapid City is audaciously abandoning such humble expectations. It wants to become one of those rare cities in America that people seek out not just to ski or fish or see a nearby mountain but to see the city itself.

Most such destination cities — Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles — are larger than Rapid City, population 70,000. And none likely had more humble origins.

Rapid City began as nothing more than a supply center for miners in the 1870s. Called Hay Camp at the outset, it was eventually named for the pristine creek that ripples through town. Framed by the Black Hills to the west and small grass prairie to the east, the town had rough beginnings.

In June 1877, just after the city was founded, two horse thieves were apprehended. Red Curry and Doc Allen didn’t argue their innocence, but they were adamant that a teenager traveling with them was not guilty. They said the 18-year-old was afoot when they found him, so they offered to let him ride one of their two spare horses.

Unfortunately, a gang of 15 or 20 vigilantes from Rapid City didn’t believe them or didn’t care. They hanged all three, and badly; it was later discovered that they didn’t know how to tie a hangman’s knot or judge the distance correctly. The fall didn’t break their necks. Their feet barely scraped the ground, so they slowly strangled to death.

Some of the young city’s most reputable citizens either participated or looked the other way as the hangings proceeded on a mountain overlooking the town that’s still called Hangman’s Hill. Robert Casey, a writer who moved to town 30 years after the incident, once said,”You could get yourself thoroughly disliked by discussing the affair.” One fellow who insisted on an investigation was eventually committed to the mental hospital in Yankton.

Some pioneers shared the thought that the town wouldn’t grow until all who took part in”the Hangman’s Hill business” were dead, and the city did grow slowly. It had a population of just 14,000 in 1942, but that changed when the U.S. Air Force opened a training base for B-17 pilots and bombardiers a few miles east of town. More than 4,000 soldiers and staff arrived, and Rapid City has been on a growth trajectory ever since.

A serious setback came in 1972 when a heavy June rain flooded Rapid Creek, destroying or damaging 2,700 homes and killing 238 people. The aftermath of the flood led to growth; the waterway became a greenway that soon filled with parks and public improvements.

Thursday night festivals featuring food, music and art have become a summertime tradition in downtown Rapid City.

Historic restorations of downtown buildings began in the 1980s. The six-story Alex Johnson Hotel, built the year Gutzon Borglum arrived to carve Mount Rushmore, led the way. The Buell Building, the Prairie Edge Trading Company and other century-old brick commercial structures have also been given new life. The most modern downtown addition is the impressive Journey Museum, built in the flood’s path in 1997. Still, a small group of community leaders believed the town was too much like every other place — square houses, good streets and all that sameness.

“There’s an old saying that you don’t have a town if you don’t have a heart,” says Ray Hillenbrand, as we trudged up those same steep wood stairs of Prairie Edge. In 2006, he and some fellow downtown storeowners developed an ambitious plan to make the city a destination city. They proposed a Business Improvement District to provide part of the funding, and it passed with 60 percent of the vote in 2008. They sought local contributions from businesses big and small, and converted a very average 68-car parking lot into a place called the Main Street Square, an oval green spot with fountains where children frolic in the summer and tourists and downtown workers enjoy outdoor lunches. Thursday nights in summer have already become a tradition. Families gather for children’s activities and free concerts. An area is also cordoned off for beer drinkers.

The square remains a work in progress. Renowned artist Masayuki Nagase, who was educated in Tokyo and now lives in California, plans to sculpt 21 tall granite spires that will encircle the plaza. Nagase says his designs will honor the timeless elements of wind and water that have shaped the Badlands and Black Hills.

Visitors are likely to see Nagase and his local apprentices hand-chiseling the granite as children play in the nearby fountains. His preference for interaction with Rapid Citians was one reason why he emerged from a field of 88 applicants to win the $2 million commission.

Welcoming outsiders — even a Japanese-born artist — to take leadership roles might be one area where Rapid City differs from many other prairie places. Hillenbrand is an Indiana native who came to the city in 1980 to buy a Hermosa buffalo ranch and, a few years later, Prairie Edge. Tribby grew up in nearby Sturgis, but he left the state at age 17 to join the Marine Corps. He lived in New Mexico and ranched in Oregon before coming back to work at Prairie Edge, where he started out as the guy who boiled buffalo skulls so artists could paint designs on them. He became general manager in 1997.

The state tourism department’s presidential mascots, representing the faces at Mount Rushmore, occasionally visit the Square.

Perhaps it’s because of the constant stream of mountain tourists, or the newcomers who serve at Ellsworth Air Force Base. Rapid City may not be a perfect place, but provincialism doesn’t appear to be one of its sins.

Rapid City leaders new and old admit they’re surprised at the early success of the Main Street Square. In just two years, it has become a daily gathering place for locals and travelers. But Hillenbrand is a pragmatist.”We haven’t proven anything yet,” he says.”It has to be sustainable for the community and it can’t stop with just the square. It has to connect all of the city.”

He and others hope the next step is a Memorial Park promenade, a 40-foot wide boulevard of trees and pathways from Main Street to the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center. The local Vucurevich Foundation has given $1 million to further that idea. Local leaders also want to connect downtown with the 2,100-student South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

Leading the ambitious plans is Destination Rapid City, an organization that started in 2008 by the business community to re-invigorate the city’s downtown district. Hillenbrand is chairman of the DRC board, and the hands-on leader is Dan Senftner, who grew up on a farm 17 miles from the small northeast South Dakota town of Herreid. His earliest retail experience came every August,”when mom loaded us in a car and took us to Aberdeen to buy school clothes.”

Senftner started a music store in downtown Rapid City as a young man and operated it for 25 years. He also gained experience as a developer of historic commercial property. Along the way, the farm kid developed a keen sense for urban community.”I believe every community can benefit from having a focal point in their downtown corridor,” he says. When he first came to Rapid City, the downtown district featured horse and carriage rides.”There was still a Newberry’s five-and-dime store, and the moms and dads and kids all came downtown.”

He says the square and the accompanying developments and restorations seem to be reviving that atmosphere. Tribby agrees.”I think we were romanticizing the whole idea when we were selling it, and now it looks like we weren’t exaggerating because it is coming true even more than we could have hoped.”

Children delight in the Square’s interactive fountain, where water dances in patterns. Evening light shows are also staged.

But their senior partner, Hillenbrand, isn’t satisfied.”We still have to make it a success,” he says.”We have to make it sustainable for the community and for the store owners.”

However, entrepreneurs in the new Shops at Main Street Square development and at nearby restaurants and stores that previously existed, say the plaza has already made a significant difference in their revenues.

Just as the plaza was being finished, Borders Books filed for bankruptcy and closed more than 200 stores in the United States, including its Rapid City location. That prompted Hillenbrand and his sister, Mitzi, to build a new bookstore where Video Blue once stood. It’s a handsome building with big, welcoming windows. A bright, colorful corner is reserved for children, and there’s a story time every Tuesday morning.

Mitzi died in August 2011, just before the store opened. But the name of the store is Mitzi’s Books, and her smiling face is on the logo. Neither she nor her gentle but firm prodding for change will soon be forgotten.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2013 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Burgers, Bells, Blooms and Brews

By Laura Andrews

Brookings was recently named one of America’s ten best small towns by livability.com. My husband, Mike, and I visited South Dakota’s fourth largest community a few weeks ago. It didn’t take long to see why Brookings was given high marks.

Our first stop was Nick’s Hamburger Shop, a Brookings institution since 1929. The friendly waitress slipped us each a tank-fried Nickburger on a square of waxed paper. As we munched, we watched locals leave with sacks full of the meaty sandwiches.”This is lunch and dinner,” said one.

Sated for the moment, we walked up and down Brookings’ charming main street, admiring the shops along the way. A friendly postman directed us to the local library a few blocks away, near the Children’s Museum of South Dakota.

An exotic aroma lured us up to the library’s second floor, where Mango Tree Coffee was serving Thai vegetable soup. I opted for a rose lassi, a sweet and floral Indian yogurt drink. The Mango Tree is a calm and cozy spot, perfect for library patrons and the local knitters and crocheters who meet there for Brookings Fiber Guild gatherings. My knitting group in Yankton would be jealous if they knew how good Brookings crafters have it!

Our next stop was an odd choice for a couple of acrophobes — the Coughlin Campanile, South Dakota State University’s belltower. After ducking into the Alumni Center for the key, we climbed 185 steps to the viewing area at the top, stopping frequently to admire Brookings from above. There was even more to admire at the nearby South Dakota Art Museum galleries, where works by Harvey Dunn and Oscar Howe and other artists were on display. It was a real thrill to see The Prairie Is My Garden in real life, and marvel at the way Dunn combined blobs and swirls of pigment to create his iconic scene of early Dakota life. Of course, no visit to SDSU is complete without a trip to their Dairy Bar for a dish of butter brickle and a grasshopper fudge cone.

Mike is an avid gardener, so I had to take him to McCrory Gardens, where we were surprised how much difference a hundred-plus miles makes. The peonies and irises that had already finished blooming in our yard in Yankton were just starting to blossom up north in Brookings. There’s over 25 acres of formal gardens at McCrory plus 45 acres devoted to studying trees and bushes. That’s a lot of plants — all beautifully arranged and tended.

All that walking and fresh air helped us work up a thirst, which we quenched at Wooden Legs Brewing Company. The bevy of beverage options was dazzling (117 bottled beers and 21 on tap), but sadly, only one of the pub’s homebrews was available. Though we were there a few days before Wooden Legs’ grand opening, the Split Rock Creek Pale Ale, K¸hl Blonde Ale, Farmhouse Ale and It’s What We Got IPA were already sold out.”People in this town like to drink,” explained our friendly bartender. We can’t blame them. My pint of Wooden Legs’ Three5Three, a milk stout inspired by Irish brews, was deliciously dark. I would’ve loved another, but we needed to stop by George’s Pizza for gyros and calzones before heading homeward, tired but happy after a busy day of sampling a few of the great things Brookings has to offer.