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The Last Lakota Code Talker

Clarence Wolf Guts, the last Lakota code talker. Photo by Bernie Hunhoff.

By Bernie Hunhoff


Clarence Wolf Guts was not the sort of hero who capitalized on his exploits; he never wrote any books or ran for office, and you could count his speaking appearances on one hand. When we met him in 2007, he was living almost as simply as he did when he was a boy on the Rosebud Reservation in the 1920s.

Much about Clarence Wolf Guts is confusing, beginning with his name. He didn’t know what he was called when he was born on Feb. 26, 1924 in the Red Leaf community on the Rosebud Reservation of south-central South Dakota. His birth certificate listed him as Eagle Elk, but his father and uncles soon decided to give him a more unusual name — Wolf Guts.

He learned Lakota from his grandfather, Hawk Ghost, and his grandmother, Hazel Medicine Owl.”My grandfather taught me the facts of life and the Lakota language,” he said.”He told me ‘you’ll go to school and stay in school.’ But he also said to speak Indian because ‘you’ll need it later in life.'”

He and a cousin, Iver Crow Eagle, left the boarding school they attended in St. Francis in the eleventh grade to fight in World War II.”I didn’t know if I could make the physical in Omaha,” he said.”I had a perforated ear drum. I guess a bug got in there when I was a little kid. My grandmother took tweezers and pulled the bug out, and hurt my ear drum.”

But it was 1942, and the U.S. Army wasn’t fussy. The cousins were assigned to hand-to-hand combat training in Tennessee, desert exercises in Arizona, and finally to Ranger training at Camp Rucker in Alabama.

Wolf Guts recalled with considerable detail the day he became an important player in the war effort. A captain came to his barracks and asked,”You talk Indian?”

“I am Indian. One hundred percent Indian.”
“Well, the general wants to see you.”
“Me?” wondered Clarence.”What in the world did I do now?”

The captain told him to get a haircut, take a shower and dress in his best clothes. He also offered tips on military etiquette: stand two feet from the general, salute, say your name, rank and serial number. Then he and the captain went to see the general.”Sir, this is Clarence Wolf Guts from South Dakota,” said the captain.”He talks Indian.”

Major General Paul Mueller, commander of the U.S. Army’s 81st Infantry, poured glasses of whiskey for the three of them, and told Clarence he wanted a man-to-man talk –“none of this ‘sir’ or ‘general.’ Just talk to me like a man.”

“Can you speak Indian fluently?” the general asked. Clarence said he could”read, write and speak the Lakota Sioux language.” Satisfied, the general explained that the Japanese were intercepting vital communications, and he intended to confuse them by sending messages in a Native American language.

Clarence told the general,”I don’t want no rank, I don’t want no money. I just want to do what I can to protect America and our way of life.”

“I’ve never seen or met an Indian before,” the general said.”You guys were first in this country?”
“Yes, supposedly we were,” replied Clarence.

Gen. Mueller said he liked his spunk. Then he asked if he knew of any other soldiers who spoke Lakota. Clarence said his cousin, Iver, was also at Camp Rucker, whereupon Gen. Mueller exclaimed,”I hit the jackpot!”

Two other Lakota from South Dakota — Roy Bad Hand and Benny White Bear — were also recruited. The four learned how to operate military radios, and they worked with officials to develop coded messages. They developed a phonetic alphabet and assigned military meanings to common words like turtle, tree or horse. Their communications helped the army to move troops and supplies without tipping off the enemy.

Clarence Wolf Guts, just by the good fortune of staying alive, became one of the most acclaimed WWII vets in South Dakota.

Clarence was Gen. Mueller’s personal code talker and traveled with him and the 81st as the division moved from island to island in the Pacific, headed for Japan. Iver accompanied the general’s chief of staff. Even though they had special protection — two bodyguards were assigned to each code talker — Clarence still shakes when he thinks of the bullets, mortars and bombs.

Frustrated by a language they didn’t know, the Japanese made special efforts to find the code talkers. Some code talkers in other units later said that if their outfit was overrun, the bodyguards were expected to shoot the code talkers to prevent their capture by the enemy. Clarence and Iver never spoke of that, but they had enough to worry about.

“How will we ever survive this?” Iver asked Clarence on a particularly harrowing day.
Clarence replied,”There is a God. He is protecting us.”

Thoughts of the Rosebud Reservation provided some comfort.”I always wondered if they had food on the table, if they’re dancing, if they’re remembering us,” he said.

Clarence started to drink heavily in the army.”We went to war and war is hell,” he said.”All I can say is we went to hell and back.” He and many others found at least temporary relief in the bottle.”It’s easier that way to take another man’s life,” he said.

As radio operators, they had access to another avenue of escape.”We could tune in the radio to the U.S. and get western music from San Francisco,” said the old soldier.”We could hear You Are My Sunshine and Chattanooga Choo Choo.”

They even got some kicks while on duty. Clarence started laughing one day while transmitting a message to Iver.”Are you laughing at me?” asked Iver.”No, I’m laughing at the Japanese who are trying to listen to us,” Clarence said in Lakota.

Decades later, a Japanese general admitted that his country’s top cryptographers couldn’t decipher the code talkers’ language. When told it was Native American he replied,”Thank you. That is a puzzle I thought would never be solved.”

When the war ended, Clarence and about a dozen other Lakota code talkers returned to the reservation. They were not welcomed home with parades or programs, but he and a few soldiers held their own party, dancing and singing a song of thanks that they’d learned from Indian elders. Asked about it many years later, he said the dance of thanks wasn’t for the dancers.”We did it for our people and the people of the United States of America. It was for them, and for the people of the world, because if the Japanese ever took over the world, we would be dead.”

Code talkers from other Indian tribes were asked to not talk about their unique roles in the war, perhaps because the U.S. military thought it was a trick worth saving. All written reports about the code talkers were classified. Clarence didn’t remember being told to keep his service record a secret, but he and his fellow Lakota soldiers, happy to be home on the Rosebud Reservation, told no one. They didn’t think of their services as particularly heroic. Like many veterans, they tried to forget.

“I wanted to be a rodeo man,” he said. I rode three bulls, and then I said ‘I’ll stick to horses.’ Those bulls can kill you.” He was a bronc rider at rodeos in Valentine, Gordon, Rapid City, White River, Fort Pierre and other West River cow towns.

He earned $100 on a good weekend, but spent it on alcohol and gas to get to the next rodeo. In 1949 he broke his ankle at Cody, Neb. and soon retired from the arena. A year later he married Allgenia Brown. They had two daughters and a son before divorcing in 1959.

He worked on farms and ranches, on or near the reservation. Heavy drinking kept him from accomplishing very much; and it also caused his greatest sorrow. He attributes both of his daughter’s deaths to alcohol, and he says many of his other relatives suffer from alcoholism.

But his life took a turn when the silence surrounding the role of the code talkers was lifted. It began when the military declassified official information about its linguistic trickery. Then Max Collins wrote a book, Wind Talkers, about two Navajo code talkers. The book became a hit movie in 2002. The U.S. Congress awarded congressional gold and silver medals to the Navajo soldiers, and the story spread. Over a hundred code talkers were identified from 17 tribes. Unfortunately, by then almost all the other code talkers had died. Clarence Wolf Guts, just by the good fortune of staying alive, became one of the most acclaimed WWII vets in South Dakota.

He received an honorary degree from Oglala Lakota College. He rode in the Rapid City American Legion parade, traveled to Oklahoma City as a special guest at the opening of a traveling exhibit on the code talkers, spoke at the American Indian Veterans Conference in Wisconsin and was honored at a national WWII conference in New Orleans where he was given a red, white and blue”flag” shirt.

South Dakota’s congressional delegation — Senators Tim Johnson and John Thune, and Rep. Stephanie Herseth — introduced a bill to award him and the other forgotten code talkers the Congresional Gold Medal. Clarence traveled to Washington with the South Dakota Indian leaders, including Don Lowdner, the national commander of the American Indian Veterans Association of the United States, to testify for the legislation.

Clarence looked as uncomfortable at the senate committee hearing as the senators would look riding a bucking horse. His dark face was wrinkled and creased. His legs were so cramped that he could hardly stand. His hair was white and scruffy. Still, he spoke simple, heartfelt words to the lawmakers.”I am a full-blood Indian, and we do whatever we can to protect the United States because we love America,” he said.”Nobody can ever take that away from us.”

Editor’s Note: In 2008, the Code Talkers Recognition Act was passed, honoring all Native Americans who used their native language to aid communications in World War II. Clarence Wolf Guts died June 16, 2010, at the age of 86.

This story is revised from the May/June 2007 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

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McMaster’s Gas War

South Dakota’s tenth governor, William Henry McMaster, took on Standard Oil in the 1920s.

By Paul Higbee


South Dakota’s tenth governor, William McMaster, generated headlines in the 1920s when he fired the first shot in a Midwestern gas pricing war.

McMaster never related exactly what was going through his mind as he watched President Warren G. Harding’s casket carried up the steps of the U.S. Capitol in August 1923. Certainly the governor could be forgiven if his thoughts drifted once or twice from the eulogies of the day to the strategies of coming days. For as soon as Harding’s casket was placed aboard a train bound for Ohio and burial, McMaster would board another bound for Chicago and a fight.

Back home in South Dakota, with harvest approaching, gas was retailing as high as 26.6 cents a gallon. To put that into some perspective, South Dakota’s annual per capita income stood at about $400, and a new Ford Model T touring car cost $295. South Dakotans owned 121,149 cars and 10,554 trucks; while tourism by automobile was just in its infancy, everyone knew that gas prices farmers paid to haul goods to market profoundly affected farm profits and the state’s overall economy.

McMaster, a Republican who was a Yankton banker and financier by profession, knew all about profits. He was for farmers making profits, as well as oil companies, he said. But he had deep concerns about the extent of oil companies’ profits.

The governor checked into Chicago’s Hotel Morrison and told reporters he would meet with Standard Oil officials and say, by his calculations, they could reduce prices by ten cents a gallon and still make a healthy profit.

At the meeting he lowered the boom. If Standard Oil didn’t sell at 16 cents a gallon, the State of South Dakota would begin selling 60,000 gallons at that rate, filling private cars and 50-gallon tanks on farms.

No, he said, the state wasn’t supplying gas at cost, which would be unfair competition. Sixteen cents represented two cents more per gallon than South Dakota was paying for its bulk supply.

“They (Standard Oil) said they will lose money,” McMaster told reporters. “My answer to the Standard Oil is 16 cent gas for South Dakota. 1 am calling upon surrounding states to join in the fight which will be waged to the bitter end.”

What would happen when South Dakota’s initial 160,000 gallons were exhausted? “A new order for half a million gallons will be on the way,” McMaster promised, “provided we don’t get some assurance by that time that a permanent price cut will be made.”

North Dakota was the first state to take McMaster’s challenge and join the fight. Governor R.A. Nestos announced his state, too, would sell gas “until dealers cease their exorbitant charges.”

A day after the McMaster meeting, Standard Oil agreed to drop prices to 16 cents. But it grumbled to the press, issuing a statement: “This company asserts such price is below the cost of manufacture and distribution. However, Standard Oil has always stood upon the principle that the customers who purchased its goods should never be compelled to pay a higher price than that maintained by any competitor… “

The fact that this particular competitor was a state had some legal experts scratching their heads. Nebraska Governor Charles Bryan said he needed time to study legalities before endorsing state sales there. That prompted residents in Omaha to push for an amendment to their city charter, allowing Omaha to sell gas just as it sold coal. In Iowa, Governor N. E. Kendall said he was conferring with his attorney general and added, “1 have requested Governor McMaster to furnish me the basis for his action.”

Regardless of what their governors did or didn’t do, all heartland states saw gas prices plummet. After all, a company like Standard Oil couldn’t expect the public to accept a wide price disparity between, say, Sioux City and Sioux Falls. That fall it was possible to buy 3 cent gas in Des Moines. Oklahoma briefly saw five cent gas.

Nobody watched the situation in South Dakota more closely than leaders of the nation’s 300 automobile clubs. Those clubs claimed enough members to wield real political clout. But members were divided; some said clubs should lobby for more federal regulation of gas pricing, while others argued that action would hurt small independent dealers and ultimately allow big companies to charge still more.

Now it wasn’t the federal government, but South Dakota’s that was doing something about pricing. Was the strategy putting a squeeze on independents?

No, said L. V. Nicholas, speaking for independents as National Petroleum Marketers president. He believed Standard Oil wished to “crush independent dealers” but that McMaster’s plan leveled the playing field by sparking a price war on South Dakota’s terms and timetable, not Standard’s.

“Governor McMaster’s plan is bound to accomplish good, constructive results,” Nicholas said. F. G. Allen, president of South Dakota independent dealers, agreed.

The state stopped selling after major oil companies agreed that 16 cents would be the South Dakota base price. Gas mostly retailed at 15 or 16 cents through harvest, but in early November the price unexpectedly jumped two cents. If prices didn’t fall back to 16 cents by November 19, McMaster said, the state would sell gas again, this time at 14 cents. The prices dropped, but not until state gas had been pumped.

For two years, the state was tested now and then by big oil companies. Each time the state started selling. There were calls for a special legislative session to set a policy, and in 1925 state lawmakers in regular session gave the Highway Department authority to sell petroleum products when the governor or other officials deemed it necessary.

Then in October 1925 the state Supreme Court ruled state sales unconstitutional. By that time McMaster was a U.S. senator. During his single term in Washington McMaster often banded with other rural legislators to fight what they considered abuses by big business.

Unconstitutional or not, McMaster told colleagues he figured he saved midwesterners $150,000 in 1923.


Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 1995 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

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A Pioneer of Flight

By Dorene Weinstein

Nellie Willhite posed with her bi-plane Pard at a Wagner air show in 1930.


Nellie repeatedly circled the Renner landing field in her open cockpit plane. She gazed down at the people gathered on the soggy grass. They were frantically waving at her to land, certain she’d lost her nerve. She circled again, then eased the bi-plane into position.

Spraying a fountain of icy water, she made a perfect landing in a puddle. With dark curls peeking from under her aviator’s cap, Nellie climbed from the plane. The instructor and student pilots, all men, surrounded her, shouting and pounding her on the back. She’d done it! Nellie Willhite was the first female pilot in South Dakota.

When I visited with her in 1989, 96-year-old Nellie was sitting on her bed in a Sioux Falls nursing home. Deaf since childhood, she astounded me with her ability to read lips. White hair frothing across her cheeks, she pulled old photos out of neatly stacked albums to show me. She loved to tell her story.

When Willhite was 34, a pilot friend asked, “Nellie, why don’t you take lessons? If you learned to fly, you’d be the first woman pilot in South Dakota.” Willhite was stunned and intrigued by the idea. But lessons cost $200, and she didn’t have the money. She called her dad to tell him. “Before I knew it there was a check for $200 waiting for me,” she said.

She started lessons in November 1927. Although she was excited about learning to fly, she kept it to herself. “I was afraid I might fail,” she said. “I didn’t even tell my landlady.”

Nellie Willhite made a striking picture in her aviator’s cap.

Willhite was the 13th student to sign up for a class taught by Harold Tennant. The weather was so bad that winter it took her two months to complete the instruction. After 13 hours of training, she flew solo on Friday the 13th in January of 1928. Nellie scoffed at superstitions associated with the number 13. “Superstitious? Gracious no!” she laughed.

News of her flight spread quickly. While her dad, brother and most of her friends were proud of her profession, others were shocked. Some criticized her, wondering how she had the audacity to go into such an impossible thing as flying. “I think the women were a little envious, and the men, too, especially after I got so much attention.”

Nellie’s flying career was marked with several unusual incidents. She and Amelia Earhart were instrumental in forming the “99 Club,” an organization for women flyers. Willhite also flew in airshows and goodwill tours across the country, thrilling audiences with her acrobatics and loop the loops.

Willhite recalled one hair-raising flight in Nebraska. She had been flying a good-will tour for businessmen and was en route to the next stop. “I had gotten a late start,” Willhite said. “The others had gone ahead. I could see a storm coming and it looked bad. That part of Nebraska is so hilly. I couldn’t find a place to land, so I figured the best thing to do was to keep flying.”

“An updraft tossed me 8,000 feet higher, and the engine stalled for lack of air. I knew I had to keep the propeller turning,” she said. “I aimed the plane nose down and kept in a tight spiral. It was up to me to save myself.” Willhite found her way back using an automobile map. “In those days we didn’t have charts or anything,” she said.

Another frightening incident occurred in Chicago when a friend talked her into flying a glider. The take-off went fine, but “I couldn’t land the darned thing! I bet I was circling Chicago for an hour and a half before I gradually coaxed it down. I swore I’d never do that again!”

Willhite obtained a transport license and also worked as a flight instructor during her aviation career. After four years, she was forced to sell her plane due to the high cost of maintaining it and the scarcity of jobs during the depression.

Nellie Willhite participated in many unusual activities during her life. She refused to be hindered by her deafness or by the fact she was living in an era before women’s liberation.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 1989 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

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Nobody Yelled ‘Kill the Umpire!’

By Colin Kapitan

An impressive sight on the baseball diamond, umpire Amanda Clement commanded respect from the players.

One of the most fascinating sports figures ever to cross the South Dakota scene … or for that matter, the American scene, was Amanda Clement, a lady baseball umpire at the turn of the 20th century. It was not a time when women were encouraged into sports, so the sensationalist newspapermen of the early 1900s had a field day with her exploits. She became a legend in her own time.

The Amanda Clement story began in Hudson, South Dakota, a small town on the Big Sioux River near the Iowa border. She was born March 20, 1888. Her father died at an early age, leaving her and brother Hank to be raised by their mother, Harriet Clement. Harriet was no softy, having been one of the first female settlers in the town of Eden in Dakota Territory a few years earlier.

The Clement house was next to the Hudson ballpark, and it was natural for the children to spend idle time with a baseball. Amanda was attracted to the game but, because of her gender, was relegated mostly to umpire duty. While she never advanced in ability enough to play first base on the town’s semi-pro team (as some writers reported), Amanda did possess enough skill as not to embarrass herself when a shortage of players forced the boys to let her play.

Amanda, or Mandy as she was called, got her first taste of umpiring for pay at the age of 16. She and her mother had traveled across the Big Sioux River to watch her brother, Hank, pitch for Renville against Hawarden. Two local lodge teams were scheduled for a preliminary game and when the umpire failed to show on time, Mandy was drafted from the crowd. Time for the main event arrived and still there was no umpire. The players had been significantly impressed by Amanda’s work in the first game and begged her to umpire their game — with pay, of course. It took more persuading of mother than daughter, but finally Mrs. Clement relented and allowed Amanda to take to the field. That Renville-Hawarden game of 1904 is the first record of a woman umpiring a baseball game for money.

A couple of interjections seem appropriate at this time so readers might appreciate the magnitude of Amanda Clement’s feats. First, in those days just one umpire was used. He (or she) stood behind the pitcher, not only calling all the balls and strikes but also the plays at all four bases. Second, in the early 1900s there were no radios, no movies, few cars and little entertainment of any type. Baseball was the game of the day. You either played or watched. It was a time when the only thing ERA meant was Earned Run Average.

“She is death on balls and strikes,” one reporter wrote.

Every town and hamlet had a team. Games were played between neighboring towns and spectator interest ran high. From April to October, Saturday and Sunday afternoon was set aside for baseball. As the action heated up and local pride grew, the need arose for better players. Thus was born semi-professionalism. Better players from larger towns like Sioux Falls and Sioux City were hired. Money was needed to pay the players, money was obtained from paying spectators, and thus a good attraction was needed to get more spectators.

Amanda Clement as a baseball umpire was an immediate hit. Not only was she good, but baseball promoters quickly realized that a good looking young lady calling balls and strikes might enhance the paying public. Soon every baseball team in the area was vying for her services. She was billed as the “World Champion Woman Umpire,” a fact that was somewhat true since she was surely the only one.

The next few years found Amanda Clement umpiring throughout the five-state area of North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska in the summer and going to school the remainder of the year. She attended Yankton Academy for two years, Yankton College for two years and graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1909 with a degree in physical education. Baseball earnings paid her way through school. Amanda would work 50 or so baseball games a summer, with fees ranging from $15 to $25. She was the first person contacted to umpire a game of any importance.

Amanda Clement was an impressive sight on the baseball diamond. Standing 5′ 10″ with her full-length blue skirt, black necktie, white blouse with UMPS stenciled across the front and peaked cap, she was described as an “inspiring sight” and ”more than just a pretty face” by local newspapers. “She is death on balls and strikes,” one reporter wrote.

Amanda was dubbed “the heartless arbitrator…”

A no-nonsense Congregationalist, she often lodged with local ministers when working away from home. She refused to umpire on Sundays and once left a game after two innings because a player swore. But that kind of confrontation was rare.

A longtime friend, Janet Mills, recalled that Amanda always marveled at the players’ politeness. Instead of saying “Kill the Umpire” they said, “Beg your pardon, Miss Umpire, but wasn’t that one a bit high?”

Her fame as a baseball umpiress spread far and wide. Newspapermen from the East championed her. She was said to have umpired professional ball, even the big leagues were said to be seeking her. Part of the myth! One writer for the Boston Post claimed in a story that she had turned down over 60 proposals for marriage, received while umpiring baseball games. Amanda was dubbed the “heartless arbitrator” by that writer.

Adding to the Amanda Clement legend was her own athletic ability. At Yankton College, she was the star athlete of her day in such sports as basketball, track and field, and tennis. Various news reports had her setting world records in the shot put, the hurdles and the dashes in addition to being the best tennis player in America. All more of the myth! Amanda was also credited with the world record for a female throwing a baseball — 279 feet. This is fact.

Following graduation from college, Amanda gave up the life of an umpire. Once in awhile she was coaxed out of retirement for a special game of sorts. However, she did not give up her love for athletics. While teaching at Yankton College, the University of Wyoming and Jamestown, N.D., Amanda remained a strong sports supporter. She helped coach, she organized sports teams and she continued to referee high school basketball, something she started while attending Yankton College. Perhaps she was the first lady basketball referee, too!

As Amanda Clement advanced in years, her amazing story didn’t diminish. Following her years in education, Amanda managed YWCAs in LaCrosse, Wis., and Keokuk, Iowa. While living in LaCrosse, she pulled a drowning man from the Mississippi River.

After Amanda returned to Hudson to care for her sick mother in 1929, she still found time to be city assessor, justice of the peace, police matron, drug store clerk and typesetter for the local newspaper. Also, she worked to get a swimming pool built and she coached kids’ teams of all types. Following the death of her mother, Amanda moved to Sioux Falls in 1934. She was involved in social work and welfare until her retirement in 1966.

Amanda Clement never married. Instead, she devoted her live to enriching the lives of others and bringing enjoyment to them. She never lost her love of baseball, and rarely missed a game on the radio or television. Amanda became a follower of the Minnesota Twins, rooting for them and, no doubt, for the umps, until her death in 1971.

Amanda has been recognized in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, N. Y., as well as the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame and the Women’s Sports Foundation in San Francisco. Her exploits were also chronicled in Sports Illustrated. She was inducted into the S.D. Sports Hall of Fame in 1982, only the second female so honored and the first baseball umpire. Children can learn about Clement’s accomplishments in Umpire in a Skirt: The Amanda Clement Story, a book by Yankton author Marilyn Kratz.

Editor’s Note: Author Colin Kapitan is a well-known South Dakota sports official and a veteran freelance sportswriter. This story is revised from the July 1985 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To subscribe, call 800-456-5117.


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Discovering The Verendrye Plate

By Bernie Hunhoff

Hattie Foster, center, and George O’Reilly, right, were two of the young people who found the Verendrye plate on the hills above Fort Pierre. Also shown is Leslie Stroup, left. South Dakota State Historical Society photo.

Two hundred and seventy years ago, French explorers named Verendrye buried a lead plate on a hill. They were among the first white men to set foot in a land that would later be known as South Dakota.

One hundred years ago, Ethel Parish and two friends found the plate while playing on a sunny February day on a hill over Fort Pierre. Their discovery caused historians to rethink their accounts of white man’s arrival in this region. The plate captured the imaginations of South Dakotans then, and it has remained one of the state’s most treasured museum pieces ever since.

When we visited her in 1989, Ethel Parish Hepner Roberts remembered the day well. She was enjoying an afternoon outdoors with Harriet”Hattie” Foster and George O’Reilly.”It was a Sunday and it was nice and warm, just a little snow,” she recalled.”Hattie happened to notice something sticking out of the ground. She kicked it with her toe but it wouldn’t budge.”

Their curiosity piqued, the youths dug until they unearthed a flat, rectangular plate.”George scraped off the gumbo with his knife and we saw the writing on it. If we had studied our history, we should have probably known what it was. But we just threw it down and went on playing.”

The three agreed that George would try to sell it for scrap at the local print shop, where lead was always in demand for the hungry letterpress. Fortunately, on his way home that Sunday evening, he crossed paths with two state legislators, Elmer Anderson of Willow Lake and George White of Kennebec. George told them about the unusual plate and together they returned to the hill and brought the mysterious piece to town.

Doane Robinson, superintendent of the State Historical Society, was promptly notified. Mr. Robinson, a noted historian and researcher, had studied and written of the La Verendrye expedition. Almost immediately, he recognized the origin of the dirty tablet.

“On Monday, some men came to our schoolhouse and took us to the Sylvan Hotel in Pierre, where they questioned us about what we found and how we happened to find it,” said Mrs. Roberts. She did not recall who asked the questions, but one of the men was surely the inquisitive Mr. Robinson.

Historians had long disputed the route of the famous La Verendryes. Some claimed the explorers never came as far south as present-day South Dakota, but Mr. Robinson argued that they had. Of course, he felt his version of the Verendrye route was proved by the physical evidence of the plate, which was mentioned in a journal kept during the expedition.

One side of the historic artifact.

The journal entry states,”I placed on an eminence near the fort (their camp) a tablet of lead, with the arms and inscription of the king and a pyramid of stones for Monsieur Le General; I said to the savages, who did not know of the tablet of lead I had placed in the earth, that I was placing these stones as a memorial of those who had come to their country.”

As news of the schoolchildren’s discovery was publicized in 1913, it rekindled interest in the dramatic events that led to the settling of the West. Since the plate identified a major landmark of the Verendrye travels, historians reopened their files on the exploration. Still, controversy continued. Some said, for example, that the plate may have been discovered in the 18th or 19th century by Indians and moved to the Fort Pierre hilltop.

Mr. Robinson minced no words in responding to that theory. He wrote, “To suggest that this plate might have been planted at a distant point, recovered by Indians and carried to the mouth of the Bad River (at Fort Pierre) there to be fortuitously dropped upon this eminence (Verendrye Hill) precisely complying with the conditions of the record is a refinement of criticism approaching absurdity.”

History books written since that sunny February Sunday in 1913 note that while the Verendryes were probably not the first white men to arrive here — most historians believe French fur traders made brief excursions within the state’s borders perhaps as early as 1679 — the three children’s discovery provided a marker that symbolizes a new era on this part of the Western prairie.

In 1989, Ethel Parish Roberts had a chance to hold the plate for the first time since 1913.

Finding the plate had little impact on Ethel Parish’s young life. It was just another episode in an adventure that began in 1905 when her parents, Ivan and Amanda Rosetta Parish, came from Wisconsin to South Dakota. Her father worked for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad and he accepted an assignment as stationmaster and track repairman at Teton, South Dakota. After a few years at Teton, Mr. Parish filed as a homesteader on a claim near Hayes. By 1913, the Parish family had moved again, to the cow town of Fort Pierre.

She and her five brothers and sisters enjoyed their freedoms, They picked wild plums, grapes and buffalo berries. They found two coyote cubs and played with them just as if they were dogs, “until they got older and grew mean. One day they just disappeared… imagine my father had something to do with that.” She remembered picking wildflowers that grew in the hills — but not the gorgeous blooms on the cactus. “They were untouchable, we learned that.” She and the other children watched cowboys load and unload cattle at the stockyards, and one of the men taught her to speak some of the Sioux language. At age 90, she still remembered how to count to ten in the Dakotas’ native tongue.

With all the excitement of pioneer living, Ethel Parish didn’t give a lot of thought to the lead plate she had found with her friends. Shortly after the discovery, her father moved the family south to Vilas, a tiny Miner County town. She got a job in Bill Hepner’s general store and soon their relationship blossomed beyond employer-employee. Bill and Ethel married in 1916 and they honeymooned by auto in the northern Black Hills, at a time when the mountains were not yet accommodating to tourists. Together, they ran the Vilas store, selling groceries, farm implements, hardware and even friction-driven Metz automobiles. Bill was also the postmaster and he operated the telephone exchange. As their four children grew older, they helped run the family business, “especially the candy counter,” she chuckled. After Bill died in 1969, Ethel continued to serve as the Vilas postmaster for several years. In 1971, she married Levi Roberts, a longtime family friend. He died in 1974 and she lived alone at Vilas until she moved to the Good Samaritan Nursing Home at nearby Howard in the mid 1980s.

Ethel never saw friends George and Hattie after she left Fort Pierre as a 14-year-old. When the South Dakota State Legislature appropriated $700 to purchase the Verendrye plate from the finders, no one knew where she’d gone. The money was awarded to the others — George received $500, Hattie just $200.

Ethel also lost credit for the find. Although townspeople knew there was a third teenager on the hill, the name was not always remembered accurately and other Fort Pierre youngsters occasionally were listed with George and Hattie. She was not invited to a 1933 dedication in Fort Pierre of a monument marking the spot where she had found the Verendrye plate, nor was she in attendance at a 1943 ceremony marking the 200th anniversary of the Verendrye expedition.

The state’s lack of interest in her association with the discovery meant little to her, she said. But when Ethel’s children grew to adulthood and found their mother was not being properly recognized for her role, they told state officials of the mix-up. Today you can see the Verendrye plate that Ethel, Hattie and George found so long ago at the Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 1989 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

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Elk Point Tragedy

By Derald Keiser

The old courthouse in Elk Point was packed during the last week of March in 1933. People lined up outside waiting for the courtroom doors to open at 7:30 each morning. When they did, seats filled immediately, leaving other curious spectators to stand in doorways, hallways and even down the stairs as they tried to catch a glimpse of the proceedings.

On trial was Moville, Iowa farmer Nile Cochran. He was accused of shooting and killing 67-year-old R. D. Markell, an Elk Point man who operated a milk hauling business with his sons and was determined to deliver milk to markets in Sioux City, despite a milk strike, a growing number of picketers and their threats.

The confrontation which erupted on Feb. 3, 1933 on Highway 77 four miles west of Sioux City was a product of the times and the culmination of events which had begun almost a year earlier as South Dakotans struggled with the Great Depression, widespread farm foreclosures and disastrously low farm prices.

Out of this sense of hopelessness and despair emerged talk of action. When the idea of withholding farm products from the market until prices rose to a more acceptable level caught on, the Farm Holiday Movement was born.

By the summer of 1932, the movement was becoming a strong force in the counties around Sioux City. Under the leadership of Mike Reno of Des Moines, members of the militant organization had begun their efforts to stop all produce — including grain, milk and livestock — from coming to market. Roads leading into major markets were picketed and truckers, except for a few of the most daring and determined, did not make it through.

R. D. Markell of Elk Point and his sons were among that determined lot. They had moved to the Union County area after plans for renting a farm near Wessington Springs fell through due to a bank failure. While other truckers sometimes had to haul their loads back to farms or have them dumped in the road ditches, the Markells were more dauntless. They strongly believed that no picketers should stop them from bringing their loads of milk into Sioux City because they were bringing milk not produced by Union County producers. The Markells hauled milk from the Vermillion area while another son, Warren, operated a truck hauling milk from farms east of Sioux City. Nevertheless, each day they had to get through picketing farmers.

Picketers at Jefferson on Aug. 13 used water hoses to stop Markell’s trucks. Markell then sought the help of Union County Sheriff G. N. Slocum. After a second dousing, Sheriff Slocum ordered Jefferson town officials to turn off water to the picketers. He then accompanied Markell’s trucks through Jefferson. At the Sioux River bridge at Riverside, 300 farmers attempted to stop the trucks, but they scattered as the Markells spread through. Sioux City police flashed guns to stop the picketers as the truck proceeded to Roberts Dairy in Sioux City.

Another night, Sheriff Slocum and four deputies attempted to help get five truckloads of cattle through the picketers. When the first truck was halted, the sheriff fired a shot into the air from a short-barreled shotgun. The picketers disarmed him and threw the gun in the weeds. Then, according to a Sioux City newspaper, “They gave orders to the sheriff, who found himself absolutely alone. His aides had fled.”

The Farm Holiday Movement continued to gain followers. Four thousand people jammed into the Ritz Ballroom, two and a half miles south of Beresford, on Aug. 17, 1932 to hear Reno, the group’s leader, speak. Amplifiers carried his three-hour oration to 6,000 more outside. After Reno’s speech, Joe Trudeau of Jefferson brought the crowd to its feet with a pledge of support and a ringing endorsement of the movement. Less than a week later, directors and owners of the elevators in Elk Point resolved to stop purchasing and shipping grain.

Roads leading into major markets were picketed and truckers, except for a few of the most daring and determined, did not make it through.

As months passed, picketers became more determined to stop the flow of milk into Sioux City and the Markells became more iron-willed in their determination to get their loads of milk into Sioux City. The inevitable happened on Feb. 3, 1933, near the Gadbois farm on paved Highway 77.

The Markells had notified Tom Collins, Union County ‘s new sheriff, that they planned to bring their truck, loaded with 1,000 gallons of milk, to Sioux City. Seventy picketers, from Plymouth and Woodbury counties in Iowa, stood on the road or along the Milwaukee’s railroad tracks. Armed with shotguns, rifles and revolvers, they waited for the Markells’ truck.

When the Markells approached, they saw two telephone poles that picketers had placed in the road. The truck stopped and R.D. Markell, who was riding in the passenger seat, got out to move the poles. His son, Frank, was driving and two other sons, Harry and Keats, were hunched between milk cans inside.

Suddenly, a shot rang out. Some said the Markells fired first, others believed that the picketers did. Markell continued removing the poles from the road. News accounts say he was shot in the abdomen while getting back into the truck. The two Markells in the back of the truck rose up from between the milk cans and began firing at the picketers. With blood streaming down their faces, Harry and Keats Markell kept firing from the back of the truck. A rifle bullet chipped off the end of Keats Markell’s thumb. Later the bullet was found in the stock of his gun.

Sheriff Collins, who was at the scene, ducked behind a nearby building on the Gadbois farm when the battle was at its height. He reported a deafening barrage of rifle and shotgun fire. Somehow, Frank Markell was not hit by gunfire and the truck, with windshield and front tires shot out, proceeded on to Riverside.

The elder Markell was taken to St. Vincent Hospital, thought to be near death. Showing remarkable stamina, he survived for several days. Keats Markell was hospitalized for a short time with buckshot wounds on his face. From his hospital bed he declared that he was going right back on the road hauling milk, saying, “They can’t scare me out.”

Nile Cochran, a fanner and picketer from Moville, Iowa, admitted firing the shot at the truck. After treatment at Methodist Hospital for minor wounds, he was taken to the Sioux City jail before being extradited to the Union County jail.

When the case went to trial, his parents from Winner and his wife and seven children from Moville, were among the spectators packed in the courtroom. After a week-long trial, Cochran was convicted of second degree manslaughter and sentenced to three years in prison. He was taken to the penitentiary in Sioux Falls on March 30, 1933.

Editor’s Note: The author, Derald Keiser of Alcester, was a Union County historian. He died in 2004. This story is revised from the May/June 1998 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.



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A Spirited Pioneer Promoter

Every Tuesday, we post a South Dakota trivia question on our Facebook page. This week’s question was, “What South Dakota pioneer had two cities and a county named in his honor?” Many folks might not know about Wilmot Wood Brookings, so we dug up a little information about him to enhance your South Dakota historical knowledge.

The county and the city of Brookings got their names from one of South Dakota’s greatest pioneer promoters, Wilmot W. Brookings. Brookings set out for Dakota Territory in June of 1857. He arrived at Sioux Falls on August 27, 1857, and became one of the first settlers there. He and his group represented the Western Town Company. After a time in Sioux Falls, Brookings and a companion set out for the Yankton area to locate a town in an area that was soon to be ceded by the Native Americans. This trip was begun in January of 1858, and the two soon encountered a blizzard that froze Brookings’ feet, which both had to be amputated.

Though such a plight would have scared many men from the unsettled Dakota Territory, Brookings was never to be scared away. He rose to a high position, once being a member of the squatter Territorial Legislature and later being elected squatter governor. Brookings was a highly respected man with huge amounts of courage, energy and ability. These traits led Brookings to be appointed superintendent of a road that was to be built from the Minnesota state line west to the Missouri River about 30 miles north of Ft. Pierre. It was during the construction of this road that Brookings came into contact with land that was part of this county at the time. Because of his drive to settle the Dakota Territory, Brookings County and city were named for a spirited pioneer promoter. Wilmot W. Brookings made settlement of this area a real possibility for many people.

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Ghost Town Friends

By Doug Rees

Editor’s Note: We were sorry to hear that Black Hills historian and South Dakota Hall of Famer Watson Parker died this week at the age of 88. Long-time Hills residents might remember the Palmer Gulch Lodge dude ranch and resort near Hill City, operated by the Parker family until 1962. Parker and his wife Olga raised three kids in the shady pines there. He earned his PhD in history in 1965, taught at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh for 21 years, and gave expression to his love of the Black Hills in four books. The creation of one of them, Black Hills Ghost Towns, is described below, in a story from our January/February 2006 issue.

Watson Parker and Hugh Lambert published Black Hills Ghost Towns almost 40 years ago as a record of the myriad towns, stage stops and hovels that rose and decayed along with the boom and bust of the Black Hills gold rush. But their Ghost Towns is more than a coffee table book of interesting pictures and witty anecdotes. It is a valuable record of a vanishing history and a legacy to the enduring friendship of the two men who collaborated for over 17 years.

Like many Black Hills stories, this one starts with a family vacation. In 1937, Hugh Lambert’s family traveled to the Black Hills. While staying at Palmer Gulch Lodge, young Hugh fell in love with the Black Hills and met the innkeeper’s son, Wat Parker. They would become lifelong friends.

After Wat finished his daily chores, the two boys searched for abandoned mining camps. Their summer explorations left an indelible impression on Hugh. Even so, he would not talk to Parker again for 20 years.

Around 1957, Hugh Lambert decided it was time to return to the Black Hills. To his happy surprise, a call to the American Automobile Association confirmed that Palmer Gulch Lodge was still in business, and still run by the Parker family. It didn’t take long for Hugh and Wat to become reacquainted as they shared memories. Both observed that many of their stories would disappear as the towns and mines turned to dust.

Dr. Watson Parker was professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh before retiring to the Black Hills.

Rather than lament in nostalgia, the two decided to find and record the history of the surrounding ghost towns. Little did they know that they would work on and off for the next 17 years, gathering material for what eventually was published in 1974 under the title Black Hills Ghost Towns. Their book describes about 600 towns and sites that once populated the Black Hills region. A few of the places survive today, but most were already ghostly when Parker and Lambert began their project.

They divided the work. Parker researched the places in old newspapers, maps and the”musty books of history.” He also wrote the descriptions for sites featured in the book. Lambert located the places on the ground, using the opportunity to correct old maps and to draw up new ones, many of which appear in the book. Lambert also selected photographs for the book and wrote many of the captions. He supplemented the photographs with his own pen and ink drawings.

Parker and Lambert’s Ghost Towns goes a long way toward capturing and preserving many of the”history, ballads, yarns, legends [and] monuments” that give the Black Hills its own unique sense of place. A favorite handed down from Parker’s grandfather is set in Pactola, once a bustling mining area and resort, now under the waters of Pactola Reservoir:

At Pactola in years gone by there used to erupt a dance of quite considerable vigor, presided over by the indomitable Mrs. Bernice Musekamp. During Prohibition, Wat Parker’s grandmother arrived for a visit in the hills, driven, in those long-gone days, by her chauffeur in his natty uniform of boots, breeches and visored cap. It was in this outfit that Pace (that was his name) decided to attend the Pactola dance. Unfortunately for him the local populace mistook him for a revenue officer on the prowl, and a hurried midnight call from Mrs. Musekamp brought Pappy Parker to Pactola just in time to rescue Pace from the angry crowd that was about to lynch him.

The authors also tell about Gayville, named for Albert and William Gay, the latter of whom”achieved notoriety by killing a boy who delivered a flirtatious letter to his wife. He was sent to reside in the crowbar hotel for three years; he returned unrepentant and was welcomed back with a brass band. A dissident party who didn’t like the way William dressed — thought he would look better in a rope necktie — hoped to put him on a platform where everybody could see him, but they were in a minority and nothing was done about it.”

The book teaches without an ounce of pedantry but with plenty of dry wit. One good example is found in the caption that accompanies an otherwise nondescript photo of a cemetery near Harney:

They always built the cemetery on a point of rocky ground. Some say it was to get the departed nearer to heaven, and probably many of them needed all the help they could get. Others say it was to get off the wet valley floor, for no man in his right mind would want to spend eternity in a grave that wasn’t properly drained. But mainly they picked out the most ornery patch of ground there was, that nobody wanted, and made a graveyard out of it.

Parker and Lambert also teach us that Moskee in Crook County, Wyo. was taken from the Pidgin English”maskee,” meaning”no matter, never mind, I don’t care.” They share the lore that Mystic might have been derived from”mistake,” but suggest the more likely (but more mundane) version that it was named by a pioneer who hailed from Mystic, Conn. They explain that the origin of the name Two-Bit is much disputed, and could have been named for placers that yielded 25 cents in a single pan, or, for the more pessimistic, because a miner couldn’t get two bits worth of gold in an entire day. With tongue firmly in cheek, the authors tell us that Bare Butte was”an early name for Bear Butte. Captain Raynolds, exploring the area in the 1850s, took meticulous care to note that it was pronounced Bewt, to avoid giving offense to the delicate-minded.”

While the book has many lighthearted stories, it also captures the pioneers’ desolation. Describing Burdock, in Fall River County, the authors note that”one gets the impression that maybe the young folks held out there as long as grandma in her little cabin looking towards the mountains lived, but when she died, they folded up the store and headed for civilization.”

Only occasionally does a touch of nostalgia creep into Parker and Lambert’s writing. In discussing Rockerville, Parker and Lambert recount its development as a”real mining camp,” and”one of the roaringest.” The authors then ruefully describe how modern Rockerville became a tourist town, and note with palpable regret:”There are not many echoes in the Rockerville of today — the clink of coin, rustle of bills and click of cameras have drowned them out.”

The book’s central theme is that”the ghosts of the past are where you find them.” The epilogue features a Parker story and a Lambert drawing as a monument to the lives that were lived in the harsh, rocky Black Hills:

Here lived the pioneers and built their hopeful towns, and here they nursed their frail ambitions only to move on, into the pages of history. These Hills and their past will come alive, though all around is in ruin and decay, if you will follow down the trails we have trod, see those strange sites that we have seen, and hear the tales that we were toldÖ

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Thanksgiving on the Prairie

By Laura Ingalls Wilder

When Charles and Caroline Ingalls brought their family to Dakota Territory in 1879, they found a winter home in a railroad surveyor’s house on the shore of Silver Lake, near DeSmet. All the surveyor asked was that Charles guard the company tools.

The Ingalls lived cozily in the house (which has since been restored by the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society and is open to visitors to DeSmet.) It must have been a memorable winter, because Laura — who went on to become famous for her Little House writings — wrote about it 37 years later (1916) in a Thanksgiving column for The Missouri Ruralist. We first published her account in our November/December 1988 issue, and are pleased to have the opportunity to share it with you again.

As Thanksgiving Day draws near again, I am reminded of an occurrence of my childhood. To tell the truth, it is a yearly habit of mine to think of it about this time and to smile at it once more.

We were living on the frontier in South Dakota then. There’s no more frontier within the boundaries of the United States, more’s the pity, but then we were ahead of the railroad in a new unsettled country. Our nearest and only neighbor was 12 miles away and the store was 40 miles distant.

Father had laid in a supply of provisions for the winter and among them were salt meats, but for fresh meat we depended on father’s gun and the antelope which fed in herds across the prairie. So we were quite excited, one day near Thanksgiving, when father hurried into the house for his gun and then away again to try for a shot at a belated flock of wild geese hurrying south.

We would have roast goose for Thanksgiving dinner! “Roast goose and dressing seasoned with sage,” said sister Mary. “No, not sage! I don’t like sage and we won’t have it in the dressing,” I exclaimed. Then we quarreled, sister Mary and I, she insisting that there should be sage in the dressing and I declaring there should not be sage in the dressing, until father returned — without the goose!

I remember saying in a meek voice to sister Mary, “I wish I had let you have the sage,” and to this day when I think of it I feel again just as I felt then and realize how thankful I would have been for roast goose and dressing with sage seasoning — with or without any seasoning — I could even have gotten along without the dressing. Just plain goose roasted would have been plenty good enough.

This little happening has helped me to be properly thankful even tho at times the seasoning of my blessings has not been just such as I would have chosen.

“I suppose I should be thankful for what we have, but I can’t feel very thankful when I have to pay $2.60 for a little flour and the price still going up,” writes a friend, and in the same letter she says, “We are in our usual health.” The family is so used to good health that it is not even taken into consideration as a cause of thanksgiving. We are so inclined to take for granted the blessings we possess and to look for something peculiar, some special good luck for which to be thankful.

I read a Thanksgiving story the other day in which a woman sent her little boy out to walk around the block and look for something for which to be thankful. One would think that the fact of his being able to walk around the block and that he had a mother to send him would have been sufficient cause for thankfulness.

We are nearly all afflicted with mental farsightedness and so easily overlook the thing which is obvious and near. There are our hands and feet — who ever thinks of giving thanks for them, until indeed they, or the use of them, are lost. We usually accept them as a matter of course, without a thought, but a year of being crippled has taught me the value of my feet and two perfectly good feet are now among my dearest possessions. Why! There is greater occasion for thankfulness just in the unimpaired possession of one of the five senses than there would be if some one left us a fortune. Indeed, how could the value of one be reckoned? When we have all five in good working condition we surely need not make a search for anything else in order to feel that we should give thanks to Whom thanks are due.

I once remarked upon how happy and cheerful a new acquaintance seemed always to be and the young man to whom I spoke replied, “Oh he’s just glad that he is alive.” Upon inquiry, I learned that several years before this man had been seriously ill, that there had been no hope of his living, but to everyone’s surprise he had made a complete recovery and since then he had always been remarkably happy and cheerful.

So if for nothing else, let’s “just be glad that we are alive” and be doubly thankful if, like the Scotch poet, we have a good appetite and the means to gratify it.

Some hae meat that canna eat
And some want meat that lack it.
But I hae meat and I can eat,
And sae the Lord be thanked.

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Unknown No More

By John Andrews

Jack Thurman remembers the photograph as if it were taken yesterday. He was standing on the slope of Mount Suribachi on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. It was the 25th or 26th of February, 1945. American forces were in the heat of a battle with the Japanese for control of the small island about 650 miles south of Tokyo. As a member of the United States Marine Corps’ 5th Division, 27th Regiment, Thurman had volunteered to help the 28th Regiment secure the mountain. They had been on Iwo Jima since the 19th. They were making progress.

On the 23rd a group of Marines made it to the top of Mount Suribachi and hoisted an American flag. A few days later, Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal gathered those soldiers again for another photo around the flag. One of them noticed Thurman standing a few yards down the mountain and invited him up. After the photo was taken, the soldiers returned to the fight and Rosenthal left with another good war picture. In this one the soldiers were jubilant. Some held their helmets in the air. Others raised their guns. Rosenthal was able to identify everyone except one man — Thurman.

For more than 55 years, the smiling young Marine standing on the far left side of the photo was identified only as”unknown.” But his name is no longer a mystery. After years of silence, Thurman identified himself as the only unknown soldier in that image from Iwo Jima.

Thurman, the oldest of 15 children, grew up on a dairy farm outside of Mitchell. He remembers”a lot of hard work,” milking cows and farming with a team of horses (Thurman’s father finally bought a tractor in 1939). He rode a horse to country school before enrolling at Notre Dame School in Mitchell.

When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, thousands of young men across the country clamored to join the military. Thurman was no different. When he was 17, he told his family he wanted to enlist, but his father wouldn’t sign the necessary paperwork, saying he needed him on the farm. So Thurman waited until Sept. 27, 1943, his 18th birthday. He walked into the recruiter’s office in Mitchell and joined the Marine Corps.

“As I looked over my right shoulder, I saw that flag going up…it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life.”

After training at Fort Snelling, Minn., and San Diego, Thurman became a member of Carlson’s Raiders in the South Pacific. In early 1945, Thurman found himself on a ship heading west from Hawaii. Only after a few days at sea did the Marines find out they were headed for Iwo Jima. As they approached the island they saw nearly constant gun flashes along the horizon.”We were all thinking to ourselves, ‘How can anything survive on that island with that kind of an attack?'” Thurman recalled.

On Feb. 19 the 5th Division’s 26th, 27th and 28th regiments landed on the southern coast of Iwo Jima. Thurman remembers chills running down his spine as he stepped over dead Japanese soldiers lying on the black sands of Iwo Jima’s beach.”We didn’t know what to expect,” he says.

The 28th Regiment was assigned to take Mount Suribachi, an inactive volcano on the southern tip of the island. The 26th and Thurman’s 27th Regiment were to take an airstrip that sat just a few hundred yards northeast of Mount Suribachi. The Marines set to work, firing on foxholes and rooting out Japanese soldiers, many of whom were hidden within 11 miles of tunnels.

While Thurman and other members of his regiment fought the Japanese on the ground, the 28th Regiment started its slow ascent up Mount Suribachi. On Feb. 21 the men had nearly surrounded the base of the mountain and started to climb. At a little after 10 a.m., on the morning of the 23rd, as Thurman was fighting in the middle of the airstrip, a soldier noticed activity on the mountaintop. Marines had reached the summit and were raising a flag.”As I looked over my right shoulder, I saw that flag going up,” Thurman said.”It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life. The ocean breeze hit it and the flag itself unfurled. It was just a beautiful thing up there. And there were a few of us who had some tears in our eyes, because we lost a lot of men between the 19th of February and the 23rd of February. We lost a lot of men, so we weren’t ashamed to shed a tear.”

Marine Corps photographer Lou Lowery captured the first flag raising. A few hours later, another group of Marines reached the top of the mountain with a larger flag. As they took the smaller one down and hoisted the bigger flag into place, Rosenthal snapped a picture. The image, which was given the title”Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima,” won a Pulitzer Prize and became one of the most reproduced photos of the war.

Thurman was a bit hesitant days later when that soldier from the 28th Regiment invited him into Rosenthal’s group photo.”I said, ‘Well I’m 27th Regiment.’ And he said, ‘That makes no difference. You’re still one of us.’ Well, that sounded pretty good to me,” Thurman said,”so I went up.”

Thurman is standing directly behind Ira Hayes, one of the six men immortalized in Rosenthal’s flag-raising photo. John Bradley, Franklin Sousey and Mike Strank–three other soldiers from the flag raising–are also in the photo. As the only man who was not a member of the 28th Regiment, Thurman became the only unidentified soldier.

Many of the men standing alongside Thurman, including Sousley and Strank, were killed days later as the Japanese continued their attempt to hold Iwo Jima. The fighting continued until American forces finally secured the island on March 26, 1945. Thurman left Iwo Jima that same day.

In a few months the war was over. Thurman came back to the United States and bounced around the West Coast looking for work before coming back to South Dakota. He had a number of jobs in Mitchell, Aberdeen and Rapid City before he and his wife, Carol, headed for San Diego. It was there that he was introduced to drafting and embarked upon a career in architecture. He finally settled down in Boulder, Colo., where he designed many of the buildings on the University of Colorado campus.

After years of silence, Thurman identified himself as the only unknown soldier in that image of Iwo Jima.

For more than 30 years after the war Thurman remained silent about what he had experienced.”I just didn’t particularly care to talk about it,” he said.”It was hard for me to hold back my emotions when I got into the real messy part.” In the late 1970s, though, Thurman was invited to speak at a Denver-area Kiwanis Club. Since then he has been open about his war experiences and has written a book detailing his military career.

The country was re-introduced to Iwo Jima in 2000 with the publication of Flags of Our Fathers. Written by John Bradley’s son James, the book chronicles the lives of the six men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima. The picture of those men from the 28th Regiment, plus an unknown Marine, gathered on Mount Suribachi is included in a section of photographs from the battle.

After the book came out, Thurman’s family members and friends were sure they knew the unidentified soldier.”People in the family were calling me asking ‘Isn’t that you in that picture?'” By saying yes, Thurman finally ended a half-century of mystery.

In 2006 Clint Eastwood turned Flags of Our Fathers into a movie. Thurman saw the film in Denver with a host of other Iwo Jima veterans. Shortly before Christmas that year, Thurman met Lt. Keith Wells, the platoon leader whose men were charged with putting the flag on Mount Suribachi.

“So you’re the guy in that picture?” Wells asked.

“Yes, sir,” Thurman said.

“We’ve been wondering who in the hell that guy is,” Wells said.”We could not figure out who he was. We’ve got a name for everybody but that one.”

“Well,” Thurman answered, with a laugh,”I’m the lone ranger.”

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2008 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a back issue or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.