Category: travel

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Nestled in the Badlands

By Chad Coppess

The lights of Interior twinkle against the Badlands wall.

There once was a town called Black on the White River. Black was the name of an area pioneer family when the post office was established in the 1880s. After several floods and a fire that burned much of the town, it was reestablished a mile or two north where the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad tracks were built in 1907. Postmasters Louis and George Johnson had recently received a letter from the Department of the Interior, which went hand-in-hand with the community’s new location in the”interior” of the Badlands and the town of Interior was born.

The little town’s remoteness has presented challenges. Jerry Johnston, owner of the Wagon Wheel Bar on Main Street, remembers when a dorm next to the school housed some of his classmates from area towns too small to have a high school and from area ranches too remote for daily travel. He also recalls a business called the Peace Pipe, which was a hangout for kids. A jukebox, pinball machines, comic books, burgers and ice cream were offered.”As soon as school was over that was our social grounds,” Johnston says. The owners had the only television in town and let the kids watch it in their home as long as they sat quietly on the floor.

Ansel Wooden Knife operated a cafe famous for authentic Indian tacos in Interior before the fry bread he made overtook the business. So many people asked for it that he began packaging and selling Wooden Knife Fry Bread Mix throughout the region and closed the cafe. He now offers frozen fry bread as well.

Until recently the highway signs at opposite ends of town disagreed about Interior’s population.”They said something like 97 on one end of town and 64 on the other, so it depended on whether you were coming or going,” laughs Johnston. Both signs now read 94.

***

Badlands B&B

Phil and Amy Kruse at the Circle View Guest Ranch.

Before even hearing the term, Phil Kruse had an agritourism bed and breakfast in mind. The third-generation rancher began building his dream lodge on the family place a few miles west of Interior in 1996 with help from his father and family. Circle View Guest Ranch opened in 2000 with eight rooms and a spectacular view of the White River and the Badlands wall.

Four years later his wife Amy came to Badlands National Park with plans of a career in the National Park Service. Instead, she met Phil and,”the B&B became my baby,” she says. Actual babies followed. Their kids are now 14, 12, and 11 and help around the ranch.

A steady stream of visitors enjoys the ranch each summer.”People love seeing the chickens, cattle and burros,” Amy says.”They just eat it up.”

“We do get people who are plum scared after they drive out here, though,” Phil adds.”They ask, ‘How do you live here?’ Covid actually boosted our business. It’s easy to isolate here because that’s what we do.”

Cheaper than Disney

Sue Leach

Located within sight of Badlands National Park, Interior’s economy naturally depends on the visitor industry. Sue Leach, owner of the Cowboy Corner convenience store and cafe for 14 years, says people are traveling differently in the last two years than previously.”As long as you have internet service, they are happy to be outdoors,” Leach says. Her Friday and Saturday night steak specials are well-known around the area, and she expects another good summer season in the Badlands.”We are a lot cheaper than Disney World,” she laughs.

An Eye on Interior

Elsie Fortune

Elsie Fortune grew up on her family’s ranch south of Interior and went to college on a rodeo scholarship. Photography caught her eye and she worked for a wedding photographer, leading to one of Interior’s newer businesses. Now around 90 percent of Fortune’s wedding and portrait customers are friends from the area. That’s just one of many hats she wears. She still helps on the family ranch and is a brand inspector and veterinarian’s assistant at the Philip Sale Barn. Fortune was the 2012 South Dakota High School Rodeo Queen and won the state breakaway roping title that year.

Badlands Guides

Jordan and Casie Donald

Casie Donald’s Hurley Butte Horseback riding adventure business weathered the pandemic fairly well.”In 2020 we didn’t know how it was going to go, but we are at least six feet apart anyway,” she says.”Overall, our business wasn’t hurt at all.”

Donald’s father started the horseback riding business when he offered his teenage children as guides for interested guests at the nearby Circle View Guest Ranch.”We weren’t excited at first, but when our first customer handed us tips, we decided there might be something to it,” laughs Casie. She and husband Jordan now have a full-time gig leading four or five riders at a time across the prairie in addition to ranching.

World champion cowboys frequent Interior’s Wagon Wheel.

See a World Champ

Rodeo has always been important in Interior. In the 1920s Interior hosted the third largest rodeo in the world, Johnston says. Old newspaper accounts and photos hang on the wall in the community center next to the fire hall. The Interior Roundup was so popular that trainloads of tourists would come from Chicago and camp in town. One story describes 100 Native Americans charging through the campsite on horseback, firing guns in the air and leaving stunned visitors in their wake. Pow wow dancing, buffalo and beef feeds, a parade and rodeo events filled out the three-day extravaganzas.

Cowboys still frequent Interior.”Some nights there will be two or three world champion cowboys in here,” Johnston says of the Wagon Wheel.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2022 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117

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A Border Town

By Chad Coppess

Gary is a true border town. The east end of Main Avenue intersects the South Dakota/Minnesota state line.

It’s been many years since a train rumbled through Gary, but people here believe this was the place where railroad service first crossed into Dakota. Trains also arrived in other border towns like Sioux City and Vermillion in 1872, the year of Gary’s founding, but the local citizenry stands by the claim, more than 150 years later. The east end of Gary’s Main Avenue intersects the Minnesota border, where rails awaited their extension into Dakota Territory, so it’s hard to doubt them.

The town began as Tent City, then Stateline, Headquarters, DeGraf and finally Gary, for rail and postal official H.B. Gary. It’s also known as”The Gate City” for its role in welcoming settlers to the western prairies.

Almost 600 people called this beautiful spot along the west branch of the Lac Qui Parle River home in 1920, but less than half as many remain today.”Maybe we are lucky,” says construction contractor and city councilman Doug Nelson, who calls himself a”move back” because he returned to his hometown after several years of living away.”At one time we were on a trajectory to become a big city, but instead we have a hidden gem.”

Progress is measured differently in tiny towns.”We’ve got stop signs now. We didn’t used to,” Nelson laughed.

Gary Historical Association members (from left) Ellen Schulte, Doug Nelson, Carolynn Webber and Perry Heaton gathered in the city museum to reminisce about the town’s early days.

Perry Heaton and his father before him operated the Gate City General Store at the main intersection in downtown Gary. Jennifer Pederson now manages the former bank building and shop next door, known to locals as”Jen’s Store.” Over the years the buildings have held a drug store, barber shop, grocery store and the Gary Post Office. Today shelves are packed with tools, greeting cards and energy drinks.”We still have hardware from when Perry had the store,” Pederson says.”It’s fun to actually sell something with one of his old price tags on it. We’ve tried to keep the original intent, which was a little of everything.”

Nelson says residents are happy with the products and services available, except for the lack of a gas station. Ideas are being floated to bring a service station and convenience store to property owned by the city.

An adult prom last year brought back memories of dances every Friday and Saturday night in the 1960s and’70s.”Of course they don’t dance anymore, just stand in the middle of the floor and jump up and down,” says Heaton, a former mayor and city councilman.

The town’s newspaper, the Gary Interstate, began in 1878 and ceased traditional publication years ago, but the Gary Historical Association continues a monthly newsletter that carries the Interstate name. Laura Swoboda and her mother, Patricia Haas, produce the new editions.

A picturesque two-story brick courthouse was built in the lower part of town in the 1890s. When the county seat moved to Clear Lake, the community offered the building as the first South Dakota School for the Blind. The school opened in 1900 after the city raised funds and built additional facilities on a 37-acre campus, including a small dam and lake.

Tunnels were built to assist blind students getting between buildings on the School for the Blind campus. Today they are decorated with historic photos of the school and surrounding area.

Longtime Gary residents remember blind students attending churches and joining locals for dinner at their homes. Along with Braille instruction, students learned music, farming, furniture repair and other skills utilizing their hands. A large barn on campus hosted wrestling and boxing matches as well as roller skating.

The School for the Blind moved to Aberdeen in 1959. Decay, deterioration and vandalism took a toll on the buildings until local entrepreneur Joe Kolbach purchased the property in 2008. Kolbach held an idea-generating town meeting, which led to the renovation of the school buildings as a resort, hotel, campground and restaurant.

The Buffalo Ridge Resort and Spa, including the Herrick Hotel and Talking Waters Campground, opened in 2009 for Gary’s Fourth of July celebration, an annual five-day party that includes a rodeo, soap box derby, live bands, children’s events and a rendezvous. By the following summer the Rock Room Bar and Grill was added.

Buildings housing the Gary Historical Association’s museum exhibits, the Gary City Park, the resort and the campground all blend into a beautiful complex somewhat hidden to travelers who only pass through town.”This park is the nucleus of what Gary is,” Nelson said as he walked by the new playground equipment and sports courts, the fruits of fundraisers held through the American Legion, the Alibi Bar and others.

Patricia Fields purchased the Buffalo Ridge Resort in 2023 and is continuing renovations that will add spa and massage facilities. Rick and Jessica Christens operate the Talking Waters Campground next door.

Ghost hunters have visited the resort’s buildings and found some activity, although one said a ghost told her she wasn’t willing to talk that day.”They are friendly,” Fields says. She’s seen some”photo bomb” ghosts appear in pictures taken there.

Maybe someday, one of them will reminisce about the day the railroad came to town, and finally settle that old debate with Sioux City and Vermillion.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2024 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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The Humor of Rochford

By Chad Coppess

Colleen Langley runs the Rochford Mall, also known as the “Small of America.”

You know there’s a sense of humor in a town that boasts a shopping mall and a university, but no official population.

Rochford is a tiny burg with a couple businesses and a handful of homes at the intersection of some very rural roads in the center of the Black Hills. Its population is not tracked by the U.S. Census Bureau. Locals will think for a minute, mentally counting occupied homes, and tell you the full-time year-round population is five. On a typical summer day many more than that stop in for refreshments.

A relative latecomer amongst mining towns in the Black Hills, Rochford didn’t blossom until prospectors discovered gold near the junction of Irish Gulch, Poverty Gulch and Moonshine Gulch in 1878. Deadwood and Lead had already been roaring for two years. Prospector M.D. Rochford was one of the early residents and his name was bestowed upon the community along Rapid Creek.

Homes used for weekend, vacation and hunting getaways are the predominant structures in the Rochford area now. Bicyclists and hikers on the Mickelson Trail pass through on the former railroad line that served nearby mines. The Standby Mine was the largest and longest standing, but the fondly remembered stamp mill there fell victim to rustic scrap wood thieves and was demolished in the 1980s to prevent adventure seekers from being hurt in the building’s remains. Countless photographs and a painting by artist Jon Crane preserve the memories.

Carol Pitts’ family still enjoys her grandfather’s hunting cabin just across the creek from the former railroad tracks.”Grandfather would wake us up to wave at the train as it went by,” she recalls.

Rochford Mall proprietor Colleen Langley started the store with Jerie Rydstrom as a tent selling paintings during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. It soon moved into a small building, and then to a renovated 1940s gas station in 2001. Langley can’t remember who began calling the store a”mall,” but when the Mall of America in Minnesota became famous for its size, the Rochford store became the”Small of America.” The sign out front still gets a chuckle from visitors.

The”small” is one of the largest sellers of Schwan’s ice cream in the Black Hills, along with shirts, camping sundries and Langley’s artwork. It’s also the exclusive supplier of Rochford Gold Dust, a meat seasoning rub.”Once you’ve had it you can’t eat popcorn or eggs without it,” Langley says.

Most traffic through Rochford today is ATVs and UTVs.

Linda Sandness and her husband bought property in the Rochford area in 1993 and built a retirement home.”If I’m going to live someplace, I want to know about it, so I started asking questions,” she says. That led to a partnership with Langley and Lauree Oerlline Buus to author a book called Rochford: The Friendliest Little Ghost Town in the Black Hills. Available, of course, at the”small,” the book includes many historic and contemporary photos.

Sandness enjoyed researching the tiny town.”I just love Rochford,” she says.”There was a time that it rivaled Rapid City.”

Rochford and the surrounding area’s population peaked at around 1,000 in the 1800s. There were hotels, a theater, butcher shop, two restaurants and a drug store. A U.S. Forest Service Station operated here in the early 1900s. Now the”small” and the Moonshine Gulch Saloon are the only functioning businesses, but that’s enough to keep things lively.

The saloon dates back to 1910 and also served as a livery stable, pool hall and barber shop. If you haven’t visited, you may recognize it from musicians Big and Rich’s 2005″Big Time” video. Irish Gulch is emblazoned on a false-fronted building next door. The former dance hall is a private cabin.

Annie Tallent, the first documented white woman in the Black Hills, lived and taught in Rochford. Outside the former school, a Rochford University sign adds another touch of whimsy to the community, but the building is now a private residence, home to just some of the people who unofficially live in this tiniest of towns tucked among the pines.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the November/December 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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South Dakota’s Stockholm

By Chad Coppess

Steve Misener is known around the world for his historic piano collection and the knowledge he’s accumulated from years of research into piano history.

Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, is built on 14 islands and features more than 50 bridges. South Dakota’s Stockholm sits on a small hilltop in the Coteau Des Prairies roughly 15 miles from Minnesota. Stockholm was never very large — maybe 150 people at its peak in the 1920s — but longtime residents are still proud it survives as a bedroom community for nearby Milbank and Watertown.

The town’s Swedish roots can be seen in yard and house decorations and displayed inside Alice’s Restaurant. These days, Stockholm is known for its Buggy Museum and Steve Misener’s vintage piano collection.

This corner of South Dakota has a long history of dairy farming. Lifelong resident Arlo Levisen’s grandfather was a butter maker, and the Stockholm creamery was in business until the 1960s when area dairy farmers began supplying the rapidly growing Valley Queen Cheese in Milbank. Smaller operations couldn’t keep up.

“The school closed in 1970,” Levisen says.”My mom was the last teacher.”

Education is a decades-long family tradition for the Levisens and Arlo is proud to say he finished his career as the superintendent of the school where his mother graduated.

Alex”Richard” Thompson and son Alex”Richie” Jr. own Alice’s Restaurant on Main Street. Locals gather here for lively morning conversations and to roll dice to see who pays for the coffee. The restaurant was originally built as a hotel for salesmen traveling on the railroad. There are still five rooms upstairs, but they aren’t advertised; they are mainly used when a wedding or some other gathering happens in town.

Following local tradition, women still sit in the north dining room and men in the south.”You’ll need your hip boots over on that side,” the women laugh about their spouses’ penchant for telling tall tales. Some describe mornings here as a”therapy session.” Monthly birthday parties for the regulars include cake and singing.

Thompson Sr. remembers that Stockholm”used to be a going concern, but just kind of dribbled away over the years.” The town never had a theater, but summer Saturday nights included movies projected on the large white door of the lumber yard for the audience in lawn chairs.

The Stockholm Agricultural Museum is a collection of 12 buildings, with the Buggy Museum being the newest.

Religion has been a strong part of the town from the start and Judy Dorman Rieke is proud that the town has always been dry.”It just goes to show a town can make it without booze,” she said. Various traditional Swedish churches, aspects of Dakota culture, and newer versions of Hutterite and Amish cultures blend here.

A collection of 12 buildings comprises the Stockholm Agricultural Museum under the auspices of the Grant County Historical Society, with the Buggy Museum being the newest. A 2008 windstorm that damaged buildings and a few buggies inspired Levisen and others to put up a new building and collect more buggies and sleighs from the area.

Levisen says the project was funded by David Johnson, nephew of longtime Stockholm area farmer Henry Fogelberg. Several buggies have been completely restored, while some were in good enough shape to display in their donated conditions. Highlights in the collection of 19 vehicles include a horse-drawn hearse provided by the Mundwiler Funeral Home in Milbank and a Russian-Canadian sleigh. Most came from within 50 miles of Stockholm.”All these buggies have a connection to this area,” Levisen says.

Across Main Street from Alice’s Restaurant is the former Stockholm grocery store, now home to Steve Misener’s Piano Shoppe.”Welcome to the center of the music world in Stockholm,” he laughed as he opened the door.

“The collection of antique pianos is where my passion really lies,” he explained, but he’s also known for instrument tuning and repair. He has traveled between Chicago, Minneapolis and Denver tuning pianos.

Misener is happy to show his collection of 130 major instruments to anyone who calls ahead. Even though some are stored and covered, he can easily give you details on each piece’s history. A walk through is a history lesson and demonstration of the knowledge collected in Misener’s memory.”My 1574 organ is one of the oldest in North America,” he said.

“This is a Broadwood,” he said, pointing to another.”Beethoven had one.” He paused when asked about the newest piece in his collection before deciding it is a 1940 model.

Arlo and Paulette Levisen have played a large role in creating Stockholm’s Buggy Museum.

Tracking the history of the pianos has become a passion as well. Using serial numbers, sales receipts, newspaper accounts of concert performances, and passports assigned to instruments that traveled overseas, he’s been able to document the lives of several of the pianos in his collection.”What’s the story? Who owned this? Who played it? It’s just fascinating,” he said.”The detective work is fun.”

He bills one of his pianos as”the piano that Brahms nearly played.” Famous German composer and pianist Johannes Brahms was scheduled to perform on it but became ill and did not play. Another he has connected to a story of the hiding of the Liberty Bell from British troops in Philadelphia.

As Misener built his collection he sought out experts in the field with questions.”About 10 years ago I realized the questions were beginning to come to me. I had never seen myself as the go-to person, but I guess it has come to that.”

Occasional performances and history presentations for schools mean Misener’s pianos do get played if their condition allows. Some are kept as historic pieces past their musical prime.

Levisen is working to bring more visitors to Stockholm and especially to the Buggy Museum. A series of special events has already created interest, including a Burger Battle in June.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the July/August 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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A Home Run for Columbia

By Chad Coppess

Columbia’s ball field and park were the impetus for citywide refurbishments.

Community spirit. Most South Dakota towns have it, but it would be hard to find one with more than Columbia, 19 miles northeast of Aberdeen. That’s largely thanks to philanthropist Dean Buntrock, who has pumped large amounts of enthusiasm into his hometown.

Buntrock, 92, fondly remembers the days in the 1940s and’50s when his father owned the International Harvester dealership and was mayor of Columbia.”He sold everything a farmer could need and I first started working there, if you could call it working,” he chuckled.”After the second World War, a lot of new things developed in farm machinery, so we had lots to sell.” That experience led Buntrock to become a successful businessman and a founder of Waste Management, Inc., a nationwide waste and environmental services company now headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Baseball has been an important part of Columbia for decades and became a focus of Buntrock’s hometown philanthropy.”When we were kids, if you had a bicycle, a baseball glove and a baseball bat, that’s all you needed,” Buntrock says. City councilman Cole Kampa agrees.”Columbia is built around baseball. As kids, that ballpark was the center of everything, even where we went to go fishing.”

Columbia’s ballpark is called Wahl Memorial Field, named for Kermit Wahl, a Major League Baseball player who grew up here. He spent time as an infielder for the Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Athletics and St. Louis Browns from 1944 to 1951. He died in Arizona in 1987 and is buried at Columbia’s Lakeview Cemetery.

The ballpark, framed by huge trees along the banks of the James River, was widely regarded as one of the most beautiful places in the region to play. Unfortunately, that picturesque spot also meant flooding during spring seasons when the unruly Jim overflowed its banks.

When approached with an idea for refurbishing the Columbia baseball field, Buntrock offered a donation and assistance, but wanted to do more.”I said the town needs a place to gather for picnics and things like that also,” he says. The project grew to include a relocated ballfield and greatly expanded city park.

Karen Kampa and her husband Tyler have renovated Karen’s Bar and Grill and filled it with antiques and Columbia memorabilia.

He placed good friend Terry Birck in charge of working with the community and told him,”If we’re going to do it, let’s do a good job.” Birck found additional funding sources through the state of South Dakota and, Buntrock says,”It’s quadrupled what I had ever expected.” The Columbia Community Foundation was established and is providing permanent funding for the park and other area charities.

“Dean understood that rural communities don’t have a lot of money,” Birck says.”He didn’t want it to be a Dean Buntrock project though, but a community project. The South Dakota Community Foundation was a great find. With their help this became a Columbia initiative. The gift of the park was the catalyst that got things percolating.”

The monetary gifts have spurred many projects to spruce up this tiny Brown County town. Buildings have been purchased and resold, repurposed and more. Two citywide cleanup days also made homeowners aware of grant programs that could provide things like new siding and roofing.”The cleanup days were so fun because of the connections made,” says Julie Lillis, a member of the Columbia Community Foundation.”It’s so energizing to meet people you’ve waved at, but you didn’t really know.”

Karen and Tyler Kampa reopened the old log cabin bar as Karen’s Bar and Grill in early 2023. Tyler’s love of antiques has filled the place with interesting memorabilia.

Tyler’s mother, Cheryl Kampa, is a longtime daycare provider who many Columbia residents remember as a second mother figure.”Karen’s has become an attraction for at least a 20-mile radius,” she says.

After 43 years Cheryl has turned over the daycare to neighbor Emily Eichler, a transplant who said her first week in Columbia made her feel more at home than anywhere else. She is now also a city council member. Buntrock offered to build a daycare center, but Eichler is happy to be at home.”I’m glad to be able to do my laundry while still at work,” she says.

Emily Eichler runs Columbia’s daycare, which serves the surrounding countryside and other small neighboring communities.

There’s plenty of work for Eichler.”For the size of our town we have a lot of little kids,” she says. Census stats back that up, indicating that Columbia’s median age is 33.2, fairly low for a small community in farm country. The daycare has 17 enrolled children with some coming from Claremont, 18 miles away.

Cole Kampa said the new city park, which encompasses several city blocks, has created the recreational gathering site that Buntrock envisioned.”Kids can walk or ride their bikes to the park without worry.”

In the 1800s, riverboats plied the James River south from Jamestown, North Dakota, with dreams of connecting to Yankton and the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. The dock on the west side of Columbia spurred the building of three grand hotels, Cole Kampa said. The hotels are gone, and the river is no longer deep enough here to support a large boat, but the riverboat era is remembered around town.

Mohr Honey, on the north edge of Columbia, was quickly born when someone suggested to Dana Mohr that he should look at some books about beekeeping.”The first year we had eight pints of honey. We failed miserably,” Mohr laughs.”There is a real, real learning curve.” Fortunately, Mohr and his bees eventually found their rhythm. He and wife Lisa harvested 1,400 gallons from 100 beehives in 2023. Mohr Honey is now sold in 15 retail outlets as far away as Rapid City. The couple donates bottles of honey as prizes for community events and gives educational talks at area schools.

At age 95, Lloyd Dennert is happy to be Columbia’s oldest resident, and his wife Doris is right behind him. When Doris was born in Columbia during the winter of 1932, she and her mother stayed in town for a week until her father came to get them in a horse-drawn sleigh. The Dennerts laughed about Halloween pranks like tipping over outhouses and remembered watching movies projected on the side of a barn in town.

Despite the large donations coming from Buntrock, the United Church of Christ and others, community members have resisted the temptation to spend wildly.”You’re talking about frugal people here,” says Lillis, the community foundation member.”It’s just in our DNA. No one is getting crazy with spending.”

“Dean’s donations have given us resources,” Eichler says.”And it’s laying the foundation for long-term success. It’s been a whirlwind couple of years.”

That community spirit has also created a sense of volunteerism. Community events are on the rise, with last year’s parade being the first since the city’s centennial in 1985.”Dean’s motivation is beyond just the parks, but to improve the quality of life and create a long-lasting pride in the community,” Birck says.

Even with his assistance, Buntrock doesn’t necessarily expect Columbia to boom.”I don’t think they are ever going to be more than a little independent town close to Aberdeen, but more important than the baseball field and park is that we have really brought the town together. It’s in good hands.”

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2024 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Right at Home in Davis

By Chad Coppess

Owner Cinda Wilson refills coffee cups at the Solace Farm General Store.

Just like the traffic flowing through on Highway 18, or the tumbling waters of the Vermillion River northwest of town, the people of Davis always seem to be moving. The traditional late-winter community play, monthly flea markets and poker runs at the Davis Bar are part of a never-ending list of annual events that keeps the place busy, yet welcoming, for visitors.

Davis is home to Solace Farm General Store and Campground, its name inspired by the peaceful nature of the town where roosters crow on main street. Owner Cinda Wilson named Solace Farm the minute she stepped out of her vehicle in Davis and heard nothing but wind and birds.”It just really fit,” she said of the name for her new home after a career in Homeland Security in Sioux Falls and Reno, Nevada. She now runs the store and campground with her sister Karla Romereim. Wilson is also the Davis postmaster.

Open throughout the warm months and on weekends during winter, the Solace Farm General Store is where Davis’ morning coffee group meets. A recent gathering described themselves as”a little of everything — Norwegians and Republicans.” Discussion ranged from snowstorms and politics to waterskiing road ditches while being towed by a pickup.

“Mom used to make stained glass,” Wilson says.”I had made some jam and Karla made sweet cream butter. So, we did flea markets with Mom for a while.” That eventually led to the store, which features nearly 40 flavors of Wilson’s jams, area-made kuchen, chislic, brats, antiques, gifts and giant cinnamon rolls with the morning coffee.

Josh Wiebesiek and Jennifer Beckman rehearse lines for the town’s annual Davis Winterstock play.

The exploding popularity of camping during the COVID-19 pandemic helped the campground on the west edge of town grow.”It’s so nice to see people that have driven from cities in the east just decompress when they get out of the car,” Wilson says.”It’s fun to share open space with people who don’t have it.” Campers get a jar of homemade jam and a fresh loaf of bread.

Never a large town, Davis had numerous businesses in the early 1900s, but a series of disasters nearly wiped it off the map. A 1912 fire took all the businesses on the south side of Highway 18 and in 1928 a tornado destroyed most of the town. Today’s Davis Bar was a two-story brick bank building, but the tornado removed the top floor. Periodic flooding along the nearby Vermillion River has damaged and destroyed property as recently as 2019.

A community tradition began in 1983 when Davis Winterstock was founded, providing area families with generations of volunteer onstage opportunities and a different play performed each year. Longtime cast member Stacy Andernacht proudly pointed out that the show is a fundraiser.”Nearly every improvement in town is from the play,” she says, including the playground in the city park and new roofs on buildings. Proceeds have also helped cancer patients.

The show originally toured area towns and was once performed at Mount Rushmore. Performances are now held in the Davis American Legion Hall each March. The late winter timeframe came about because that’s when the cast and crew — all farmers — had time. The production still tries to avoid planting and basketball seasons.

Cast members admit that professionalism isn’t the biggest priority.”The audience comes to see us perform, not necessarily to see a great play,” quipped Mindy Fischer.”We are paid in laughter.”

Almost everyone involved in this year’s Davis Winterstock production can name other family members who’ve been in the play multiple times.”It’s a big family affair,” says director/actress Charlene Overgard.

Alice Kvigne’s Davis Bar is the center of many events throughout the year.

Generations of families are a common theme involving most everything in Davis. Fire Chief Troi Andernacht joked about”drawing the short straw” for his second term as fire chief. His two sons and wife are all part of the town’s emergency crews.

Darts, pool leagues, predator hunts, tractor pulls and runs, Tater Days and Thistlefest mean something is almost always going on at Alice Kvigne’s Davis Bar.”Redneck Days may be coming back as well,” she laughed.”That one is for kids and kids-at-heart. We have dumpster diving, a hub cap toss, whatever seems fun.”

Poker runs involving cars, motorcycles, tractors or any other vehicle are always welcome to make the Davis Bar one of their stops.”Anytime someone has a cause we make them feel welcome,” Kvigne says.

Hospitality, whether it’s a stop at the bar or a gift of jam and bread, takes many forms in this tiny town along Highway 18.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Staying Humble in Doland

By Chad Coppess

Doland, in Spink County, is home to 150 hearty souls.

Despite being the boyhood home of a vice president and hometown of twin Olympic wrestlers and twin Air Force generals, Doland stays humble.

In his 1960 biography of U.S. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, Michael Amrine described Doland’s main street as”a dog asleep and a few dragonflies that are only pretending to be busy.” A recent Wednesday morning didn’t seem much different when city leaders stood in the middle of Humphrey Drive to have a photo taken. No one worried about traffic interruptions.

Former mayor Craig Schroeder is a founder and 20-year board member of the rural economic development group called Basec. The organization was formed in 1994 with federal funds that most towns used in a one-time application. Doland looked at the bigger picture and utilized the money in a longer-term program.”We were challenged to think outside the box, but when we suggested creating a revolving loan fund to continue long-term, we were told that would have to go all the way to the president for approval,” Schroeder says. Tackling the challenge led a Doland delegation to Washington, D.C., where they enjoyed dinner on the White House lawn, a meeting with Vice President Al Gore and shook hands with President Bill Clinton.

Since then, Basec has provided small business loans, home mortgages and funding for community improvement projects, a testament to the forward-thinking of those town leaders in the 1990s.”Everybody worked hard and believed that we didn’t want the town to die,” Schroeder says.”Why would you not want to make the place you live better?”

Hundreds of home loans have been provided through Basec, a splash pad is on the way, and the city-owned daycare has a staff of seven employees and averages 25 children per day.”I’m extremely fortunate to have the daycare available,” said Basec Executive Assistant Samantha Noethlich.”And it’s really rewarding to see how it helps people in other jobs around town.”

Doland Mayor Stuart Bell, Finance Officer Kam DesLauries, Basec Executive Assistant Samantha Noethlich and former mayor Craig Schroeder are proud of their town and the area’s economic growth.

When the Riley Opera House/Twin Kiss Theatre building that housed the Doland Post Office was determined to contain asbestos, it shut down the post office for a short time. Avoiding what might have been the town’s death knell, the city renovated the former library building to make sure postal service stayed in town.

Other businesses in town include two bars, Mayor Stuart Bell’s auto body shop, Full Circle Ag, a convenience store, an insurance office and Jamie and Glenda McNutt’s Just Beecuz Floral and Trophy of a Lifetime Taxidermy.

Glenda McNutt is a Doland native. Though the couple moved away for several years, they found themselves drawn closer to family.”Our oldest son went to school for acting and was chasing his dream, so Glenda wanted to chase her dream of owning a flower shop,” Jamie says. They also purchased the Bottoms Up bar when it became available.”We work our butts off and still don’t make much money at the end of the month,” he says with a laugh.

About 150 mounted animals come out of the taxidermy shop each year. Deer heads, fish and birds mounted by youngest son Dalton are the typical fare. Jamie has done longhorn cattle mounts and once did an armadillo laying on his back drinking a can of beer.”It keeps me from getting a real job,” he quips.

McNutt sees Doland’s location at the corner of highways 37 and 212 as a factor in the continued prosperity of the tiny town. Mayor Bell and Schroeder agree that having a school and post office have been big advantages.”That and people are really giving,” Schroeder says.”We have small town values and people really care.”

A 1983 centennial celebration brought enough people to town that it sparked an every-five-years festival called”Back to Doland” with a big car show and street dance. The most recent”Back to Doland” happened in 2015, but the 2020 celebration was cancelled due to COVID, so residents are looking forward to 2025.

Former resident Hubert H. Humphrey will be celebrated along with former South Dakota governor and Spink County native Harvey Wollman, who passed away in October of 2022. Doland’s famous twins — Dennis and Duane Koslowski, who wrestled in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, and Air Force Generals Marvin and Melvin McNickle — will also be honored.

That will be enough to wake Main Street’s dogs and dragonflies.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Welcome to Agar

By Chad Coppess

Ted Asmussen and Lew Robbenholt enjoy reminisching about Agar and Ted’s great-grandfather W.J. Asmussen.

Agar is small, even by South Dakota standards, but the Sully County town in the middle of wheat country thrives. Insurance adjuster Lew Robbennolt, who works inside a former grocery store on Ash Street/Agar Road — the town’s de facto main street — thinks he knows why.”Number one is the soils are really good for growing,” he says.”Number two is transportation, which was the railroad and is now Highway 83. Number three is stubborn, tenacious people.”

Agar was established in 1910 by Charles H. Agar, who also founded Onida, the Sully County seat 10 miles to the south on Highway 83. Although Agar’s population peaked at around 200 people in the 1920s and 1930s, agricultural roots and a love for sports have kept the town viable.”Basketball wasn’t a sport in Agar, it was a religion,” Robbennolt laughs, even though it’s a legendary softball tournament that still comes up in conversation.

Fernando Valenzuela lent his name to the annual invitational”Fernando” tournament in Agar, unbeknownst to the Los Angeles Dodgers pitching phenom of the early 1980s. The Fernando was Agar’s biggest summer event from 1980 to 2000, according to Jay Mikkelsen. The weekend included a pig roast, car raffle and a”wild and wooly” street dance. As many as 14 teams would play in the tournament with spectators parked around the field.”Lots of windshields got broken,” Mikkelsen admitted. Eventually the players and organizers got older, and the tournament faded into legend.

Visitors to Agar today will find two restaurants in a town that once boasted two implement dealerships, two lumberyards and a motel.

Connie and Jay Mikkelsen serve comfort food at Millie’s Diner on Connie’s grandfather Mike Smith’s homestead.

The Bunkhouse Bar came into being when a cafe that was across the street burned down during harvest season. Farmer Stan Asmussen had a bunkhouse for harvest hands that needed feeding, so he quickly converted it into a cafe and bar, which has survived ever since. Laynee Brandt is the current owner, but she wasn’t even born when the Brandt family bought the Bunkhouse in 1982. Her mother Tamie does most of the cooking. Saturday night Mexican food specials bring customers from as far away as Pierre.

Newer to Agar is Millie’s Diner, opened in 2020 by Connie and Jay Mikkelsen just six weeks before COVID shut them down for a stretch. A rural post office known as Milford, which existed before Agar’s founding, inspired the diner’s name. The dining rooms and backyard are filled with antiques the Mikkelsens pick up wherever they travel. Between browsing the historical items and enjoying comfort foods like chislic, hot beef combos and homemade pies, Jay says people always seem to leave with a smile.

Ted Asmussen’s great-grandfather W.J. was known as”Potato Pete” for his large garden; his name is still painted on the last bank in Agar. W.J. was a farmer, rancher and well-known for finding a place that would grow grass even in the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. Much of his money was made selling grass seed to the federal government for reseeding decimated areas of the Great Plains when the drought ended.

Yes, Agar may owe its livelihood to good soil and good roads as Robbennolt believes, but Potato Pete’s great-grandson would add one more reason:”Optimistic people.”

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2022 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Tending to White Owl

By Chad Coppess

Ann Shaw and her family have kept the spirit of White Owl alive by repurposing its former stagecoach stop into the White Owl Creek Boutique.

When the closest town with a population over 1,000 is 65 miles away and you have only one business, your community might be considered a ghost town, but White Owl has some very”uptown” amenities. Words like boutique, salon and podcast aren’t unusual here.

Ann Shaw’s White Owl Creek Boutique offers women’s fashions in the White Owl Store, a 120-year-old building that was the first Post Office in Meade County in 1893 and still serves that purpose today. A salon offers all the services you might find in a larger city, including massage therapy.

Ann loves the opportunity to keep White Owl”on the map.” She purchased the White Owl Store in 2020 and opened in 2021 as the boutique/salon.”Nothing is straight. It gives it character,” she grins about the building that once served as a stagecoach stop.”Nobody wants to see a building go downhill and we want to keep our post office alive.”

“Everyone here has the same mindset,” says Ann’s daughter Kylie of the tight-knit community.”We don’t want to fade away.”

Offerings at the boutique are”one and done” runs of clothing, so if you spot something you like, you better grab it, because chances are it’s not coming back. Ann handpicks the jewelry, along with candles, shirts and rubber band guns — all made in South Dakota.

White Owl Creek Boutique offers area ranch families merchandise that might not otherwise be found within an hour’s drive.

White Owl Creek Boutique is usually open Monday through Saturday. The dream is to host family reunions and events with arts vendors and Meade County historians. Shaw calls them”little festivals. We want the scenic route visitors looking to experience something different.”

“White Owl has the potential to grow,” Ann says.”There are people around with talents and trades.” This thinking is behind the podcast run by Shaw’s sister-in-law Jodene Shaw and friend Molly Fulton.”I’ve wanted to do a podcast for a long time,” Fulton says.”It seemed like it’s not that hard.” So she asked Jodene to join in creating Place Well Tended, an ongoing discussion about”creativity, place, landscapes and South Dakotans.”

“Where I live is considered the middle of nowhere and yet there are people doing incredible things,” Jodene says. She should know. Shaw is a visual artist who uses mixed media to create pieces sold in the White Owl Creek Boutique and at art galleries and shows throughout western South Dakota.

Through their podcast, Shaw and Fulton have discovered that South Dakotans often think alike.”There are a lot of commonalities that create a community,” Jodene says.”And we have gotten to talk to the coolest people.” Guests have included Fort Pierre restaurateur Uriah Steber, photographer/videographer Wes Eisenhauer and linguist Dawn Wink.

The first two seasons include 16 episodes, each running around 45 minutes in length and available through several streaming applications. Season Three of Place Well Tended — an apt description for both the podcast and the tiny West River community that nurtures it — is forthcoming.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 2022 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Lead’s International Flavor

By Paul Higbee

Lead has always been home to many cultures, from the hard rock miners who toiled at the Homestake Gold Mine to today’s scientists making groundbreaking discoveries at the Sanford Underground Research Facility.

Spring comes late to Lead due to its mile-high elevation. Then, almost overnight, flowers bloom gloriously in Manuel Brothers Park on Main Street and out-of-town vehicles no longer have snowmobile trailers and ski racks.

Lead is less harried in summer than Deadwood, its”twin city” just a few miles down the hill, but the old mining town still has plenty to offer. There are good restaurants (the Stampmill, Sled Haus, Lewie’s Burgers and Brews, El Jefe’s Fresh-Mex Cantina, and Cheyenne Crossing a few miles out of town in the pines), fine arts at the historic opera house, breweries, museums and the Open Cut, a dramatic remnant of the town’s gold mining era.

Kelly Kirk, director of the architecturally stunning Sanford Homestake Visitor Center that is perched above the Open Cut, interprets”how the past and present collided in Lead” when the storied Homestake Gold Mine segued into the Sanford Underground Research Facility (physics, medical and industrial science) 20 years ago. She sees evolving science and the future of science eventually being examined at the center. Today’s researchers, Kirk says, come to Lead from around the world, but international arrivals are nothing new here; in fact, South Dakota never knew a more cosmopolitan community than Lead. Immigrants flowed into town especially between the 1890s and 1920s, and residents today can still point out old ethnic neighborhoods: Italian, Finnish, Cornish, Irish, Slovak and many others.

Kelly Kirk is director of the Sanford Homestake Visitor Center.

A hundred years ago Gwinn Avenue, running a couple blocks south of Main Street, was known as Slavonian Alley (meaning residents with roots in Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Yugoslavia) and it was a welcoming place for those from other neighborhoods wanting to experience eastern European traditions. Many of those customs stemmed from Catholic feast days. During the week between Christmas and New Year, homes along Gwinn were open house destinations serving cured ham, fresh breads, apple strudel and wine — always wine.”It was quite a challenge to make a trip through Slavonian Alley,” wrote the neighborhood’s Pearl Krilanovich.”To emerge sober was another thing, as the hospitality of the residents knew no bounds.” Wine was made in eastern European fashion, with great quantities of grapes shipped to town in ice-packed railway cars and then mashed by feet. Not bare feet, Krilanovich stressed; rubber boots were worn.

South Dakota also never knew a more tech-savvy little community than Lead. Homestake Gold Mine, in operation for 125 years and the reason South Dakota ranked first among states in gold production for much of the 20th century, drew most of those immigrants. Sometimes outsiders looked at the mine’s productivity and assumed the founders discovered the richest deposit of precious metal on earth. In fact, ore hoisted from Homestake’s depths wasn’t particularly dense with gold. Rather, Homestake’s international workforce perfected technologies not seen before for extracting quantities of gold, and the company became an American leader in developing hydroelectricity for heavy industrial applications. Lead was rightfully proud of its educated and inventive mining personnel, which numbered nearly 2,000 for decades. They engineered vertical shafts that took miners nearly 2 miles into the earth directly below Lead, and through a network of layered, horizontal passages called drifts that extended 400 miles. What’s more, the workforce applied technology that ventilated the vast subterranean world — in fact, air conditioned it in the deepest regions where temperatures approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Twenty years after Homestake’s closure, there are still hard feelings over the way some outsiders discussed a conversion of the mine to a science lab. Lead residents supported the transition — that wasn’t the issue. But they resented the implication that Lead was being introduced to technology for the first time.

Children peer into the Open Cut from the Sanford Homestake Visitor Center.

Some observers also compared Lead to unlucky northeastern Rust Belt towns, and predicted that with high industrial wages gone, some residents might just walk away from homes and mortgages. Abandon Black Hills real estate? In the 21st century? Not likely. It’s true that some unemployed miners left the area, but their homes sold, often to people who always hoped to own a piece of the Black Hills before they died. Today there’s some controversy over owners of classic, older Lead homes who are tempted to break them into apartments for much-needed workforce housing. Should local government enforce single-family home zoning in some neighborhoods? The concept violates the libertarian spirit that seems to reign supreme among liberals and conservatives alike in the Black Hills.

Controversy is nothing new to Lead. Homestake’s public relations department in the 20th century (perhaps the best ongoing PR campaign ever in South Dakota) was masterful in communicating how well various ethnicities got along in Lead. Usually that was true, but it would be a mistake to think of life here as one blissful stroll down Slavonian Alley, to employ a local metaphor. The darkest time was 1909-1910, when the mine caught wind of employees hoping to unionize. Homestake locked its crews out until everyone signed papers stating that they belonged to no union and would never join one. Homestake, actually a San Francisco corporation, won. Some Lead families were hungry before the mine reopened and paychecks came again, and there were resentments between families that ran deep and sometimes along ethnic lines. It was easy to believe certain nationalities were not astute in American contractual dealings. Not until 1966 did Homestake miners unionize, and sometimes family splits surfaced again when the time to renegotiate collective bargaining agreements rolled around.

Still, it was possible to grow up without much awareness of those matters. Lead was a lively town, full of diversions — youth sports leagues, arguably the best recreation building in South Dakota the first half of the 20th century, nearby hunting and the Midwest’s longest and most challenging ski slope just up the road at Terry Peak.

Bob Phillips was not only a member of the Homestake Mining Company Band, he pulled this bass drum through parades while a bandmate played it from behind. It’s among many artifacts at the Black Hills Mining Museum.

Bob Phillips, a retired Lead teacher, coach and school administrator, has witnessed more than half of Lead’s history. He spent his early childhood living in Slavonian Alley and remembers the open houses.”Our family name didn’t end v-i-c-h,” he notes.”But if you lived in the Alley, neighbors made sure you were part of it.” Phillips remembers some of the 16 or 17 grocery stores Lead once supported (many with ethnic specialties), Cornish pasties (a full meal of meat and vegetables baked in a pastry shell), long hours spent in the Homestake Recreation Building and the knowledge he was guaranteed a summer job as a teenager because his dad worked for Homestake. After college Bob and his wife, Cara Pat, traveled to Africa with the Peace Corps and then taught in Minnesota for a year. But then they were drawn back to Lead,”a culture totally distinct from other South Dakota towns,” Phillips says, and they built careers here.

A turning point for Lead came in April 1984 when fire gutted much of the Homestake Recreation Building, built 70 years earlier by the mine as a lifestyle amenity for employees (and, as it turned out, for pretty much everyone else who lived in Lead). The mammoth structure featured a thousand-seat theater, heated swimming pool, bowling alley, library and billiards hall. After the blaze it was determined that insurance alone couldn’t cover a full rebuild and there were people in town ready to write the building off as a lost relic. But others committed themselves to fundraising and rebuilding through a nonprofit corporation. The”rebuild” sentiment became Lead’s majority view and today the nearly lost structure is known as The Historic Homestake Opera House, focusing on a wide range of performing arts. Recent shows, drawing a Black Hills-wide audience, have included touring performers in An Irish Rambling House, stand-up comedian Jason Salmon, as well as a performance series by pianist Kathryn Farruggia. This summer a children’s theater program will put local kids on the big stage. The Opera House is also a popular wedding venue.

Yet 38 years after the fire, the rebuild is not yet complete. The building has a new roof (the original caved in) but marks where flames licked the walls remain visible in the auditorium. For some in the community the scars communicate there’s still work to be done and dollars to be raised.”We have set our sights on the completion of the entire project, raising funds for this massive project,” says opera house Executive Director Thomas Golden. The organization received a National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant and, Golden adds, money”raised as a part of this matching grant will allow us to complete many of the infrastructure related projects such as fire suppression and HVAC.”

Development Director Christine Allen, President Linda Wiley and Executive Director Thomas Golden (left to right) oversee restoration and events at the Homestake Opera House.

Opera House President Linda Wiley says the nonprofit has brought together a community within the community, people”who enjoy the work and also one another.” There can be little doubt, she adds, that the evolving success led to action in preserving other aspects of Lead’s history. Wiley didn’t mention it but people from other Black Hills communities did: long gone is an unfair image that Lead fought for generations about being a company town incapable of tackling initiatives without Homestake’s guidance.

Rapid City actors Kurt and Tina Bauer sometimes lend their talents to the opera house for locally produced shows. Kurt understands what Wiley means about a community within a community.”They treat their actors right,” he says,”and they understand Lead. The opera house is the centerpiece of the community.”

Of Lead overall, Tina adds,”it’s a tight little community,” and one that the couple has explored well, especially after discovering the Town Hall Inn bed-and-breakfast, just steps away from the opera house on Main Street. The Bauers sometimes stay there during runs of their shows. It’s another example of Lead taking care of its past. The little hotel was Lead’s 1912 city hall and jail, with rooms bearing their original names: Mayor’s Office, Judge’s Chamber, and so on.

ìIt was the city hall until the 1930s, when it was replaced by the present one that was built as a WPA project,” says Mark McGrane, the owner along with his wife Jade and his brother Paul. The trio found a perfect use for the old town jail, turning it into a cozy pub called Jailhouse Taps. They brew their own Belgian-style beers.

Blond Alibi and Dungeon Drunkard are locally popular Jailhouse Taps brews. Being a tight-knit community, Lead people are quick to point out another beer producer just up the street — Dakota Shivers Brewing. The affection Lead demonstrates for its beers makes you wonder if they will still be recalled a century from now, much like those legendary Slavonian Alley wines.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2022 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.