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Black Hills Mountain Lodges

By Paul Higbee

The State Game Lodge is a casual place where the greeters sometimes have horns and four legs.

Check into a Black Hills mountain lodge and you’ll get a taste of something classic. Book your stay in the fall and you’ve added a rich spice. What could be better than absorbing sunshine and piney breezes on a wide unscreened porch, then retreating inside to a fireplace blaze as the cool of an autumn evening hits? Wide porches and big stone fireplaces are essential lodge elements. So are immediate proximity to natural splendor, separation from towns and four-lane highways, and hosts who know their Black Hills history, flora and fauna.

For over a century Black Hills builders have fashioned lodges from pine and spruce, and they’ve usually accented their structures with Black Hills quartz, crystals, petrified wood and other rock. Thankfully, this construction style is not a lost art, as evidenced by a handful of recently built lodges.

Hisega Lodge

Hisega Lodge features a double-decker wrap-around porch.

Some lodges are grand while others are understated and intimate. But they all share one characteristic: for certain visitors they stick in the consciousness forever. Every lodge proprietor can tell stories of lives transformed under their roofs. Carol Duncan, for example, sat on Hisega Lodge‘s porch a few years back, listening to the rushing waters of Rapid Creek just below. She had grown up in Stickney, vacationed in the Black Hills with her family as a child, later lived in the Hills, and eventually found herself in Florida with a good job that she enjoyed. Then while visiting Hisega (just up the creek from Rapid City on Highway 44) Duncan realized she belonged to this rugged landscape of pines, stony outcrops and ice-cold streams.

“Guests have revelations at Hisega Lodge,” Duncan says.”Or perhaps another way to put it is that they make an acknowledgement.” After her visit she left knowing she would return to live in the Hills, but never guessed Hisega Lodge would be for sale just weeks later. Since 2007, Carol and her husband Kenn have been owners, greeting visitors from around the world. Theirs is a 1909 lodge with two porch decks wrapped around the building. There are nine guest units, exceptionally comfortable chairs before the fireplace, lots of Black Hills art on the walls and even a little library. Just outside trout swim in this catch-and-release section of the creek.

“Our guests tend to be about the outdoors, not about being in their rooms,” Duncan observes.”And they’re often interested in history.”

Doane Robinson, South Dakota’s first state historian, is credited for proposing the sculpture project that evolved into Mount Rushmore. He can also be credited for Hisega Lodge. In August 1908, Robinson organized a railroad and camping adventure through the Black Hills for 17 young adults, including his secretary, sister and a niece. The group rode the old Crouch Line rails out of Rapid City, stepped off the train to pitch tents in this narrow canyon, and named the spot Hisega — derived from the first initials of six campers named Helen, Ida, Sade, Ethel, Grace and Ada. In 1909, Robinson found 50 people who wanted to vacation in the same place, only now he said he would have a lodge in place for them if everyone contributed $100. The plan, actually modest by Doane Robinson standards, worked. Originally railroad tracks lay immediately in front of the building. Over 100 years later the trains are long gone, but the lodge still stands. It has had many names over the years while the spot on the map has always remained Hisega. As would be expected, guest rooms are small by today’s standards.”But we’ve got bigger beds, king and queen sized ones, because people are bigger than they were a hundred years ago,” Duncan says.”We make sure everything is spotless, and our towels are cushy.”

The price of a night’s lodging includes breakfast, perhaps an open-face breakfast sandwich or breakfast pizza, and always featuring fresh fruit and Duncan’s homemade muffins. A century ago, she notes, house rules warned against alcohol and gambling.”Now,” she says,”our instructions are mostly about accessing the wi-fi and finding the recycling bins.”

State Game Lodge

Two presidents (Calvin Coolidge and Dwight Eisenhower) have stayed at the State Game Lodge in Custer State Park.

What do Carol Duncan and President Calvin Coolidge have in common? It’s possible that each experienced a revelation about their futures while visiting a Black Hills lodge. After making the State Game Lodge his summer White House in 1927, Coolidge surprised the nation before departing South Dakota.”I do not choose to run for president in 1928,” he stated in typically terse style. By 1929 he was out of office and enjoying boating back home in rural Massachusetts.

Built in 1922, 13 years after Hisega Lodge, the State Game Lodge combines Sen. Peter Norbeck’s vision, architect A.R. Van Dyke’s design, stonemason Monroe Nystrom’s handiwork, and C.C. Gideon’s construction skills. The remarkable Gideon, also remembered for designing the landmark pigtail bridges on nearby Iron Mountain Road, stayed as Game Lodge host and state park concessionaire for 27 years after the lodge’s opening. His wife Elma worked closely with him.

Granddaughter Marilyn Oakes says the couple nearly perished here in 1921. Gideon had just completed construction of the original State Game Lodge and was living there when an arsonist struck. The couple escaped the flames and smoke with just their nightclothes, business ledgers and some photographs. The Game Lodge was lost, yet planning began immediately for the building we know today. The original lodge was intended for use by state officials only, but the second was developed with the public in mind. Today there are seven guest rooms in the original structure, plus several more in adjacent additions, nearby cabins and Creekside Lodge — all part of the State Game Lodge complex. Wherever they sleep, most guests drift through the original lodge.

With its dark woodworking, hardwood floors and Nystrom fireplaces, the lobby feels both historic and inviting. There’s usually an artist-in-residence at work here. In a pleasant lounge just off the lobby a portrait of President Dwight Eisenhower hangs over the fireplace. He stayed at the lodge in June 1953.

Small as it is, this may be South Dakota’s most famous hotel. It also ranks high among the state’s very best restaurants. You’ll be hard pressed to top the lodge’s smoked chicken fry bread as an appetizer, followed by an entrÈe of buffalo filet mignon wrapped in bacon. Waiting for dinner, you may wander and see how the building was expanded and altered, mostly in back, to accommodate more diners, and to meet Americans with Disabilities Act codes. The building’s original lines are clearly discernable. The lodge is open through October 31 and the Creekside Lodge, just across the lawn, remains open year-round.

Spearfish Canyon Lodge

A perfect fall day at Spearfish Canyon Lodge might include a breakfast of trout and eggs and a hike along the ’76 Trail to the canyon rim.

Spearfish Canyon Lodge is a new-era lodge built in 1995. It’s 13 miles south of Spearfish at Savoy, where the canyon widens and sunshine streams in. A perfect fall day here might begin with a walk across the road to the Latchstring Restaurant, featuring a traditional canyon breakfast of trout filet, two eggs, roasted red potatoes, and toast. This breakfast is listed in the menu as the Little Spearfish although there’s nothing little about it. Thus fortified, you may be ready for a strenuous hike to the canyon’s rim by way of the ’76 Trail. The trail climbs 1,000 feet in three-quarters of a mile, and begins just steps from the lodge’s front doors. Gentler trails lead to photogenic Roughlock Falls and Spearfish Falls or to trout fishing venues; there’s lots of canyon variety to experience from this point without getting into your car. Evening is time to relax by the fireplace in the impressive high-ceiling lobby. There’s a lounge just off the lobby and there’s no telling whom you could meet. Well-known guests have ranged from pioneering primatologist Jane Goodall to the late comedian Robin Williams.

Guest rooms feel like those in a hotel. Some are full suites with gas fireplaces, outdoor balconies and Jacuzzis. Few hotels in the world offer window views matching these, with towering limestone cliffs and the brilliant yellows and golds of autumn birch and aspen. All rooms are equipped with TVs if, for some reason, you need to detach from the canyon and plug into a blander world.

Though the lodge is just 22 years old, people have traveled to this spot in the canyon for overnight lodging for 101 years. There are some parallels between Savoy and Hisega. In 1909, the very year Doane Robinson built the lodge along the Crouch Line rails, Glen Inglis of Deadwood turned a former sawmill structure into a little inn right next to the Spearfish Canyon railroad tracks. Similar to the campers at Hisega, Inglis used his own name (and his wife’s) to come up with a new word.”Glendoris” was the inn’s original name, changed to Latchstring Inn by new owners a few years later. It stood exactly where the restaurant of the same name stands today.

The inn was a one-story, rambling affair that couldn’t be called a lodge. It claimed as much authentic Black Hills charm as any building, with its odd artifacts, crooked doorframes and wonderful cliff-side dining room. The much-loved inn served railroad travelers until a flood washed away the tracks in 1933, and guests who arrived by the canyon highway until Latchstring was razed in 1989.

Buffalo Rock Lodge

The Buffalo Rock Lodge was constructed with great spruce logs and mammoth pine timbers.

Another newer structure is Buffalo Rock Lodge, which opened in 1999 on Playhouse Road north of Custer State Park. If builders and owners Art and Marilyn Oakes seem remarkably astute as hosts, they come by the attribute naturally. Marilyn, C.C. Gideon’s granddaughter, worked some of Gideon’s possessions into the dÈcor, including a beautiful Navajo rug he purchased and made part of the State Game Lodge’s look during President Coolidge’s stay. If you want to hear stories about early-day Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore, Wind Cave National Park, Iron Mountain Road and the Needles Highway, this is the place. If Black Hills history isn’t your thing (although that could change while you’re here) ask Art and Marilyn how they created this impressive structure with great spruce logs, and mammoth ponderosa pine timbers that support an interior balcony. The fireplace is their masterpiece, comprised of many varieties of native stone plus some amethyst.

Mention a place you want to visit and Oakes will print her own recommended itinerary.”We’re very involved with our guests,” she says.”When people call to inquire about us, I tell them that fall is the best time to visit. There are fewer people in the Hills. We’ll get that one frost in September, then after that comes our beautiful Indian summer.”

Any time of year a highlight for guests is Buffalo Rock Lodge’s own perspective of Mount Rushmore, viewed from across 3 miles, thrust high above forests and lesser granite outcrops. The four faces can be seen from the lodge’s big porch and from two of the three guest rooms. Those rooms are spacious, beautifully decorated and TV-free. Guests awake to one of Oakes’ breakfasts, such as her Buffalo Rock Lodge French toast, and they turn in having sampled one of her evening desserts.

Leaving Buffalo Rock Lodge, driving past a natural formation that inspired its name, you feel like you’ve enjoyed all of the contemporary comforts of the Black Hills, yet also glimpsed the more rustic hills that C.C. Gideon knew and loved.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 2010 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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In Memory

To commemorate Memorial Day, volunteers placed flags at every one of the 20,000 gravestones in the Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis. The cemetery is a United States National Cemetery open to all members of the armed forces and their spouses. Those who served were also honored with programs sponsored by the South Dakota American Legion and Oglala Sioux Tribe. Photos by John Mitchell.

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Gold in the Hills

Our March/April issue includes a story on prospecting in the Black Hills, where hobby gold miners still carry pans and pickaxes deep into our mountain valleys. Our founder Bernie Hunhoff, editor Katie Hunhoff and her son Steven visited a claim to sift for gold and take some photos. Here are some photos that didn’t make the magazine.

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Happy Gold Hunter

By Katie Hunhoff

We met the miners early on a Sunday morning on Rockerville’s only street. I was hoping they would look like miners because I knew my 8-year-old son Steven had some colorful preconceptions of how our first mining expedition might go.

Steven, a rock hound since the day he was born, wasn’t disappointed. Don Hamm and Gary Mallams weren’t riding mules or carrying shotguns, but the officers of the Black Hills Prospecting Club do look the part of rugged miners.

Off we drove, deep into the pine forest toward Deadman Gulch. Finally, after 10 miles of rugged mountain trails and a hundred questions from Steven, we arrived at the club’s Garnet Claim.

We parked along the trail, grabbed pails, shovels, pans and a pickaxe from Don’s truck, and hiked down into the cool gulch. A clear mountain stream ran on one side of a 10-foot high bank.”Watch for rattlesnakes and mountain lions,” cautioned Gary. Suddenly, Steven wanted to carry the axe.

At the claim, Don and Gary each shoveled a scoop of clay dirt from the bank into 5-gallon buckets. Wearing tall rubber boots, they stepped into the stream, only inches deep but flowing fast, clear and cool.

They began the process of panning — swirling the dirt and minerals around and around — as they told their stories. Gary has been in the Hills for 46 years, but still calls himself a Missouri hillbilly. He worked for the U.S. Forest Service, and then became involved in manufacturing wood furniture parts for the lumber industry.”My regret is that I came here as a young guy and didn’t get involved until 10 years ago,” he told us.

They soon encouraged Steven to help. Gary showed him how to let the water fall away by holding the pan at an angle and swirling slowly. I was anxious that any gold specks might fly out of the pan with the muddy water and gravel. Gary insisted that gold is heavy enough to stay put while mica, the legendary imposter known as fool’s gold, will float away.

Gary said the tools of the mining trade can be expensive for serious prospectors.”My wife said, ‘I thought golf was expensive, until I got into this.’ There’s always a new thing to buy. But we enjoy it. It’s just like fishing or hunting. We’re enjoying the outdoors.”

Panning kits for children and adults new to the hobby can be had for the price of a pizza at outdoor stores in the Black Hills. Kids are not likely to find gold without some help, however, so you may want to consider a guided mining trip at the Big Thunder Mine in Keystone, Black Hills Caverns west of Rapid City or the Broken Boot Mine at Lead. Visit the Clock Shop in downtown Rapid City and take a look at the Icebox Nugget, the largest chunk of Black Hills gold found in the last 120 years.

Don was working with a sluice box in the stream as he told his story. He learned to pan and sluice from his father, Bob Hamm, who grew up working around his father’s steam-powered lumber mill in Deadman Gulch and watching miners working Spring Creek.

Bob — now 92 and still panning — and Don mined 50 ounces of gold in 1982, enough to give them bragging rights as the third largest gold producers in South Dakota for that year. Though they still find gold on their private claim, Don said,”You’re not going to get rich.”

Steven was sorry to hear that, but Gary regained his attention when he said,”Look at that!” He pointed to a flake of bright yellow mineral in the bottom of Steven’s near-empty pan.

“There are a lot of things that look like gold, but gold don’t look like nothing else,” said Gary as he scooped the flake and a bit of water into a vial and gave it to the happiest kid in the gulch.

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High Mountain Gardening

Story and photos by Debra Opland McLane

Crocus in late snow.

To escape stress-filled days of work in Rapid City, my husband and I endure a daily 50-mile round-trip commute to our home on a mile-high mountaintop near Seth Bullock Peak in the central Black Hills. We value our peace and privacy. Neighbors include chipmunks, deer, elk, coyotes, Ponderosa pines and sky. We call our acreage “Southern Exposure.” The sun shines here when it shines nowhere else. And the wind blows, sometimes as a gentle Chinook, sometimes as a blizzard whirlwind.

My mother once sent me a postcard with a greeting that read, “The roots run deep when the winds are strong.” That phrase from Charles Swindall has many meanings, but it could have been written for Black Hills gardeners.

With wind in my thoughts, my high country garden has become a haven for solitude — and a lifelong challenge. As a self-taught botanist, I am educated by books, seed catalogs and garden magazines. I know no fellow mountain gardeners with whom to network. Experience has taught me the most. Bad planting choices are usually fatal. Transplanting is a rare option. Darwin’s survival-of-the-fittest rule applies to gardeners, as well as to their plantings. Yet, for those who survive the greatest challenges offer the richest rewards.

An early snow in the garden of Debra Opland McLane’s Southern Exposure acreage in the Black Hills.

Our home rests on a vertical talus slope. If not at the surface, bedrock is reached within 2 inches. Although we reside in the USDA-classified Zone Four, with chaotic weather patterns and little shelter, my plants must meet the minimum requirements of Zone Three. I made several unsuccessful attempts at vegetable gardening, but the early frosts and short growing season limited my choices and time for care. Now, only perennials receive my undivided attention.

Plant selection is best dictated by xeriscaping — using environmental protection, water conservation and native plants, and building wildlife habitats for dry climates. Xeriscaping acknowledges the restraints of a 5,922-foot altitude, northern latitude, minus 33-degree January lows, annual rainfall of 15 inches and a 150-day growing season. We battle the bone-chilling gusts of winterkill, acidic soils, hungry deer, instantaneous drainage and late-spring and early-fall frosts. To all these demands, I have added another personal qualification.

Whether planning in winter or sowing in spring, my garden serves as my exercise gym, psychologist’s couch and meditative church pew. I want each plant to grow with deep roots and deep meaning.

At first examination, my virgin rock pile seemed formidable. How should I begin? That year, my parents celebrated their 50th anniversary. What should I give them? The two problems melded into one solution.

Married beside a lilac hedgerow on a prairie homestead near Ipswich, my parents weathered as many storms as those shrubs. To honor their golden years, I planted lilacs the length of my driveway. These old-fashioned shrubs have proven their pioneer hardiness. Spring frosts act as welcome moisture on buds, and deer assist with pruning. The Ipswich lilacs gave me hope that my botanical efforts might not only survive, but also thrive, beyond my lifetime. They also gave me a theme for my garden.

Wild lamb’s ear with frost.

I choose foundation trees and shrubs, and all perennials, for durability, but also for relevance to an important person or event in my life. Buried in love, each planting expresses joy or copes with loss. If tender seedlings take deep root against the ravages of their first growing season, they are doubly blessed.

My fittest survivor, the Hawthorn tree, Crataegus toba, was named after the Greek word kratos, meaning strength. A formidable and impenetrable windbreak hedge, the trees surround our home, protecting my family. They symbolize the binding trust of a marriage that’s endured life’s normal tribulations, not to mention a business partnership. The first season, my original Crataegus bloomed with fragrant, pink-tipped, double-white flowers. Fall fruits attract birds, and warped trunks provide winter texture. We plant more Hawthorns every spring.

Surrounding each Hawthorn rests a bed of peonies. When my ancestors homesteaded in eastern South Dakota, the first plantings included peonies. As they graced every doorway and kitchen table of my childhood, I have memories of their intoxicating fragrance. First cultivated in Tibet, individual plants may live 100 years or longer. Preferring fall sowing, they relieve my spring chores, and the deer hate them. A deer once spit one out. It lay bare-rooted on the ground, happily sprouting new growth.

My father-in-law always gave me rock-solid advice. So his plant needed a foundation spot. At 87, his stubborn Scottish spirit never seemed to fail, though his body weakened. He walked with a diamond willow cane. I chose the Coryills avellana contorta — Harry Lauder’s walking stick. A perfect winter interest, its twisted branches imitate the cane carried by the old-time Scottish comedian. Slow growing and carefree, this Zone Four plant needs extra mulch, sunshine and TLC. I fertilize with a dose of Grandpa Mac’s indomitable spirit.

Tiger lily.

A graceful, beautiful woman, my mother-in-law favored the wild, pink rose that blooms in the Black Hills each summer. Like most wild varieties, they do not transplant well. Instead, I’ve discovered the wonders of Rosa rugosas. From bare-root plants, these rugged roses bloomed in their first season. Although such gems grow in many beds, I specially tend the ones near the Corylus, entwining “her” stems through “his” crooked branches.

Hardy only to Zone Four, I killed many chrysanthemums, my daughter’s birth flower. Reflecting her independent spirit and youthful simplicity, wildflowers and native grasses became a successful alternative. My most difficult dry ditches bloom not only with native dame’s rockets, gold yarrow, lamb’s ears, goldenrod, and black-eyed Susans, but also with imported Mexican hat, coreopsis, catchfly, wallflowers, blue flax, Maximilian sunflowers, ox-eyed daisies and monarda.

My stepchildren moved to Phoenix several years ago. That summer I avenged our sorrow by beating dirt into beds shaped like teardrops falling down terraced slopes. Here, I discovered that dianthus, or sweet William, and bleeding hearts can tolerate sunshine. By fall, I transplanted purple iris from the garden at my husband’s boyhood home. Forty years before, his mother had brought them from her hometown. As guardian angels, at the center I planted colchicum, meadow saffron. Greek mythology says the flower sprang from the spilled elixir Medea administered to dying Jason. Adding flowers each spring, the blossoms bring me closer to my adopted children.

True friendship has graced me but a few times. My best woman friend now lives far too many miles away. With her architect’s attention to detail, it was she who first taught me the beauty of perennial gardening. Her beds always included forsythia. Tested at experimental stations in North and South Dakota, the meadowlark variety has proven bud-hardy to -35 degrees. Meadowlark hedgerows brighten both entryways.

Every garden should have something borrowed. Through the windows of my childhood home, we watched our neighbor’s garden grow. Along with pounds of rich loam, I’ve transplanted her cuttings of bishop’s weed, snow-on-the-mountain, lady ferns and patriot hostas. The transplants are now in need of transplanting. Mrs. Christianson passed away and, to my horror, the renter piled garbage on her garden. I was so grateful I had rescued part of it.

The view from Southern Exposure.

Chosen for myself, each year I sow special plants for every season. Spring bloomers include snowdrops, winter aconite, and johnny jump-ups. I cherish one early blossom above the others. During a Mother’s Day walk, I stepped on a tiny purple bud. Hidden by pine needles, pasqueflowers, our state flower, filled the woodland slopes. Whether budding among natural kinnikinnick vines or sown red sedum, this anemone highlights my rock gardens.

Summer choices are limitless — from oriental poppies to winter-hardy Gladiolus nanus, from lupines to Gaillardia grandiflora. Among these, lilies became my favorites. As natural-blooming secrets, day lilies are rare mountain surprises, but Asiatic hybrids are my true delights. Flowering longer, each bloom expresses the depth of Eastern philosophy. Fragrant or not, their names reflect their beauty: expression, con amore, dreamland, stargazer and grand paradiso. With perfect timing, all varieties bud just as spring fades.

Uncommon but exceptional, fall bloomers survive when all else has died. Sedum autumn joy flowers in early snowfalls. Budding from the top down, the unique Lialris spicata impresses me, as well as the butterflies. Outside, it lasts into early September. Inside, it is preserved in dried arrangements.

White glad.

Perfect choices in good drainage, bulbs are the interlocking threads throughout my beds. In honor of Wales, daffodils naturalize every hillside. Quite by accident, I discovered that deer despise “daffs” as much as they adore tulips. In her garden, my daughter designed a bed shaped like Simba’s face. King Alfred daffodils symbolized the fur. For cheeks, we used Princess Irene tulips, my mother’s namesake variety. The deer could not endure the putrid smell of the daffs to chow down on their favorite food group. Throughout the garden, Grandma’s tulips were the only survivors.

Although my successes are thrilling, my failures are equally disappointing. I’ve lost hydrangea, a golden hinoki cypress, purple fringe smoke trees, thuja, shamrock hollies, skyrocket junipers and hyacinths. Planted for my father, a Norway spruce needed much more moisture than I could provide. I am still looking for a Scandinavian replacement.

Whether reasons for failure are deer or drought, winterkill or illiterate mistakes, I learn as much from errors as from accomplishments. I am continually behind in designing, landscaping and planting; life proceeds faster than time, or budgeting. This year, our family witnessed two births and a wedding. Last August, a dear friend died of cancer. Grandpa Mac passed away in March, as did his Corylus.

Like anything worthwhile, deep roots and deep feelings do not come easy. I’m training myself to take one day at a time — one trench for irrigation and one load of compost, one shovel of dirt and one teardrop of moisture.

During a winter-sunshine day, my daughter and I plodded along on yet another rock wall. She stopped and said, “Hey mommy, me and you — we’re making a view!” When I reach my rocking chair years, I can only hope she has inherited the strong heart necessary to face the winds of change. I promise to give her deep roots.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2000 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Rails to Trails

By Paul Higbee

The Mickelson Trail follows the old Burlington Northern railroad line through the Black Hills. Photo by Chad Coppess/S.D. Tourism.

For nearly a century, trains thundered along this north-south route. Passing over high railway trestles and through canyons, tunnels and the very heart of the Black Hills, they hauled passengers, freight and coal for Homestake Mine’s boilers.

Then the trains stopped rolling. Three years later, in the summer of 1986, Guy Edwards, a former state legislator and then city councilman in Rapid City, got word that someone was tearing down old trestles along the route with a chainsaw. He was asked if someone could investigate the possibility of converting the Burlington Northern rail line to recreational use under the federal Rails to Trails Act.

The 109-mile long trail includes more than 100 converted railroad bridges and four rock tunnels. Photo by Chad Coppess/S.D. Tourism.

Edwards agreed to make a couple phone calls. Eventually he made about 5,000. He also spent a lot of his time and money. But a dozen years after the trail first was proposed, the final sections opened in the fall of 1998.

Known as the Mickelson Trail, the route once reserved for trains has become the domain of hikers, bicyclists and horseback riders. Its 109 miles are almost guaranteed to bring people face to face with deer, porcupines and wild turkeys. Spotting an elk or mountain goat isn’t uncommon. Neither is spying towns since the trail connects to destinations that all Black Hills people know — Deadwood, Hill City, Custer — as well as lesser known places like Dumont, Mystic and Pringle.

Though it’s not far from the more rugged Centennial Trail, which runs parallel to the Mickelson a few miles east, this trail is accessible to those unable to consider a strenuous hike. The grade never exceeds 4 percent. The surface is a smooth layer of crushed limestone. Promoters say perhaps short sections might be paved someday, allowing those in wheelchairs to experience a few miles under their own power.

Among the project’s first supporters was George Mickelson, who had served in the legislature with Edwards. Mickelson came through with an early $50 contribution, and was elected governor just weeks after Edwards began organizing. The governor actively supported the effort during his administration, and after his 1993 death the trail was named in his honor.

Supporters, though, seemed in short supply early on. “Probably 95 percent of property owners along the trail were against us at first,” Edwards says.”I could understand their position. After years of having trains go by their property, it appeared the corridor might quietly meld into the landscape when the line was abandoned.”

In some cases, Burlington Northern was preparing to transfer land leases to adjacent property owners. In other cases, the railway never held the properties, but had easements as long as the line wasn’t abandoned. Some property owners hoped for more privacy, and some had come up with development plans. When Edwards and fellow trail proponent Dick Lee appeared at meetings to discuss their project, they often faced 50 angry property owners. Especially vivid in Edwards’ memory is an older man who visited him, almost teary, to say he’d worked on a development project for two years. But Burlington Northern wouldn’t complete the property transfer, that man told Edwards, “because of a commitment they made to you.”

The trail surface is mostly crushed limestone and gravel and includes 15 trailheads between Edgemont and Deadwood. Photo by Chad Coppess/S.D. Tourism.

The opponents, Edwards says, “put up a valiant, cohesive, well organized attempt to block the trail. They were good people. After five or six years, the opposition faded away.”

It faded as Edwards and his supporters successfully argued that the line hadn’t been abandoned. True, Burlington Northern was granted permission by the Interstate Commerce Commission to stop running trains, but trail supporters believed a rail line itself can’t be considered abandoned unless the courts or Congress say so.

“When you look at federal laws related to railways, and easements for railways, you’re looking at stacks of reading,” Edwards says. “There aren’t many fields where there’s been more federal legislation.”

All that reading paid off. The courts agreed the line wasn’t abandoned. “Everyone thinks of Rails to Trails projects as primarily recreation,” Edwards says. “But there’s more to them than that. This is a means of keeping established public corridors in existence. A hundred years ago there was an economic need for the Black Hills corridor, and a hundred years in the future there may be another need for it that we can’t even guess now. Meanwhile, we’re using it for recreation.”

The late Gov. George Mickelson was one of the trail’s early supporters.

He cites a rail corridor in Los Angeles that the city gave up when it appeared that trucking was driving freight trains to extinction. Later the city had to recreate the corridor at a tremendous cost.

Successfully arguing for the corridor, of course, was just the beginning of the work. Volunteers raised money and decked and railed old trestles. On board climbed an impressive coalition of federal, state, and private organizations: the National Guard supplied labor over the years, as would state Department of Corrections trustees. The U.S. Forest Service, state departments of Game, Fish and Parks and transportation, private building contractors and Burlington Northern all played key roles.

Burlington Northern, in fact, grew so supportive that it relinquished all its interest along the route — land, trestles, other wood that could have been salvaged — for just $20,000. The project expanded north to south: Deadwood to Hill City, Hill City to Custer, Custer to Edgemont. By the third phase, Custer to Edgemont, Burlington Northern had become so involved that it donated everything and became the first operating railroad to take a leadership role in invoking federal Rails to Trails status.

“The cooperation between individuals and agencies, all of whom have made this a high priority, has been amazing to see,” says Harley Noem, West River regional manager for Game, Fish and Parks’ Division of Parks and Recreation.

For three years prior to its opening, the trail was a big part of Noem’s life. Prior to 1998, about half the trail was open. Trail completion meant a busy summer spent refurbishing trestles and two tunnels, in addition to surfacing and culvert work. Another massive job, taken on by a Department of Corrections crew, was building fences in compliance with adjacent landowners’ needs. There are about 300 landowners, some of whom required barbed wire fences for cattle, or smooth wire for horses, or even wooden privacy fences for cabins.

Although developed for non-motorized travel, there are some winter exceptions, with stretches designated for snowmobilers. Trail towns have seen new businesses, such as bed and breakfasts and cycle shops, catering to trail users. But Black Hills residents and visitors alike see the most benefits. They see the countryside from a new perspective as they watch landscapes pass by slowly and quietly.

Editorís Note: This story is revised from the September/October 1998 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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West River Wintertime

Winter is settling in over the Black Hills, bringing many opportunities for beautiful photography. John Mitchell, Spearfish, has been exploring the frosty nooks and crannies in his neck of the woods. Here are some of his recent shots.

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Second Chances

Seldom in life do we get second chances. And the prospect of it happening 161 years after a calamity? Very rare. But our Nov/Dec 2016 issue has just such a story. It happened when Paul Stover Soderman of Colorado discovered he was a descendant of General Harney, the man responsible for a massacre of Lakota men, women and children in 1855 at Blue Water Creek in Nebraska. The killings happened after Harney rebuffed Chief Little Thunder’s extended hand. A few years ago, Soderman befriended the chief’s descendants.

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Artists with Ax and Saw

Our November/December issue includes a story on the Juso Brothers, sons of a Finnish immigrant who brought western European log construction skills to South Dakota. We gathered several photos for the story on the family’s craft. Here are some that didn’t make the magazine. Color photos by Stephen Gassman. Black and white photos courtesy of June Nusz.

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Foliage at Friendship Tower

Seth Bullock built Friendship Tower on Mount Roosevelt for his close friend Theodore Roosevelt. Bullock chose the location north of Deadwood for its overlook of the plains beyond Belle Fourche and into North Dakota where Roosevelt owned a ranch. A half-mile hiking path leads to the castle-like memorial. John Mitchell visited recently to photograph fall color.