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Clocks, Cars & Tractors

By Bernie Hunhoff

The origin of Jack Vondra’s jewelry store on Bridgewater’s main street can be traced to a shop started in 1884 by A.G. Gullander, an immigrant watchmaker from Sweden.

Visit Bridgewater’s Main Street for a glimpse of South Dakota small town salesmanship from 50 years ago.

Jack Vondra has been repairing clocks and selling diamonds in the same jewelry store since 1947. He still tends to his display window, even though the foot traffic in this McCook County town of 500 has dwindled to almost nothing.

A block south, Steve Sievers sits on a stool in the farm store where his father, Abe, once sold horse-drawn plows. The odor of oil and grease is rich in the air, a welcoming scent to all who love old tractors, and that’s the only kind of people who still step through the door.

Just west of Sievers’, Ed Meyer and his son, Craig, tend to the cars of Bridgewater. They lost the official Ford dealership years ago, but a white 1967 Mustang gleams in the showroom, surrounded by Ford memorabilia.

Kevin Stahl, 36, just built a new building on Main Street for his high-tech company Native Seed Testing (NST). Stahl thought about locating his company on the family farm near town,”but there’s something about being on Main Street,” he says. Especially when the neighbors are local legends.

“Jack is right out of a Norman Rockwell painting,” says Stahl.”Up until a couple of years ago, he showed up every day in a three-piece suit with a vest and a tie. I wondered ever since I was a kid what he worked on in his shop.”

Jack Vondra came to Bridgewater in 1947 to apprentice at a jewelry and clock repair store that dates back to 1880, the year the town was founded.”I got $25 a week and a place to sleep upstairs above the shop,” he says.

He married a local girl and soon bought the store. He had opportunities to leave Bridgewater for bigger cities.”But my kids were able to walk to school. I was able to walk to work. I never had to lock the door. And I always liked the people.”

Vondra, now 89, can recite from memory where all the town’s long-gone grocers, bankers, barbers and hoteliers were located. It’s a talent he shares with Eddy Meyer, the ex-Ford dealer who has made a hobby of researching Bridgewater’s business history. He says rise and fall of business tells the story of the town.

Ford Motor Company closed the Bridgewater franchise years ago, but Ed Meyer can still find you a new car.

“The train came through in the 1880s and that’s what got the town started,” Meyer says.”Three or four trains loaded with people would stop here, and they all had three or four passenger cars on each train and the town was full of restaurants and hotels. Then Highway 16 came right through here and we had seven gas stations at one time.” Bridgewater also had three major car dealerships. Meyer’s dad landed the Ford franchise in 1945.

Meyer says the community also had some interesting personalities, including Henry Beebe, the proprietor of a general store who was a personal friend of Mark Twain. Beebe is a character in several of Twain’s novels. Sparky Anderson, the legendary pro baseball manager, was born in Bridgewater in 1934, the same year Highway 16 was paved and promoted as the Custer Battlefield Highway. Sparky’s father played amateur baseball and tried to feed five children in the Great Depression by painting houses but in 1942 he left for greener pastures in California.

The railroad and Highway 16 helped Bridgewater develop, but the town missed a third wave, the construction of Interstate 90, by seven miles.”One by one the gas stations and the stores started dropping off,” Meyer said.”Those of us who are still here, we eke out a living but here I am nearly 70 and I’m still working, so you don’t get rich.”

Steve Sievers agrees that times are tough.”The interstate highway system sealed the fate of a lot of small towns,” he says.

Ten years before the Meyers were selling Fords, the Sievers were pedaling Allis Chalmers tractors to farmers.”My dad started here in 1935,” says Sievers from his favorite perch on a stool by the counter. Allis Chalmers quit making its orange tractors in 1985 and closed for good in 1998, but the company logo still hangs above Sievers’ front door.

“What I’m here for is to take care of the people who took care of me for a long while,” he says, meaning nobody should have to scrap their old tractor for lack of a carburetor kit. A mechanic works on an old Allis Chalmers in the rear of the store, while Sievers tends to the front office and the phone.

Kevin Stahl started a new business in Bridgewater and marked the occasion by going next door to buy three timeless mementoes.

That spirit of caring for old customers and neighbors may be the thread to the jeweler, the Ford dealer and the tractor guy. Meyer still sells an occasional new car to longtime customers. He and his son, Craig, act as middlemen to dealers in the region.

Jack Vondra says he stays open partly because no one else is repairing old clocks, and also because he likes to help his 24 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren when they need rings.”That’s a non-profit situation for me, but that’s very special.”

Vondra, Sievers and Meyer are three very different people, but they share a penchant for salesmanship. No family business survives decades and generations without that skill. Sievers and Meyer are typical South Dakota”good old boys,” eager to joke about politics, sports or farming. Both were on the town council, and Sievers’ dad, Abe, was a state legislator and a friend of George McGovern, who sometimes ate at their table.

Vondra seems quieter, and more urbane. Think of the hours he spent with fingers and eyes focused on the intricate innards of old clocks. He has run a one-man store, except for help from his daughters at Christmas season when they and the town were younger.

But don’t mistake Vondra’s quiet nature. He is a salesman, and he sizes up every visitor.”I think I can get you a diamond as big as your shoe if you want,” he tells this writer.”I’ve developed credit ratings from New York to Los Angeles.”

He pulls two padded trays from beneath the counter.”You should take a ring home,” he suggests.”Keep yourself out of the doghouse.”

Kevin Stahl, the street’s newest and youngest businessman, says he’s always been intrigued by Vondra’s Jewelry.”When I was in fifth grade, that’s where we went to buy little gold chains to give to our girl friends. I think I bought two or three from him.”

Just before Stahl celebrated the grand opening of his seed testing business, he walked over to the jewelry store and bought three old pocket watches. Then he listened for an hour as Vondra explained the history of the watches.

“I have them on display here in the office and I will eventually give them to my kids. I just wanted a memory of our open house date, and I wanted it to be something old from down the street.”

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2015 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Old Highway 16

By Bernie Hunhoff

A stretch of Old Highway 16 east of the Black Hills is now Highway 14/16.

Can you buy the idea that a highway is a community? A long and narrow one-street town that connects places and people, good and bad happenings and a crazy conglomeration of dogs, deer and duck ponds? If a road is a community, then imagine South Dakota’s U.S. Highway 16 in its heyday. Gutzon Borglum was traveling 16 while carving Mount Rushmore. Korczak Ziolkowski helped him for a time before eyeing his own Crazy Horse carving just down the same road. Dorothy and Ted Hustead were nailing wood signs to fence posts, hoping to attract motorists to their Wall drug store. George McGovern was a shy student at Mitchell High School until he discovered a passion for debate, and motored up and down the highway attending tournaments. Sparky Anderson, the Hall of Fame baseball manager, was learning balls and strikes in Bridgewater, where businessmen promoted their stretch of 16 as Cornhusker Highway in honor of the local baseball league.

Russ Madison, one of the founders of modern-day rodeo, trailed wild broncs and bulls up and down 16 when it was dirt and gravel. Earl Brockelsby, a Black Hills kid with a fascination for snakes and reptiles, was pleased to discover that Highway 16 travelers would pull off the road and pay admission to see his collection. Alex Johnson, a railroader from Chicago, came to Rapid City to build a grand hotel for passersby; showing no modesty, he named it The Alex Johnson.

All that and a thousand more lesser-known stories along an east-west hodgepodge of dirt and gravel roads linked not only in South Dakota but across five states. The 1,600-mile journey was configured from Detroit to Yellowstone National Park, crossing Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota and Wyoming. Highway 16 was a central segment of several routes to the Black Hills and Yellowstone Park called the Black and Yellow Trail. An association formed in Huron in 1919 to promote the corridors, which also included parts of Highways 14 and 20 in South Dakota. Wood fence posts were painted black and yellow every mile or so to reassure tourists that they were still on track.

At first, Highway 16 was nothing more than a dirt trail. Model T wheels dug deep ruts during wet periods. In West River country, perhaps a car or two would pass down the road every hour on summer days — far fewer at night and in winter. At New Underwood, the road veered to either side of a giant cottonwood tree. Further east at Wicksville, W.H. Wolfenberger attracted travelers to his little store by leashing a pet coyote in the front yard. The store shelves were sparsely stocked with candy and staples, but rumors were that Wolfenberger sold moonshine under the counter.

Highway 16 bordered the north edge of Jack Brainard’s family ranch in eastern Pennington County.”We called it the Black and Yellow Trail, and before that they called it the Custer Battlefield Highway,” he says. It was also called”Fourteen” locally, because Highways 16 and 14 merged through much of West River.

Brainard parlayed his Dakota ranch childhood into a distinguished career as a horseman. Now 94 and living in Whitesboro, Texas, he still remembers a particular day when he saw a cloud of dust on the road to Wasta.”Russ Madison was driving his horses to Wasta for a rodeo, and running in the front was the first palomino I ever saw and I thought it was the prettiest horse I ever saw.”

A dinosaur looms over today’s Interstate 90 near wall. Photo by Chad Coppess/S.D. Tourism

The travel industry soon followed in the path of that palomino. Henry Ford’s new Model A debuted in 1928; it and other car models offered more comfortable and dependable transportation. Mount Rushmore was emerging on the mountain west of Rapid City as a new attraction, along with a buffalo herd at Custer State Park. Soon a wave of hotels, restaurants, gas stations and automobile shops were built to serve the motorists.

The federal government helped gravel the route, providing jobs through the Works Progress Administration in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Workers often hauled the gravel by horse and wagon, and emptied the loads by shovel and muscle. One wagonload graveled about three feet of the roadbed.

The 400-mile stretch of Highway 16 in South Dakota connected Sioux Falls and Rapid City, the state’s two largest cities, along with several dozen smaller towns. Highway 16’s original route connected the main streets of most communities. In the 1940s and 1950s, bypasses were built on the edges of the towns, creating a second wave of motel and gas station construction.

A third wave came in the 1970s when Interstate 90 was constructed in a near-parallel route to Highway 16 across South Dakota, but even further from the local communities. Once again, new service stations, hotels, motels, rock shops and eateries were constructed.

Some travelers bemoan Interstate 90 as monotonous and sterile. Every ditch is mowed and every fence is straight. Highway beauty is in the eye of the beholder behind the wheel. Those who see boredom in the standardization of the federal four-lane — and who aren’t in a hurry to cross the state in 6 hours or less — will enjoy a nostalgic journey down the original 16.

Old trucks at Quinn.

Phil and JoAnn Stark have observed life in”the slow lane” for most of the last 30 years at Cottonwood, where they ran a bar and store called JoAnn’s Trading Post.”People think nobody lives here,” says Phil,”but Philip and Quinn and Wall are all one big community.” And in the summer, motorcyclists and other travelers who like to venture off the interstate become part of the mix.”They liked the sawdust on the floor, or the idea that they could just pitch a tent out back if they wanted,” says Phil.”Sometimes we’d have a dance the Saturday before the (Sturgis) rally, and the music would just keep going until morning and I don’t remember anyone ever getting in a fight. The people who like the two-lane are peaceful folks who just aren’t in a big hurry.”

South Dakota’s biggest car nut agrees.”People who like the back roads are our kind of people,” says Dave Geisler of the Pioneer Auto Show in Murdo, a sprawling indoor/outdoor museum of collectible cars, motorcycles, tractors, toys and Western memorabilia.

Geisler says Murdo changed with each of the three highway waves.”The old Highway 16 ran right into downtown on Second Street,” he says, on a tour of the town.”Here was a Mobil station. There was the Red Top Cabins. This was Young’s Cabin Park. That was a gas station. Here was Weber’s Deluxe Cabin Court. There was a Skelly’s station. Gas was 25 cents a gallon. Up here was the Conoco station. Nobody could have made much money but they all got along.”

Plenty of daring thinkers and doers populated the Highway 16 community in the middle of the 20th century. Many of their dreams remain intact at Wall Drug, Al’s Oasis, the Murdo auto museum and other lesser-known places. New promoters are also showing up. At the Community Pharmacy in Presho, a small sign boasts of the”Best Coffee Between Sioux Falls and Rapid City.” Further east at Kimball, Keke Leiferman remodeled an old Highway 16 gas station into an eatery and entertainment spot called The Back Forty.”I look at Interstate 90 as my community,” she admits. But the shop sits a half-mile from I-90 on Old 16.

If roads are communities, then I-90 is Sioux Falls on wheels — smooth and speedy — while Old Highway 16 is New Underwood without the cottonwood tree.

Most of Old 16 is still intact and passable. Here’s a guide to the 1950s-era corridor for those who might like to experience the slow lane for at least one nostalgic trip across South Dakota.

Minnesota Border to Bridgewater

Doug and Brenda Deffenbaugh run a honey stand on the honor system near Wall Lake. Brenda (pictured with her son, Drayden) says customers are almost always honest.

Old 16 enters South Dakota from Minnesota on 262nd Street, which skirts Valley Springs and the south side of Brandon. Just south of Brandon, take a right turn on Madison Street and enter Sioux Falls. Take a left on Sycamore, then a right onto 10th Street and follow it past the backside of Michelangelo’s David statue. The road runs through the heart of Sioux Falls, exiting the city as Hwy 42. Wave goodbye to suburbia because you’ll see little of that for the next 350 miles. You’ll drive past Wall Lake, through the East Vermillion River valley and into the heart of East River farming country on your way to Bridgewater, where Sparky Anderson played baseball as a child before becoming the first Major League manager to win a World Series in both leagues.

Bridgewater to Mitchell

Mitchell’s Corn Palace is just a few blocks north of Old Highway 16. Photo by Chad Coppess/S.D. Tourism

Leave Hwy 42 at Bridgewater and drive northeast on SD Hwy 262 to Alexandria, then north on 421st Avenue. Cross I-90 and you’ll come to Hwy 38. Take it west across the Jim River and Firesteel Creek and enter Mitchell. Watch for a big fiberglass Hereford bull, the trademark for Chef Louie’s. Perhaps the oldest steakhouse on the route, it dates to the 1930s. Hwy 38 becomes Havens Avenue through the city. The famous Corn Palace is just a few blocks north.

Mitchell to White Lake

Bob and Edith Zoon are the longtime proprietors of the A-Bar-Z Motel in White Lake.

Continue on Hwy 38 past Mount Vernon, home of Minnesota Vikings star linebacker Chad Greenway. As you enter Aurora County, Hwy 38 is still posted as Hwy 16 for a stretch. You’ll drive past Gordy’s Campground in Plankinton. See the war memorials indoors and outdoors at the county courthouse. West of Plankinton the roadbed roughens, the shoulder is gravel and you begin to see less cropland and more grass. You’re now driving between the 99th and 100th meridians, a north-south stretch called America’s”middle border” by some agrarian-minded historians who believe the big difference in rainfall amounts east and west of those imaginary lines affected the settlement of the region.

White Lake to Kimball

The Back Forty in Kimball grew from an old gas station.

The A-Bar-Z Store & Hotel was built in White Lake along U.S. Hwy 16 several years before President Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highway Construction Act. Thirty years later, Bob and Edith Zoon were”just friends” when they arrived in 1985 from New Jersey to visit relatives.”We came out and fell in love with the area,” explained Bob. And with each other. They took a trip to the Aurora County Courthouse in Plankinton, where Bob asked,”What does it take to get married here?” The sheriff and his secretary served as witnesses. Then they bought the six-room hotel and gas station on Old 16 and renamed it A-Bar-Z.

As you leave White Lake, local Hwy 16 crosses to the south of Ike’s concrete legacy and you find yourself on 252nd Street. About 12 miles later, you approach Kimball and the South Dakota Tractor Museum. You pass by a tiny Frosty King ice cream shack and then, a half-mile west, a funky coffeehouse, restaurant and bar known as The Back Forty, where proprietor Keke Leiferman gives traditional South Dakota sandwiches a gourmet twist. A mile down the road, you drive beneath an underpass and find yourself on the south side of I-90 once again, going west on what’s now called 251st Street.

Kimball to Chamberlain

Hillside Motel in Chamberlain survived the decommissioning of Highway 16. Photo by Chad Coppess/S.D. Tourism

Eleven miles after leaving Kimball, you pull up to a stop sign for Hwy 50. To the west is a big body of water known as Red Lake. Take Hwy 50 north across I-90 and head for nearby Pukwana, lawn mower racing capital of the Northern Plains. Leave Pukwana on 249th Street going west and you’ll soon rejoin Hwy 50 as it enters Chamberlain, descending into the wide valley of the Missouri River. Spend some time in Chamberlain, a little city with a one-way Main Street that includes a movie theater, restaurants and a bakery called Indulge. Just to the west of Main Street, River Street leads to a shoreline park and walking paths, good opportunities to stretch your legs or enjoy the sweets from the bakery.

Chamberlain to Kennebec

The Lyman County courthouse at Kennebec.

You’ll cross the Missouri — the USA’s longest river — on an old steel bridge that transformed travel on Hwy 16 when it was finished in September of 1925. The two-way bridge became too narrow for modern cars and trucks. When construction of the Fort Randall Dam expanded the river’s width, an identical bridge at nearby Wheeler was declared surplus and floated upriver. The old bridge became the west lane and the Wheeler bridge is the east lane yet today. Cross the bridge into West River and you’ll drive past Oacoma and Al’s Oasis, a grocery store and highway restaurant made famous by the Mueller family. The old highway ends and you have no choice but to take I-90 for about nine miles, but then you can rejoin Old 16 by turning north on Hwy 47 at Exit 251. Take Hwy 47 northwest into Reliance and then onto Kennebec, where the Lyman County courthouse serves as the bastion of government for 3,700 citizens.

Kennebec to Kadoka

Dave Geisler entertains travelers at the Pioneer Auto Museum in Murdo.

Now you embark on a long stretch of Old 16 known as Hwy 248 that closely parallels I-90, which is usually within a rifle’s shot. Hwy 248 leads you through eight more little West River towns, in this order: Kennebec, Presho, Vivian, Draper, Murdo, Okaton, Belvidere and Kadoka. Some look like ghost towns at first blush, while others are busier than their modest populations would suggest.

When Highway 16 was in its prime, Keith Patrick’s repair shop at Vivian was a Ford dealership and gas station. Today, pilots occasionally land small planes on the road without fear of hitting a motorist. Patrick fixes anything from cars and tractors to”lawn mowers, vacuum cleaners and eye glasses.” He and his brother, Kevin, display old pictures and memorabilia of Vivian in the shop.

Fading wood gas stations, motels, shops and restaurants are scattered around Draper, pop. 82. Gene Cressy remembers when Highway 16 was constructed in the 1940s, south of the railroad tracks.”The speed limit was 45, 25 on the curves because they were 90-degree curves.” Neighboring schools borrowed the road’s nickname when they organized the Custer Battlefield Conference for sports teams. The conference still exists.

Gurney Seed & Nursery of Yankton started a chain of rural gas stations in the 1930s. Vivian’s station is preserved at Pioneer Auto Museum in Murdo. Dave Geisler has an eclectic collection of 275 old automobiles (including the Dukes of Hazzard’s General Lee) and 30 buildings stocked with Old West and pioneer memorabilia. It grew from a Highway 16 gas station and Chevy dealership started by Dave’s father in the early 1950s.

Check out the dollar bills pinned all over the Reliance Bar, and the Lyman County Courthouse in Kennebec, built in 1925 when Henry Ford was still making Model Ts. In Presho you drive past a sprawling indoor/outdoor museum and Hutch’s, a restaurant and cafe built in the early 1950s that locals love for the hot beef sandwiches.

Kadoka to Cottonwood

A longhorn cow roams the quiet roadway west of Philip Junction.

The Kadoka to Wall route is not for everybody, or every car. The Old 16 roadbed is still passable, but at times it becomes a West River back road seldom used even by local ranchers.

The stretch begins nicely. You travel east of Kadoka for 7 miles along the same old Hwy 248 until you reach what’s known as Seven Mile Corner. Then Old 16 runs north (now Highway 73) toward Philip. In a dozen or so miles (before arriving in the city of Philip), you drop into a valley called Philip Junction. Notice a family farm in the valley; the building closest to the highway is landscaped with old auto memorabilia. Turn west on a forgotten road that once was U.S. Highway 16, the grandest route from Detroit to Yellowstone. Today, the little asphalt that remains is cracked and dry. It looks like a road from an apocalypse movie.

The path (now 237th Street) is still marked as a”principal route” on many maps and atlases, but they are mistaken. Ruts and holes make it barely passable on a dry summer’s day, and a bad idea on a wet day. This is Jackson County, population 3,200, one of the poorest places in the United States. Little money is available for road maintenance.

You’ll travel 10 slow miles along 237th Street, mostly past pastures and grasslands. You cross two creeks, one called the South Fork Bad River, which flows northward to the Bad River, which flows into the mighty Missouri at Fort Pierre.

Bridges on the creeks seem scary, but they hold a car.

Cottonwood to Wall

Pavement is gone from the road east of Wall.

The apocalyptic segment runs onto Hwy 14 just east of the tiny town of Cottonwood. Highways 14 and 16 once joined there and continued together to Rapid City. Enjoy the next 10 miles on the smooth and solid Hwy 14 to Quinn, past Wall Drug signs advertising jackalopes, donuts and a 6-foot rabbit.

At Quinn, you face another test. You can continue along Hwy 14, a newer route for Hwy 16, or you can once again”rough it” on the original roadbed to Wall. To find the old road, drive into Quinn and look just south of the railroad tracks for a road marked as Old Hwy 16 & Quinn Road, and take it west.

At first you’ll be on a dirt path, heading past a cattle ranch. Again, this is only for adventurous souls on dry days. The asphalt has all but disappeared. At times, you’ll be on a one-lane path and at one point you’ll even need to enter the ditch to avoid a washout.

Unlike the first stretch of rough road, which is over-promised on most maps, this brief 5-mile path from Quinn to Wall is not even shown on the official state map. Keep driving west and you’ll be rewarded by a scenic jaunt past some swampy land and small bumps, precursors to the big Badlands to the south. You’ll see gnarled old wood posts along the way, and it takes only a little imagination to picture a young Ted Hustead nailing”Free Ice Water” signs on them to attract Model A drivers to stop at his now-famous Wall Drug Store.

Wall to Wasta

The owner of the old Packard Cafe and Motel in Wasta borrowed the name from the luxurious automobile of the 1930s and ’40s. Photo by Chad Coppess/S.D. Tourism

We would be remiss as travel guides if we didn’t recommend a stop at Wall Drug — still owned and operated by the Hustead family — for a buffalo burger, the crispy-soft chocolate doughnuts, 5-cent coffee and free admission to one of the West’s amazing art collections.

According to legend, Hustead actually traveled to Wasta to get water for his customers. If that story is true, then he surely made the drive by heading west on Fourth Avenue. You can do the same, but then the exact route of Old 16 is a mystery. Most likely, today’s I-90 was built over some of the original roadbed. Our recommendation is to take I-90 to Wasta, but then drive into Wasta, where you’ll easily find traces of Hwy 16 on the north side of town. It soon dead-ends if you turn west, but go east a mile and you’ll be rewarded with a better look at the Cheyenne River valley than I-90 travelers enjoy. Park your car and take pictures of the Old 16 car bridge and the nearby railroad bridge, both still in service.

The nearby town of Owanka died due to lack of water.”If they did find water, it had a high sulfur content and they couldn’t drink it,” says Jack Brainard.”They shipped water in on the train.” The name Wasta came from the Lakota name for the springs, mini wasta, or”water good.” When Highway 16 was routed to the north side of town, hotels and restaurants were opened like the Redwood, where motel scenes for the movie Thunderheart were filmed in 1991.

Wasta to Rapid City

Margaret Larson, Alice Richter, Janice Jensen and Joyce Wolken play cards at BJ’s Country Store in New Underwood.

Return to I-90 and head west for just a few miles, then take Exit 90 and go south on 173rd Avenue to the Wicksville Community Church, where services are held on the second, third and fourth Sundays of every month — leaving travelers to wonder what happens on the first Saturday that carries into Sunday morning? At the church corner, you’ll find an old stretch of the original highway that leads east but dead-ends a mile down the road. Head west and you’ll once again be on Old 16, but it’s diplomatically called Hwy 14/16 these days. The Black Hills are now visible on the horizon, just two towns away.

The first is New Underwood, Margaret Larsen’s home for 86 years. Most mornings she can be found at BJ’s Country Store, playing cards with friends. They cheerfully interrupted the game long enough to share stories.”Before the interstate we had a lot more stores — two grocery stores and a lumberyard,” says Larsen.”We still have plenty of bars.”

The next town is Box Elder, home to Ellsworth Air Force Base and one of the Dakotas’ boomtowns of the last 50 years. Box Elder was a tiny place in the heyday of Old 16, but nearly 10,000 people now live there. Hwy 14/16 skirts an old part of the boomtown and enters Rapid City.

Rapid City to Custer

Buffalo graze west of Custer.

No longer do you need much guidance, because you’re now driving the lone surviving stretch of U.S. Hwy 16. It starts out in downtown Rapid City as Mount Rushmore Road. You’ll climb out of Rapid City and into the mountains on a highway made to accommodate the two million people per year who visit Mount Rushmore. You drive past the Brockelsby family’s Reptile Gardens, Bear Country USA, Fort Hays Old West Town and numerous other visitor attractions.

You skirt the old mining community of Keystone, which sits at the foot of Mount Rushmore, and then follow the old highway as it cuts right through Hill City. There are many interesting stops in the little town, ranging from the century-old Hill City Cafe that remains as unpretentious as the small town eateries you might have enjoyed 200 miles to the east in farming country to an 1880 excursion train and the popular Prairie Berry Winery.

A dozen miles south, you’ll find the Ziolkowski family’s Crazy Horse mountain carving, and then dip down into the city of Custer. Black Hills Burger & Bun Co. is on the west side of the highway as you arrive downtown, one of 35 restaurants in a city of only 2,000 people.

Custer to the Wyoming Border

Three scenic paths wind through Jewel Cave National Park.

As the elevation climbs you rise beyond all the manmade accouterments that you’ve enjoyed between Rapid City and Custer. Now it’s just you and the forest and the highway, until you reach Jewel Cave National Monument. Want some strenuous exercise? Two unusual trails descend into Hell’s Canyon. This is a rare opportunity for a wilderness walk into one of the Black Hills’ deepest canyons. You’ll likely see birds and wildlife, and feel blasts of cold air as you poke your head into caves that connect to the 170-mile maze that comprises Jewel Cave.

It’s a short drive down the mountain. You enter private rangeland as you reach Wyoming. There’s no official”Welcome to Wyoming” sign, but the border is just a short distance west of the ruins of an abandoned cowboy bar and cafe. U.S. Hwy 16 continues on to Yellowstone, the original destination when federal road planners created this east-west route nearly a century ago.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the July/August 2015 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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From Bridgewater to Cooperstown

By Paul Higbee

When Sparky Anderson was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York, during the summer of 2000, he became the first South Dakotan to reach the sport’s most famous shrine.

The Bridgewater native certainly belongs there. Anderson ranks sixth all-time among major league managers in wins, with 2,194. He managed the Cincinnati Reds and then the Detroit Tigers, winning the World Series with both teams (twice in Cincinnati), becoming the only manager to bag world championships in both the National and American Leagues. Because there’s no question Anderson belongs in Cooperstown, the only topic for debate among sportswriters and commentators was whether he should be remembered chiefly as a Red or a Tiger. Anderson chose to be depicted on his Hall of Fame plaque wearing a Reds cap, because the Cincinnati club gave him a chance when he was unknown.

Knowing Anderson’s love of his home state, though, I’m guessing he wouldn’t have minded being the only Hall of Famer to wear a feed-and-seed cap.

“I remember more about South Dakota than any part of my life,” Anderson told Dan Ewald, who helped him write an autobiography. “I remember all the sights, the sounds, the smells, the people. Maybe I remember Bridgewater so well because I was so happy there.”

He was born George Lee Anderson in 1934, when the Depression and dust storms were ravaging South Dakota. His family had next to nothing in material wealth. Neither did their friends and neighbors in Bridgewater. That, Anderson noted, isn’t a bad way to start life, because you expect to work hard for everything, and you never take anything that comes your way for granted.

One comical image of Depression-era South Dakota stood out in Anderson’s mind. Kids used to hijack outhouses in Bridgewater on Halloween. So Anderson’s grandfather sat in the family’s privy on Halloween night with a shotgun.

“We didn’t have much, but nobody was going to get our outhouse,” Anderson recalled.

So how was a man affected by moving from that humble life to the very pinnacle of pro sports? In Anderson’s case, not much. “He’s the same as he was 45 or 50 years ago,” baseball broadcaster Vin Scully told the Detroit Free Press shortly before Anderson’s induction. “He hasn’t changed. I think the greatest thing about Sparky is that he really does feel that he was blessed. He is as modest as anyone who will ever reach the Hall of Fame.”

Anyone who met Sparky Anderson remembers two characteristics — the firm handshake, the kind that seals business deals on the prairies, and the natural warmth directed toward anyone: a marginal player whose time in the big leagues would be short, a sportswriter who needed extra insight so his story wouldn’t read like every other, a wayfaring South Dakotan who dropped by the ballpark to say hello.

Anderson credited both his handshake and his manner to his father, Lee Roy Anderson. The elder Anderson painted barns, worked for the postal service and played semi-pro baseball. He was “lead-pipe tough,” Sparky told Ewald. He walked with a self-assurance that let him treat everyone with dignity. Powerfully shaped by the Depression in South Dakota, Lee Roy Anderson taught his son that kindness is a valuable gift that doesn’t cost anyone a cent.

It will be a long while before another South Dakotan makes Cooperstown. Even if one stepped onto a major league field tomorrow, it takes a decade or two to craft Hall of Fame credentials (longer for a manager), and then there’s a five year waiting period before eligibility.

So, for the next few decades, and maybe forever, Sparky Anderson is our lone Cooperstown representative. It’s another South Dakota story of low quantity but high quality.

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

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Inspired by McCook County

By John Andrews

We drive Highway 81 when we travel from Yankton to my hometown of Lake Norden. Whenever we approach Salem, my 10-year-old daughter scans the skyline for the steeple of St. Mary’s Catholic Church. Monsignor Bernard Weber oversaw construction of the pink quartzite church in 1898. I suspect the stately steeple stood out on a prairie vista that included just a few trees and Salem’s early buildings. Perhaps it acted as a source of inspiration for the early settlers of McCook County, whose descendants seem to have carried on the desire to provide hope and help to others.

McCook County was established in 1873 and named for Edwin McCook, the secretary of Dakota Territory. McCook belonged to the famous”Fighting McCooks” family from Ohio whose dedication to the Union was unparalleled. Brothers Daniel and John McCook all served in the war, as did 13 of their sons. McCook saw action in battles at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson and in the Vicksburg, Chattanooga and Atlanta campaigns and was severely wounded three times.

He was appointed secretary of Dakota Territory in 1872. The following year, a dispute over the Dakota Southern Railroad put him at odds with Yankton banker Peter Wintermute, who shot and killed McCook over the disagreement at a meeting in downtown Yankton in September of 1873.

McCook County covers 577 square miles halfway between Mitchell and Sioux Falls. Interstate 90 bisects it from west to east, and Highway 81 halves it from north to south. Salem, the county seat with the noticeable church steeple, sits just north of that busy intersection. Another source of inspiration is found in Canistota, south of the interstate and east of 81.

Salem is the seat of McCook County. The steeple of St. Mary’s Catholic Church can be seen in the lower left corner.

In the early 1900s, farmer Amon Ortman discovered that his hands possessed a healing touch. When his work was done in the fields, he often encountered friends or neighbors complaining of a sore neck or other such malady. He’d have them sit on a wagon tongue or a bucket and provide relief as only he could. His unique touch turned Canistota into a destination for people around the world who seek treatment. Since Amon and his brother Noah opened the Ortman Clinic, four generations of Ortmans have treated more than 3 million patients. The influx gives the town of 600 a steady boost.

Canistotans can also learn a lesson in entrepreneurship from Tom and Ruth Neuberger. In 1984, they fattened 3,500 geese and then found themselves without a market. They decided to process the birds and hit the road in a refrigerated bus, selling town to town. Their formula became a huge success, and the Goosemobile has crisscrossed the state hundreds of times.

John Alvarez and his wife, Dee Ann, run My Fishing Pond, a therapeutic retreat near Bridgewater.

Across the county in Bridgewater, John Alvarez uses fishing to help brain injury survivors. Alvarez survived a horrific car accident in 1994 near Tucson, Arizona, but was left with a severe brain injury. He had to relearn basic skills and grew frustrated living in a busy urban environment. So he and his wife Dee Ann moved to a small acreage near her hometown of Bridgewater where Alvarez spent quiet days casting for bullheads in nearby Wolf Creek. Realizing the therapeutic value of fishing, Alvarez created My Fishing Pond, a non-profit organization that invites fellow brain injury survivors, children with special needs or the elderly to catch and release fish.

You no doubt remember the 1989 movie Field of Dreams, about an Iowa farmer who upon hearing strange voices in his cornfield builds a baseball diamond. Well, a friend of mine was recently driving through tiny Center, just south of the intersection of 245th Street and 443rd Avenue, and was surprised to find a similarly well-tended baseball field. The Center Ball Diamond became a reality in 1958, when a group of local softball players decided they wanted a ballpark near their rural homes. McCook Electric installed light poles in the middle of what was then a hayfield and the park began taking shape. More softball teams formed and soon there was a rousing league. Between concession stand sales, league dues and services donated, the park eventually became self sufficient — McCook County’s own field of dreams.

Canistota farmer Tom Neuberger started the Goosemobile in 1984.

The tiny hamlet of Center is also the setting for one of my favorite South Dakota baseball stories. The Center Store did solid business during the 1930s, and in the fall during pheasant season it wasn’t unusual to spot a celebrity or two who had come to South Dakota for a hunting excursion. Bob Feller, star pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, hunted every year between Center and Howard with his uncle, who delivered gas and oil to the store.

One day, a middle-aged hunter who nobody recognized walked in. Kenny Knutson, a local farmer on his way home from a baseball game in Salem and still in uniform, happened to be inside.

“I see you’re a ball player,” the visitor said.”I used to play a little ball myself.”

“Yeah, when?” Knutson asked, looking and the old hunter with doubtful eyes.

“It was a few years back. Maybe you’ve heard of me. I’m Ty Cobb.”

“Oh, sure, and I’m Babe Ruth!”

Wayne Porter’s 60-foot-tall longhorn towers over the prairie along Interstate 90 near Montrose. Photo by Stacey Stoddard/S.D. Tourism.

But it was true. Cobb, who had retired in 1928 after 24 seasons with the Detroit Tigers and the Philadelphia Athletics and was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, didn’t say another word. He just pulled out his hunting license and presented it to the gape-mouthed Kenny.

Wayne Porter is also living his dream in McCook County. He’s the creative force behind the Porter Sculpture Park, and eclectic mix of scrap iron creations that can be seen near the Montrose exit along Interstate 90. You’ll spot dragons, butterflies, vultures and a man’s head with a hand emerging from the top. Maybe the least out-of-place is the 60-foot-tall longhorn.

But perhaps the saddest source of inspiration comes from Spencer, a town that made headlines worldwide in May of 1998 when a monstrous tornado destroyed the town. I had just graduated from high school, but I remember people traveling there to help with the clean up. Six people were killed and several more displaced. The town’s population never rebounded to the pre-tornado estimate of 315, but many residents stayed, refusing to let Mother Nature control their lives. Spencer is now home to about 150 people.

As someone who simply passes through from time to time, I never really thought about all the inspiring people and places to be found in McCook County. But the 5,600 folks who live there see it every day — in a quartzite church steeple, the ball field in the middle of nowhere and that 60-foot longhorn.

Editor’s Note: This is the 33rd installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Explorers On Two Wheels

By Katie Hunhoff

Traveling is one of life’s great joys, so we love it when our stories inspire readers to hit the road. Jan and Carl Brush took that idea to the extreme when they used South Dakota Magazine to plan a 360-mile biking trip. The couple has biked in all 50 states, but they like South Dakota best. Our small towns, friendly people, beautiful wildlife and peaceful roads make for a perfect two-wheel experience … or maybe I should say three-wheel. The Brushes use a tandem recumbent trike that is 10 feet long.

They left from Yankton on July 24, and Jan wrote some notes from the first day that shows why they love biking here.”We rode 51 miles total. We saw lots of wildlife. Everyone waved and a herd of horses greeted us west of Freeman at the Jonas farm and ran alongside us for 100 yards inside their pen.”

Wildlife and animals were a fun part of the Brushes’ adventures. During the eight-day trip they were trailed by a young Billy goat and saw a white pelican and a wood stork near Willow Lake. They also met the most famous pet in Canova — Bill Perrine’s rescue dog, Daisy.”The local joke is, if you want to find Bill, find Daisy,” Jan told us. After talking with Bill, the Brushes found something they had in common — Bill loves biking, too, but the motorized kind. He and his wife have motorcycled in every state, in all the Canadian provinces, throughout Mexico and much of Western Europe.

Bill was just one of many interesting people the Brushes met when they stopped in several small towns. They met Tammy Zulk in Canova, the creator of a memorial garden.”She started the garden in 2007 as a memorial to her late son, Tyler, who died in a motorcycle accident,” Jan said.”Engraved memorial stepping stones are available by contacting Tammy. She etches them herself. The beautiful garden is certainly the pride of the community.”

The Brushes visited with Amish families in Canistota who were there visiting the Ortman Clinic. They also made new friends in Bridgewater whom they had read about in our magazine. Jack Vondra, age 91, runs a jewelry store and shared local history.

When the Brushes returned to Bridgewater on their way home, they stopped again to say hello to Jack and his wife, Lois.”Jack moved here in 1947 to start a job repairing watches,” they wrote.”He was paid $25 a week and a place to live. In 1951 he and Lois were married and they bought the jewelry store on a handshake agreement. At age 91 he still can be found at the store most days.”

The Brushes met many more interesting people and enjoyed some great food, too — more than I can fit into this column. But check their travelogue to see more. We guarantee you’ll find travel tips that aren’t likely to be found anywhere else in the world.