Tag: brookings county

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The Ultimate Vehicle

By John Andrews

Kent Miller’s Ultimate Outdoor Vehicle was built for ice fishing, but serves a multitude of purposes.

A lot of good inventions get their start when someone says,”Wouldn’t it be nice if….” That’s what happened nearly four years ago when Kent Miller went ice fishing with some family members. They pulled sleds loaded with gear across the snow, traversed the ice to set up a shack, then tore it down and moved when the fish wouldn’t bite — all of which was made more difficult by his father-in-law’s bad knee. That led to Miller’s,”Wouldn’t it be nice if …” moment.

The mechanical engineer envisioned a vehicle on tracks that could go through snow, could float in case the ice broke, and had space for everything a fisherman might need. Three years of building and testing prototypes finally resulted in the Ultimate Outdoor Vehicle.

Though Miller had ice fishing in mind during development, the UOV is designed to do almost anything in any conditions. The hull is made from marine grade 1/8-inch aluminum for durability. Its heavy-duty rubber tracks with steel links carry it through snow, mud, grass, water and gravel. The hydrostatic drive and zero-turn ability make it maneuverable and easy to control. A canvas enclosure and vinyl windshield and side windows protect the driver and passenger from the elements. Inside are hatches that lock and seal, allowing fishermen to drill holes in the ice without ever leaving the vehicle.

Miller has a degree in mechanical engineering from South Dakota State University and has worked in the field for 20 years. He and his wife, Heather Solberg, also operate Miller Design and Manufacturing from their acreage between Brookings and Volga. That’s where the UOV was born, along with other tracked projects such as a radio-controlled vehicle for a friend who has physical disabilities and a small snow dozer.

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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Glacial Lakes in Winter

By John Andrews and Bernie Hunhoff

South Dakota’s Glacial Lakes country is perfect for day trips this winter. More than a hundred lakes — plus sloughs, wetlands, ponds and rivers — combine to create a scenic and unspoiled countryside rich with wildlife and waterfowl, friendly farm towns and numerous opportunities to enjoy nature.

Melting glaciers shaped this prairie pothole country 20,000 years ago. The lakes are so numerous that some remain unnamed. Most have grown in size and depth over the last 25 years. Bitter Lake, once little more than a shallow slough, is now the state’s largest natural lake; it is encroaching on Waubay Lake and other bodies of water to create an ocean-less, inland sea.

In this winter of the pandemic, we are all looking for new outdoor sights and experiences. Winter serenity and solitude has always been a trademark of the unspoiled Glacial Lakes region.

Here are 10 suggestions, organized by county, on how you might explore the Glacial Lakes. Some are auto drives, others offer winter hikes that could be compromised by the amount of snow on the ground. However, this list only scratches the surface so don’t hesitate to roam the lake country. You’ll discover many surprises, and they’ll all be good.

BROOKINGS COUNTY — The 135-acre Dakota Nature Park (at the corner of 22nd Avenue and 32nd Street South) lies in the southeastern corner of Brookings. Gravel mining led to formation of ponds and wetlands, and a restored prairie now grows atop the old landfill mound. A portion of the Allyn Frerichs Trail System — named for the city’s longtime parks and rec director who passed away in 2014 — skirts the north edge of the park, while a network of paths weave around the wetlands, prairies and trees.

BROWN COUNTY — Take a trip to Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Though the classic 15-mile auto tour is closed in winter due to hunting and snow conditions, other roads remain open on the perimeter of the refuge. Explore the gravel roads that lead north and south from Highway 10. The snow geese are gone, but you’ll see other waterfowl, eagles and the Arctic’s snowy owls. Deer, pheasant and coyotes are also common. Sand Lake rose from the dust of the Great Depression to become one of the world’s most important wildlife sanctuaries. It is 30 miles northeast of Aberdeen.

CODINGTON COUNTY — Just southwest of Watertown is Pelican Lake. An observation tower near an inlet on the lake’s south side provides a sweeping view of the water, its namesake birds, the prairie and Watertown’s skyline. The Observation Tower Trail is a three-quarters of a mile hike through the woods and winter grasses. A longer jaunt, the Pelican Prairie Trail, gently meanders 5.2 miles.

DAY COUNTY– Explore the trails of Waubay National Wildlife Refuge, situated in the very heart of the Prairie Pothole landscape. Scientists say the region produces 50 percent of the continent’s waterfowl. Trails range from a few hundred feet to a mile, and jaunt around an island that houses the refuge headquarters. However, the public facilities are closed in winter.

DEUEL COUNTY — Visit 12-acre Ulven Park, which occupies a point on the eastern shore of Clear Lake. The frogs and toads, noisy in summer, are now hibernating so they’ll not interrupt the serenity of the park’s half-mile hiking trail.

EDMUNDS COUNTY — Shake Maza Trail at Mina Lake (between Ipswich and Aberdeen) is a short walk that explores the flora, fauna and other features at one of the first man-made lakes in northeast South Dakota. Shake Maza is a Native term meaning”shaped like a horseshoe,” which describes the 850-acre lake, ringed by picturesque cabins and homes.

GRANT COUNTY — This fascinating region is one of the USA’s five continental divides. Lake Traverse flows west to the Hudson Bay and Big Stone Lake flows south to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the best winter trails are at Hartford Beach State Park — a tree-filled, rocky shoreline north of Milbank that is quite unlike anything else in the Glacial Lakes. Signage in the park will direct you to several easy trails.

HAND COUNTY — Hike the Pheasant Run Trail at Lake Louise, 14 miles northwest of Miller. Beginning at the trailhead in the main campground, the dirt and grass trail meanders 3.2 miles around the south side of Lake Louise, which was created by damming the south fork of Wolf Creek in 1932. More than three dozen informational plaques identify trees and plants found along the way, though leaf identification will be challenging in December and January.

LAKE COUNTY — Wander the trails of Lake Herman State Park, which occupies a peninsula on the east side of Lake Herman, just west of Madison. A cabin built by pioneer Herman Luce in about 1870 stands along the 1.25-mile Luce Adventure Trail, which encircles Herman Pond. Connecting trails include the Abbott Trail (1.1 miles) and the Pioneer Nature Trail (.4 miles). All are easy walking.

MOODY COUNTY — Much of the prairie pothole region drains into the Big Sioux River, and the waterway starts to change its personality as it reaches Flandreau and Dell Rapids. Hike Red Rock Trail in Dell Rapids, where you can enjoy a closeup view of the famous rose quartzite that underlies the region.

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The Legend of Springerle

The Benson family of Brookings likes their Christmas cookies picture perfect. Every year, Leah Benson rolls out an embossed cookie called springerle, which means”little knight” or”jumping horse,” using a special rolling pin carved with pictures.

Springerle originated in southwestern Germany.”The legend is that back then, the peasants were so poor that they could not afford to give gifts. To celebrate the winter solstice they would carve the gift they wanted to give into a piece of dough, let it dry, bake it and give it to their loved one. Most carvings were things of nature because they worshipped Mother Earth,” says Benson, who has researched the ancient cookie and teaches classes about it at medieval re-enactment fairs.”The dough was leavened with hartshorn, which is a powder that comes from inside a deer’s antler. Today we use baking powder.”

Benson learned about springerle from her grandmother.”She always made these cookies with a special rolling pin that was handed down through the generations. I started collecting these rolling pins when I was 40,” Benson says. Rolling the dough with a springerle pin or pressing it with a carved mold creates pictures on the cookies — some more intricate than others.”Most of the modern rolling pins have simple nature designs, although I do have one very expensive one with the life of Christ carved into its 24 panels,” Benson says.

Her grandmother’s recipe creates thick, mixer-challenging dough. Benson recommends draping a kitchen towel over the back of the mixer to avoid spraying flour and powdered sugar. After mixing and rolling, the unbaked cookies must dry for 24 hours to preserve the pictures through baking. The cookies bake at a low temperature, resulting in hard, pale-colored treats perfect for dunking in coffee.

Many families bake springerle at Thanksgiving and save them until Christmas to allow the flavor to develop, but Benson’s family eats them right away because they prefer a softer texture. Rolling thicker cookies or baking for less time results in a softer cookie as well, but beware of rolling them too thick. You’ll get cookies that are”humped up and cracked and kind of ugly,” Benson says.

Springerle is a German tradition that became a staple of Christmas for many South Dakota families.

Springerle

4 medium eggs, separated

1 pound powdered sugar

3 cups flour with 1/4 teaspoon baking powder added

1/8 teaspoon anise oil extract, or flavoring of your choice

Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites in a large bowl until stiff peaks form. In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks for five minutes until light and lemon-colored. Add beaten yolks to egg whites and whip for three minutes. Gradually sift powdered sugar into egg mixture and add anise oil. Slowly add flour and baking powder until dough is stiff, smooth and velvety. You may need to knead in the last of the flour by hand.

Divide the dough into 3 or 4 pieces. On a well-floured surface, roll out each piece 3/8-inch thick using a regular rolling pin. Using a springerle pin, roll across the dough to create imprints. Cut cookies apart and place onto ungreased cookie sheets close together but not touching. Cover with a light kitchen towel. Allow them to dry for 12 hours, then flip to let the undersides dry for another 12 hours.

Flip cookies right side up and bake at 250 degrees for 45 minutes. They may turn tan on the bottom, but should not brown.

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

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The Cookies and Cream Dream

By John Andrews

Cookies and Cream always cracks the Top 10 in popular ice cream flavor surveys, but the concoction didn’t even exist when South Dakota State University dairy science professor Shirley Seas embarked on a dairy judging trip to Atlantic City, N.J., in the mid-1970s. As he sat in a local restaurant, he noticed the staff crumbling Oreo cookies into vanilla ice cream. Seas sampled the concoction and was impressed. When he returned to Brookings, his students made a batch to test in a campus cafeteria.

“We have never heard so many compliments on a product,” Seas wrote of the experiment.”The fame of Oreo-flavored ice cream spread like a fire going through a dry grass field.”

Today there’s uncertainty over who gets credit for creating the flavor. Some people believe Cookies and Cream was invented at an ice cream shop in an Oregon mall. Others think it originated in Massachusetts. But students and faculty at SDSU take pride in their piece of Cookies and Cream history.

The flavor is just one of 60 varieties of ice cream and sherbet made on campus. SDSU’s dairy plant processes 10,000 pounds of raw milk every week. It is trucked from the dairy research and training facility a mile and a half north of campus, where 130 Holstein and Brown Swiss cows are milked three times a day. Students produce cheese, butter and milk, but Cookies and Cream ice cream remains a favorite. In 2012, they churned 4,750 gallons of their signature creation.

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

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Brookings’ Rhubarb King

By Katie Hunhoff

Jan Sanderson has been raising rhubarb in his gardens outside of Aurora for over 35 years.

“Everyone who has a rhubarb plant has a story about it,” says Jan Sanderson, the Rhubarb King of Brookings County. He runs Sanderson Gardens, a fruit and vegetable oasis bordered by corn and soybean fields.

Sanderson is always searching for new rhubarb to transplant, and he takes a notebook with him to record the histories of each plant.”If you could follow their history far back enough,” Sanderson says,”you would find all of our rhubarb came from England or the Nordic countries.”

The English used the vegetable as a food about 200 years ago, calling it pie plant. But for thousands of years before that, Chinese would grind rhubarb root as medicine, most commonly as a laxative, diuretic, astringent and detoxifier. The name rhubarb comes from the ancient Romans who knew that the plant was used by barbarians near the Rha River. The word is a combination of the words rha (an ancient name for the Volga River in Russia) and the Greek word barbarus meaning barbarians.

Rhubarb is enjoying a renaissance, Sanderson says. He can hardly keep up with demand, especially from local wineries. Rhubarb’s tart flavor and rich coloring make it a popular ingredient. Sanderson’s rhubarb has both, thanks to years of hunting for the best varieties.

“Genetics are the secret to great rhubarb,” he says. He likes plants with pretty color and few seed stalks. He clones his favorites by digging up the crown, the part of the rhubarb that is above the roots but below the ground. The crown contains the meristem, which is like the plant’s stem cell system. He cuts the crown into several chunks and replants them. The new rhubarb will be an identical copy of the parent plant.

It seems nearly every yard has a patch of rhubarb, and all of it can be traced to England or the Nordic countries in Europe.

Sanderson began his rhubarb crop over 30 years ago with two rows of Valentine and Canada Red varieties from his parents’ garden. He advertised in local papers that he would remove or trim plants for people, and he would search for plants he liked. Through the years he’s developed a variety he calls Sanderson Red. At one time he had eight acres devoted to the tart vegetable.

Rhubarb is a strong plant, says Sanderson. Once it takes root, it keeps getting bigger and bigger. A deep root system helped plants survive the Great Depression, and the toxic leaves protect against chewing insects. Sanderson has even made an organic insecticide from the leaves.

Sanderson started growing produce in 1977 on his parents’ farm 4 miles east of Brookings along Highway 14. The season kicks off each spring with the sprouting of rhubarb and strawberries. Next come sweet corn, raspberries and pumpkins. Barbarians are few and far between in Brookings County, but there are lots of people there who appreciate the summer bounty of Sanderson Gardens.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2012 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

Rhubarb Custard Pie

When Sanderson was a boy growing up near Sisseton, he and his seven siblings would eat rhubarb stalks raw, dipped in sugar. Although the raw rhubarb was a treat, Sanderson’s all-time favorite recipe is from his ex-wife, Liz. He recommends eating it hot with vanilla ice cream.

Mix 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1/4 cup flour, (Liz uses whole wheat) 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, and dash salt. Add 3 beaten eggs; beat smooth. Stir in 4 cups 1-inch slices rhubarb.

Prepare pastry for 9-inch lattice-top pie. Line 9-inch pie plate with pastry. Fill with rhubarb mixture. Adjust lattice top; seal. Bake at 375 degrees for 50 minutes.

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Searching for the White Mule

By Chuck Cecil

Sheriff E.E. Sherman (center) displayed whiskey-making equipment on the steps of the Union County Courthouse after a raid in the 1920s.

South Dakota jumped the gun on prohibition, passing a”dry” law more than two years before the 18th Amendment bottled up the nation’s booze business in 1920. What followed the 1917 South Dakota law and the later federal mandate uncorked a lengthy cat and mouse game. Moonshiners (the manufacturers) and bootleggers (retailers in Model As) became skilled at hiding stills and stashes from state and federal agents and the local law who worked night and day sniffing out the illegal white mule, as many called the homemade brew.

Nearly every South Dakota county and community had its covert booze operations, and most citizens with an occasional or unremitting itch for John Barleycorn knew where to find it. When the South Dakota constitution was drafted in Sioux Falls for a citizen vote in 1889, some wanted prohibition included. Fearful the emotional issue would influence the constitution vote, delegates wrote a prohibition amendment as a stand-alone ballot question.

Both the constitution and prohibition passed, and the 1890 South Dakota legislature framed a law making manufacture, transportation and sale of alcohol illegal.

Five years later, citizens had a change of heart and voted prohibition out. Swinging doors were oiled, shot glasses washed, brass rails polished and the state’s often vilified saloons were back in business.

But by 1916, better-organized dry factions – the Anti-Saloon League, churches and the Women’s Christian Temperance League headed for decades by Flora Mitchell of Brookings – succeeded in getting another vote that hoisted South Dakotans back up on the prohibition wagon. After considering a state-run liquor business in which state liquor agents would keep names and amounts purchased, legislative reason prevailed. Liquids sold as beverages could have zero percent alcohol. The edict was christened the”bone-dry” law.

In 1917, Gov. Peter Norbeck signed a law creating the office of State Sheriff to more vigorously enforce federal prohibition laws. Lawmakers appropriated $3,000 to fund the effort.

To enforce the law, the legislature created the Office of State Sheriff. Later, the 18th Amendment was passed and federal agents were assigned to the state. Even with these units, law enforcement could hardly keep up with the growing number of stills whose operators were merrily churning out and hiding liquor of varying quantity and quality.

Stills steamed away in caves, isolated shacks, cornfields, timber stands, sandy river islands and on isolated farms. Stashes of booze were found in post holes, automobile spare tires, souped-up cars, straw stacks, potato piles, seeder boxes, and even hollow cemetery grave markers.

Hiding the bottled booze was a challenge. Interestingly, post hole digging tools made cool, camouflaged repositories slightly larger than the round alcohol bottles, and post holes could be sunk in the least likely of places, like chicken houses. Weedy road culverts were handy. The augers of idle threshing machines made passable liquor cabinets.

Another clever hiding place was discovered in Brookings County. The county road grader operator discovered more than a dozen one gallon jugs of booze buried up to their corked necks among roadside weeds near Bruce. Opposite each buried bottle, a piece of white cloth was tied to the fence as a subtle marker.

Newspapers were splashed with stories of still or stash discoveries. In 1923, Meade County Deputy Sheriff Fred Westgate said illegal stills were so prevalent in West River country”one can hardly put his foot down without stepping on one.”

A Sisseton farmer sold his powerful homemade”medication” at a rheumatism clinic he founded. A remarkable number of Roberts County men were soon afflicted and sought treatment until the law intervened.

By the 1930s Hank Kempel of Sioux Falls had brought together a group of young toughs to distribute illegal booze trucked in from Al Capone’s Chicago monopoly, and local police were soon dealing with what they called”the Kempel Gang.”

Verne Miller was a Beadle County sheriff who turned to bootlegging and organized crime.

Dempster Mayor John DeWall cracked a wry smile in 1931 and appointed a committee to review applications from the five different bootleggers active in Hamlin County for a local distribution franchise. Committee members played along, but wanted samples.

The annual reports of the state sheriff show the extent of the problem. The 1923-24 report cites the arrest of 178 still operators. Concurrently, federal agents, county sheriffs and U.S. marshals were also barging in and breaking up bubbling sites.

After state deputy sheriffs raided the Schwenk farm in Yankton County on Dec. 7, 1921, two trucks hauled away a plethora of beer making gear, including”three testers, 800 quart cans of canned malt, 100 gallons of malt in barrels, twelve quarts Primo, nine cases hops, two bales of hops, three dozen packages of hops, twenty-one capping machines, one can sealer, one box hose holders, two gross cans, seven dozen packages gelatin, 800 pounds of bottle caps, fifteen packages of labels, 78 packages of rubber stoppers, two boxes of siphon hose and 100 pounds of shot.” The pellets were used to help clean particularly dirty beer bottles for reuse.

Later that year at a farm in Hutchinson County, officers arrested L. T. Kleinsasser, W. T. Warne and Peter Hofer, and seized one stove and feed cooker, two sacks of bottles, 300 gallons of mash, one sack of rye, one cooler coil, six barrels, one milk can, one bushel basket and more. Firearms, knives and brass knuckles were often found among the moonshiners’ assets. In a 1923 raid near Sisseton, the outraged moonshiner hurled a barbed fish spear at an officer, but missed.

As agents became more proficient at finding stills, moonshiners became more adroit at hiding them. Near Elk Point in late 1924, agents found a 10-by-40-foot cave in a cornfield covered with boards and dirt. The dugout held a 100-gallon capacity still to process 40 awaiting barrels of fermenting mash. Agents also found a six-burner kerosene stove, supplies of sugar, rye and yeast, and an impressive inside water well.

To enter a suspected moonshine cave near the town appropriately named Rumford in Fall River County in 1931, agents climbed down a ladder inside a well and squeezed through a wall opening where they found a 100-gallon still.

Law officers often posed for news photographers with firearms and liquor confiscated in raids. This 1918 photo was taken in Brookings.

More squalid still locations were hidden under hog houses, barn stalls and manure piles. At the Hamandberg farm north of Harrisburg agents found a trap door under a resting cow in a barn stall leading to an underground still. Caves under hog pens were particularly filthy. The dripping effluent percolating from above mixed with the mash, but these”mixed drinks,” did not deter sales. Another common secret ingredient was poison caused by lead from corrosive evaporation coils.

Agents often found mash with drowned mice, bugs and birds floating on top. And in some cases officers had to shoo chickens off mash barrel roosts, but most moonshiners didn’t operate this way. They considered their product among the finest available, such as the alcohol made the old-world way by Adolph Schelske of Parkston. His daughter Leona Pietz describes her father’s still in a book, Memories of a Bootlegger’s Daughter. Leona’s daily chore was to carefully stir the fermenting, bubbling mash.

The used mash from Schelske’s barrels was discarded through a pipe draining to a nearby stream where, Pietz wrote, the mash attracted and nourished happy fish that were later caught and eaten.

Moonshiner Bert Miller of Hill City was described as a”master distiller” by Carl West, the Minneapolis Prohibition Enforcement Department’s chief chemist in 1924. Moonshiners Miller and Schelske were just two of many South Dakotans who sought to perfect their brew.

As prohibition nationally and eventually in South Dakota was ending, federal and state agents raided two”super stills,” one in northern Clay County and another west of Sioux Falls. Both expertly engineered, leading officials to suspect Al Capone’s operation in Chicago may have provided financing.

The coming of the automobile was a bootlegger’s dream, expanding his territory and his carrying capacity. The largest auto liquor cargo ever found in South Dakota was on July 11, 1932, west of Huron. Officers counted 228 one-gallon tins of booze in Bernard”Bud” Bruns’ re-vamped 1932 Buick five-passenger coupe. They also confiscated his .45 caliber pistol and two glass jars filled with roofing nails to throw out and disable police cars during a chase.

Violence was a by-product of the business. Flandreau bootlegger Ira Dawson shot it out with two deputies in White, a small Brookings County town, in May of 1928. Dawson died en route to the Brookings Hospital. At the Chrisman farm near Redfield, bootlegger Chrisman ambushed and killed two agents.

Most state and federal agents were straight arrows, but bad apples did succumb to the lure of payoff money. Verne Miller, a personable, handsome World War I hero from White Lake, became Beadle County Sheriff in 1920, but soon turned south and became a hired killer for eastern mobsters. His killings put him on the FBI’s most wanted list, but his underworld enemies found him first.

Edward Senn was a newspaperman and a crusader for prohibition in South Dakota.

The superstar of dry agents in South Dakota was Edward L. Senn, the crusading Deadwood Daily Telegram newspaper editor-publisher who became federal prohibition administrator in 1925 and served until national prohibition ended in 1933. He was tireless and often led raids by agents the press called”Senn’s Raiders.”

Senn’s heart must have been broken when national prohibition ended in 1933. South Dakota and its bone-dry law continued for nearly two more years, much to the chagrin of wets.

The state became an island in a sea of sloshing liquor in surrounding states. Calling a special legislative session to end the bone dry law was made more complicated because Governor Tom Berry feared a just-passed gross income tax vote might crop up in a special session along with the prohibition question.

The wets finally won out in April of 1935, and the state’s journey astride the white mule was over.

Editor’s Note: Chuck Cecil is a longtime South Dakota author and newspaperman. These stories are condensed from his book Astride the White Mule, the only book ever written about the state’s prohibition years. The 200 pp. softcover is available for $15, plus $3 shipping/taxes, from Books, P.O. Box 608, Volga, S.D. 57071. This article is revised from the July/August 2012 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Trygve Trooien: Country Philosopher

By Bernie Hunhoff

Trygve Trooien on the family farm south of Astoria.

Editor’s Note: Trygve Trooien passed away on Easter Sunday in 2015 on his farm in Brookings County at the age of 65. We met Trooien in the fall of 2002. We visited his peaceful farm on the shores of Oak Lake and he showed us his incredible collection of overalls. Here’s the story we wrote. It appeared in our November/December 2002 issue.

Trygve Trooien is a country philosopher. There is no better way to describe the 52-year-old bachelor who farms along the east shore of Oak Lake in Brookings County. He is a country philosopher in striped bib overalls who occasionally stages farm fashion shows.

Trooien is good-natured and has a ready smile. He is not talkative, although he’ll share his thoughts when prompted. His daily life is a philosophy and that makes him a truer philosopher than those who speak or write a certain way and act another.

Trooien is Thoreau with a Farmall tractor. He is what Thomas Jefferson wanted every man to become, at home and happy on the land.

The name Trooien is as Norwegian as Lutheranism or lutefisk, and Trygve is proud of the heritage. Most people around Hendricks, Minn., which is just a few miles from Oak Lake and the Trooien farm, claim the same ethnicity. Prior to visiting the town, we’d heard that it had only two churches and both were Lutheran. We asked if that was accurate.

“No,” replied Trooien. “Hendricks has four churches. Lutheran, Lutheran, Lutheran … and Methodist.” He attends the old Singsaas Lutheran Church near his farm on the South Dakota side of the border.

In this lake country, Minnesotans and South Dakotans socialize and intermarry and sometimes even move their residency from one side of the state line to the other. The Trooien family is well respected here. Trygve is known as a good farmer; he garners further attention from his overalls.

For several generations, bib overalls were the uniform of choice for hard-working farmers and city laborers alike all across America. “They were better suited for doing active, hard work than about anything else you could wear,” Trooien said. “I think they are cooler in the summer because they fit looser and you can always unbutton one of the buttons if you want more air circulating.”

He grew up wearing overalls and never switched to jeans. “I haven’t changed. I’m not going to change,” he said.

Trooien’s overall models included (from left) Nicole Fitzsimmons, Elizabeth Johnson, Kelly Moe, Katie Telgren, Katie Hunhoff and Sara Johnson.

Just as a man couldn’t be expected to farm without a tractor these days, Trooien said he wouldn’t farm without his overalls. “If we ever get to where we can’t buy them we’ll have to start our own factory. Yankton had its own overall factory once. So did Sioux City, Iowa.”

He hasn’t had to go to that extreme, but the scarcity of overall manufacturers does concern the friendly farmer. He orders Key overalls from Hendricks Hardware now that Lee only makes what might be called designer overalls. “Lewis Drug in Sioux Falls was the last place you could get the Lee work overalls,” he said. “I went to all three Lewis Stores and bought every pair that would fit me. I took good care of those last ones. I starched them and ironed them and tried to keep them going.”

He also favors Osh Kosh’s striped denim work jackets. He knew a mail order company that stocked them, but when the firm dropped them he thought he would have to switch. “A few years later we were sitting over coffee and a guy told me he saw some of those jackets at Country General in Brookings so I thought of an excuse to go to Brookings and by golly they had about 10 of those striped jackets my size on a sales rack for $7 each. I took them all. I was really happy about that deal.

“Then I thought I had heard that Country General in Watertown had the same deliveries as the Brookings store so I thought up an excuse to go to Watertown. Well, they had a rack of them and they were $9 each. I bought every one of them, too, so I’ve got a full closet of Osh Kosh jackets.”

Osh Kosh and Lee were two of many major manufacturers during the heyday of denim work clothes. Other well-known brands included Carhart, Carter’s, Key, Liberty, Paul Bunyan, Sears, Tuf Nut and Big Yank.

Three separate companies made overalls called Big Ben. There was Big Ben blue by Blue Bell, Big Ben striped by Wrangler, and Big Ben blue by the V.F. Company. Blues are solid denim. Striped are pinstripe blue on white.

Lee, which has always been Trooien’s favorite, sold four styles — stripe high back, stripe low back, blue high back and blue low back. “I grew up wearing blue and striped Key Imperials,” he said. “Lee’s were the Cadillac.” Every overall had a slightly different shape. Lee’s were generally considered a trimmer style, and they fit Trooien’s 170-pound frame.

Overall designers did try to change with the times, Trooien said. One manufacturer even renamed the plier’s pocket as a cell phone holder. But sales continued to lag until a few of the big-name companies like Lee decided to redesign the overall and market it to youth as a trendy casual wear.

Once he realized that work overalls were fading from the store shelves of rural America, Trooien stocked up on Lee’s. He also began to collect other styles. His wardrobe now includes 38 different styles representing 26 brand names. He never intended it to grow into a collection. “Whenever I saw an overall I didn’t have I bought it just to try it out,” he said.

Elizabeth Johnson models a pair of Keys with a handy pliers holder.

“Osh Kosh B’Gosh from Osh Kosh, Wisconsin may be the best known of all the overalls,” he said. “Big Smith was known as the big man’s overall. They were wide, very wide. If society keeps getting heavier, which is certainly the way we’re going, they could make a comeback.”

As happens with all collectors, Trooien has become an authority on the subject. He says the guarantees were always interesting. Big Yank promised, for example, that shrinkage would not exceed one percent. The H.D. Lee Company — a giant in the business with 11 factories across the nation — guaranteed that their overalls “must look better, fit better and wear longer or you may have a new pair free or your money back.”

Brand names aside, Trooien says there are four basic types of overalls. “You’ve got your church overalls, you’ve got your dress overalls, you’ve got your town overalls, and you’ve got your work overalls,” he explained. A dress overall is for socializing in town, but it would be better than what you might wear to town in the afternoon to get parts or groceries. A town overall doesn’t have to be as good as a church overall, but better than a work overall.

Generally, he explained, when overalls were in fashion a man would use his newest pair of overalls for church. When they were slightly worn and faded they could be used for “night business,” meaning they were worn to town or to visit the neighbors. When the overall was no longer fit for public use it was worn during the work day.

When the town of Astoria celebrated its centennial in 2000, Trooien produced an Overall Revue, a cross between a fashion show and a historical pageant. He recruited young ladies in the area to model the collection. His brother, Phil, was moderator. A few repeat performances have followed. Trooien said he’ll do more in the name of historic preservation of the overall culture if requests don’t interfere with farming.

Nothing stops Trooien from tending to his cows and fields. A few years ago, he had some chest pains and the local doctor put him in the hospital. He was a model patient until 6 a.m. the next morning, when he pulled on his Key overalls and went home to milk his 30 Holstein cows. He has never been back to the hospital.

He likes his country life and sees no reason for time away. “I don’t enjoy going on vacation. I’ve been around the world in the Army and I don’t care if I never go again. I wasn’t that impressed.”

The farm by the lake has been in the Trooien family since 1900. “My grandfather bought it after the previous owner was forced to sell it when he mortgaged it for a threshing machine.”

His grandfather’s big, square white house is still the main residence. Red barns stand to the west, between the road and the lake. More than a dozen tractors, mostly red Farmalls, are parked around the farmstead along with both modern and antique farm equipment.

Oak Lake in eastern Brookings County is a picturesque and peaceful place to live and farm, and an appropriate setting for preserving the overall, part of the fabric of rural America.

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Prairie Sanctuaries

By Christian Begeman

It is late afternoon in early spring. A lone car (me) is southbound on Highway 63 south of Midland. An early season thunderstorm had just rolled across the prairie and kept me entertained for half an hour. As the sun broke through retreating clouds, a steepled building atop a distant hill caught the light and gleamed against dark blue storm clouds beyond. St. Peter Lutheran in northeast Jackson County had always caught my eye on this stretch of road, but on this day it was glorious. Unfortunately this was before I began regularly shooting photos, so I was unprepared to capture the scene. That still bothers me.

Last July, a mean thunderstorm roared along the Missouri River valley. Drawn like a moth to a porch light, I caught up with it in Yankton County. The goal was to get some interesting weather photos. The problem, I soon learned, was that this storm was rife with lightning, the kind that illuminates the countryside like a million flash bulbs and then rattles your windows with an immediate thunderclap. After a handful of those I decided I might be a little too close to the heart of this beast so I retreated north and west. About the same time I noticed a rainbow forming in the evening light, I also saw the distant shape of Faith United Lutheran Church. By the time I got to the church, a double rainbow had formed. This time I had my camera.

Earlier this week the Northern Lights began to shine and shimmer. I remembered another local photographer (Zachary Wicks) had shot a stunning photo of Oslo Church in Brookings County silhouetted against early October Northern Lights, and I wanted to see if I could capture something similar. Oslo Church has not been used for some time and has no yard light — perfect for shooting against the night sky. I set up my camera on an approach about a quarter mile south of the church. Low clouds obscured much of the horizon, but then magic happened. As the moon rose and coyotes began to howl, a break in the clouds revealed those mysterious pillars of light rippling above the church.

These examples illustrate why I’m drawn to photographing country churches. I love the symbolism of all the things a church is supposed to stand for contrasted against the expanse of the surrounding country and open South Dakota skies. Lately I’ve realized that almost everywhere I go or whatever I’m planning to shoot, if I find a picturesque country church it’s usually my best shot of the day. That is why I’ve compiled my favorite shots of rural churches over the years on a Facebook page called Prairie Sanctuaries. I’ll add to the collection as I travel the state and region. You are invited to visit the page often and visit these places with me. I promise to always have my camera handy.

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midcontinent Communications he is often on the road photographing our prettiest spots around the state. Follow Begeman on his blog.