Michele Richter shared these photos of buffalo battling in Custer State Park last Saturday.
“What started out as a shoving match next to the Park road resulted in brute strength of these two,” Richter says. “It was so quick. I felt my heart pounding out of my chest trying to photograph it and marvel at it at the same time.”
Visit this link to see more of her work or purchase prints.
Sylvan Lake is considered Custer State Park’s crown jewel. It was created in 1881 when Theodore Reder built a dam across Sunday Gulch. It’s now a popular destination for swimming, hiking, rock climbing and fishing.
Michele Richter shared these photos from her weekend visit. “The lake was busy with people enjoying their last summer day,” Richter says. Visit this link to see more of her work.
Remember when you were a kid and mom yelled when you played in the mud? Well, at the Hermosa Mud Bog it’s the parents who get down and dirty … with some pretty big toys.
The Mud Bog Races were held August 24 on Highway 79, just north of Hermosa. 27 racers competed in four categories — modified, super stock, rancher and powder puff.
Club member Dan Holsworth says the sport is growing in popularity. Drivers are gravitating to established mud bog courses as more public lands are being closed to motorized vehicles. The Hermosa Mud Bog is a family event run by volunteers. All proceeds go to various charities.
Photos by Jack Siebold, editor of MyTown.
Ancient South Dakotans left their mark on the landscape by pecking, chiseling or carving images into the rocks and cliffs around them. These images, called petroglyphs or pictographs, can be found all over the Black Hills.
Tony Diem, a California native who works for bicycle power meter manufacturers Quarq of Spearfish, recently re-discovered and photographed one petroglyph-rich site near Hermosa.”I had visited the site about 8 years before, but my friend Mike Runge, the City Archivist for Deadwood, forgot the location. My girlfriend and I set out and drove many a road to find them off of Highway 79, including LH Road and Cobb Road, and saw some beautiful country, but we came up empty. I called Mike one more time and out of the blue he gave me the directions that had eluded his memory, verbatim.”
If you’d like to see them for yourself, Tony says,”They’re located just south of Hermosa where French Creek crosses Highway 79. Turn west and follow Downen Road for about a mile and a half.”
Photos by Tony Diem.
Ten thousand hikers made the trek to the face of Crazy Horse last weekend for the mountain’s 28th annual volksmarch, or organized hike. The 6.2 mile walk is the only time visitors are allowed on Korczak Ziolkowski’s giant sculpture in progress. Photos by Bernie Hunhoff.
Can one man make a difference? Consider Peter Norbeck, the burly well driller who became arguably our greatest leader.
Norbeck held a rare distinction among politicians — he never lost an election. Born in 1870, Norbeck rose from a Clay County dugout to become the state’s first native-born governor and a three-term U.S. senator. His family moved from Clay County to Charles Mix County when his father, a preacher, decided to build a new church at Bloomington, about 7 miles southeast of Platte.
His childhood home was donated to the Geddes historical society and now sits in the Historic Village in Geddes. Geddes leaders hope to raise $40,000 to make repairs on the house including shingles, repairing the foundation and floor, replacing windows and sheetrock.
As a progressive Republican, Norbeck became lieutenant governor after three terms in the state senate. He worked on important legislation that protected deposits in banks operating under state charters. As governor, he spearheaded the building of bridges across the Missouri and a state highway system. He created a rural credit program and made progress on workman’s comp laws. He established the state cement plant and the passage of state hail insurance. He even investigated hydroelectric development on the Missouri long before the dams were built.
Some of Norbeck’s most remarkable legacies had little to do with these progressive endeavors. In 1912, five years before becoming governor, he spearheaded the effort to establish a game preserve in the Black Hills. As governor he expanded on that idea, creating a legacy that South Dakotans still share. In 1919 Norbeck proposed the creation of a state park board to develop Custer State Park.
The park was one of the largest in the nation, but it nearly doubled in size, to over 70,000 acres, when Norbeck decided he wanted to include the Sylvan Lake/Needles/Harney Peak area, which was a part of the Harney National Forest. Norbeck asked Representative Harry Gandy of Rapid City to introduce a bill in Congress to transfer the land from federal to state control.
Custer State Park was just part of Norbeck’s vision for the Black Hills. He and highway engineers C.C. Gideon and Scovell Johnson explored the rugged terrain on horseback and on foot, seeking a route from the game preserve, through the Needles to Harney Peak. His pants torn, legs scratched and bleeding, the 240-pound governor collapsed on a log to catch his breath. “Can you build a road through there?” he asked Johnson. “If you can furnish me enough dynamite,” the engineer said.
Norbeck supplied 150,000 pounds of war-surplus blast and Johnson created 14 miles of perhaps the most scenic road in the West. Jessie Sundstrom wrote in her history of Custer State Park that when new road signs arrived announcing the highway, they read “Needless Highway.” Was it bad spelling or a prank? No one knows, but, “Johnson lost no time in scraping off the offending last “S” with his pocket knife.”
Norbeck also was a huge supporter of building Mount Rushmore, and secured much early financing for Gutzon Borglum. Norbeck had a say in Rushmore’s development. It was his suggestion to include his hero, Teddy Roosevelt, among the four presidents.
A plaque dedicated to Norbeck’s memory stands beside Iron Mountain Road in Custer State Park. Located first on the roster of his many achievements is well driller.
Using rigs of his own design, Norbeck dug over 10,000 water wells. Our writer Roger Holtzmann wrote in the Nov/Dec 1998 issue of the South Dakota Magazine:
“To dig a well might not, at first glance, seem like much of an accomplishment in comparison to becoming governor. Yet it would be difficult to overstate the significance of that humble hole in the ground. On many farms and ranches where he worked, the abundant water from one of Norbeck’s deep artesian wells was literally the difference between prosperity and just getting by — between moving on and staying put to build lives and families and communities.”
Norbeck was a visionary who worked as only a pioneer well driller could work to build a better South Dakota. We will benefit from his public service for as long as people call themselves South Dakotans.
If you think his childhood home should be preserved, you may want to support the Norbeck house project in Geddes. Contact CMCHRS, Box 132, Geddes, S.D. 57342.
Dan Alfson started taking photos as a hobby 3 years ago. “Little did I know how much it would become part of who I am today,” Alfson says. The Custer resident shared these winter photos of Black Hills wildlife. View more of his work on the Alfson Photography Facebook page.
American elk were once the most widely populated member of the deer family in North America. Hunting took its toll as pioneers moved west and elk began to disappear until only small herds were left in the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest and Canada. Rocky Mountain elk from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, were introduced to Wind Cave National Park in 1914. Wildlife photographer Dan Alfson shared these photos of elk in the National Park. View more of his photos on the Alfson Photography Facebook page.
Editor’s Note: We were sorry to hear that Black Hills historian and South Dakota Hall of Famer Watson Parker died this week at the age of 88. Long-time Hills residents might remember the Palmer Gulch Lodge dude ranch and resort near Hill City, operated by the Parker family until 1962. Parker and his wife Olga raised three kids in the shady pines there. He earned his PhD in history in 1965, taught at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh for 21 years, and gave expression to his love of the Black Hills in four books. The creation of one of them, Black Hills Ghost Towns, is described below, in a story from our January/February 2006 issue.
Watson Parker and Hugh Lambert published Black Hills Ghost Towns almost 40 years ago as a record of the myriad towns, stage stops and hovels that rose and decayed along with the boom and bust of the Black Hills gold rush. But their Ghost Towns is more than a coffee table book of interesting pictures and witty anecdotes. It is a valuable record of a vanishing history and a legacy to the enduring friendship of the two men who collaborated for over 17 years.
Like many Black Hills stories, this one starts with a family vacation. In 1937, Hugh Lambert’s family traveled to the Black Hills. While staying at Palmer Gulch Lodge, young Hugh fell in love with the Black Hills and met the innkeeper’s son, Wat Parker. They would become lifelong friends.
After Wat finished his daily chores, the two boys searched for abandoned mining camps. Their summer explorations left an indelible impression on Hugh. Even so, he would not talk to Parker again for 20 years.
Around 1957, Hugh Lambert decided it was time to return to the Black Hills. To his happy surprise, a call to the American Automobile Association confirmed that Palmer Gulch Lodge was still in business, and still run by the Parker family. It didn’t take long for Hugh and Wat to become reacquainted as they shared memories. Both observed that many of their stories would disappear as the towns and mines turned to dust.
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| Dr. Watson Parker was professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh before retiring to the Black Hills. |
Rather than lament in nostalgia, the two decided to find and record the history of the surrounding ghost towns. Little did they know that they would work on and off for the next 17 years, gathering material for what eventually was published in 1974 under the title Black Hills Ghost Towns. Their book describes about 600 towns and sites that once populated the Black Hills region. A few of the places survive today, but most were already ghostly when Parker and Lambert began their project.
They divided the work. Parker researched the places in old newspapers, maps and the”musty books of history.” He also wrote the descriptions for sites featured in the book. Lambert located the places on the ground, using the opportunity to correct old maps and to draw up new ones, many of which appear in the book. Lambert also selected photographs for the book and wrote many of the captions. He supplemented the photographs with his own pen and ink drawings.
Parker and Lambert’s Ghost Towns goes a long way toward capturing and preserving many of the”history, ballads, yarns, legends [and] monuments” that give the Black Hills its own unique sense of place. A favorite handed down from Parker’s grandfather is set in Pactola, once a bustling mining area and resort, now under the waters of Pactola Reservoir:
At Pactola in years gone by there used to erupt a dance of quite considerable vigor, presided over by the indomitable Mrs. Bernice Musekamp. During Prohibition, Wat Parker’s grandmother arrived for a visit in the hills, driven, in those long-gone days, by her chauffeur in his natty uniform of boots, breeches and visored cap. It was in this outfit that Pace (that was his name) decided to attend the Pactola dance. Unfortunately for him the local populace mistook him for a revenue officer on the prowl, and a hurried midnight call from Mrs. Musekamp brought Pappy Parker to Pactola just in time to rescue Pace from the angry crowd that was about to lynch him.
The authors also tell about Gayville, named for Albert and William Gay, the latter of whom”achieved notoriety by killing a boy who delivered a flirtatious letter to his wife. He was sent to reside in the crowbar hotel for three years; he returned unrepentant and was welcomed back with a brass band. A dissident party who didn’t like the way William dressed — thought he would look better in a rope necktie — hoped to put him on a platform where everybody could see him, but they were in a minority and nothing was done about it.”
The book teaches without an ounce of pedantry but with plenty of dry wit. One good example is found in the caption that accompanies an otherwise nondescript photo of a cemetery near Harney:
They always built the cemetery on a point of rocky ground. Some say it was to get the departed nearer to heaven, and probably many of them needed all the help they could get. Others say it was to get off the wet valley floor, for no man in his right mind would want to spend eternity in a grave that wasn’t properly drained. But mainly they picked out the most ornery patch of ground there was, that nobody wanted, and made a graveyard out of it.
Parker and Lambert also teach us that Moskee in Crook County, Wyo. was taken from the Pidgin English”maskee,” meaning”no matter, never mind, I don’t care.” They share the lore that Mystic might have been derived from”mistake,” but suggest the more likely (but more mundane) version that it was named by a pioneer who hailed from Mystic, Conn. They explain that the origin of the name Two-Bit is much disputed, and could have been named for placers that yielded 25 cents in a single pan, or, for the more pessimistic, because a miner couldn’t get two bits worth of gold in an entire day. With tongue firmly in cheek, the authors tell us that Bare Butte was”an early name for Bear Butte. Captain Raynolds, exploring the area in the 1850s, took meticulous care to note that it was pronounced Bewt, to avoid giving offense to the delicate-minded.”
While the book has many lighthearted stories, it also captures the pioneers’ desolation. Describing Burdock, in Fall River County, the authors note that”one gets the impression that maybe the young folks held out there as long as grandma in her little cabin looking towards the mountains lived, but when she died, they folded up the store and headed for civilization.”
Only occasionally does a touch of nostalgia creep into Parker and Lambert’s writing. In discussing Rockerville, Parker and Lambert recount its development as a”real mining camp,” and”one of the roaringest.” The authors then ruefully describe how modern Rockerville became a tourist town, and note with palpable regret:”There are not many echoes in the Rockerville of today — the clink of coin, rustle of bills and click of cameras have drowned them out.”
The book’s central theme is that”the ghosts of the past are where you find them.” The epilogue features a Parker story and a Lambert drawing as a monument to the lives that were lived in the harsh, rocky Black Hills:
Here lived the pioneers and built their hopeful towns, and here they nursed their frail ambitions only to move on, into the pages of history. These Hills and their past will come alive, though all around is in ruin and decay, if you will follow down the trails we have trod, see those strange sites that we have seen, and hear the tales that we were toldÖ
Custer State Park in the southwestern Black Hills is a place of superlatives. South Dakota’s first and largest state park boasts one of the largest publicly-held herds of wild American Bison in the world. The scenery is also some of the best you will find in our state. Thickly forested heights in the north give way to windswept prairie valleys in the south, providing a unique crossroad of geography as well as ecology.
I’ve spent as much time as I could in the park the last few years. Although I love the high country that includes scenic Needles Highway and Sylvan Lake, my favorite part of the park is in the southeastern half among the grassy valleys and prairie hills. I especially love the interior gravel roads that crisscross between points northeast and southwest along the wildlife loop road. I’m a sucker for wildlife photos. The wildlife loop is our state’s version of the Serengeti with all the wildlife that can be seen outside the car window.
My ultimate goal is to get shots of a wild mountain lion. I haven’t seen one yet. A couple summers ago, I thought I hit the jackpot. About dusk driving north on Highway 87 from Wind Cave National Park I rounded a bend in the road and saw the shape of a large feline casually strolling across the road. I hit the brakes and grabbed my camera. By the time I got my prize in the viewfinder I was only able see his rear end disappearing into the pines. I also noticed the tail was bobbed and the ears were pointed. So what I saw was not a mountain lion, but probably a very large bobcat or maybe a Canadian Lynx (if there are any of those roaming the Black Hills). Not my goal, but the rush of seeing the cat was exhilarating.
It’s that kind of adrenaline that drives me to cruise the back roads of the park in evenings and early morning. I’ve also learned the hard way that I need to stay on those roads. On Memorial Day weekend of 2010, an unseen rock punched a hole in my oil pan when I made a turn on what I thought was flat ground in the Fisherman Flats area. Dumb move. Thankfully I had enough cell coverage to reach the park headquarters and even more thankfully, the park ranger was a nice guy with good stories to tell as we waited for a tow truck to arrive from Custer. I’m sure I was now on his list of”things boneheads from East River do” stories. Oh well. Because I was without a vehicle the next day I hiked all around Stockade Lake and found my first shooting-star flowers high up along the trail.
Up until this September, I had visited the park in every season except fall. This time around, I was able to spend a couple days cruising the park as the fall colors were reaching their prime. Vibrant reds, yellows and oranges along the creek beds and canyon floors accented the already scenic views. My main goal was to shoot some of the wildlife amongst the autumn colors. With the abundance of wildlife used to vehicle traffic in the park, this goal wasn’t as challenging as I thought it might be. I was able to get bison, pronghorn and deer all with fall colors in the shots.
My last morning in the park, I drove up Needles Highway and waited for the clouds to clear so the early sunlight would hit the cathedral spires. While I waited, I heard a few weird calls in the valley below and then noises of wildlife scrambling in the rocks and then away and out of earshot. My mind imagined a mountain lion pursuing an elk or deer, but I really don’t know what it was. Soon the sun came out from behind the morning clouds and I got my photo. It was a good end to another successful stay in Custer State Park. Any time I have a chance to visit the granddaddy of all South Dakota state parks, I do. It is truly a priceless treasure nestled within our great state. I’ll be back…but not soon enough.
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. To view Christian’s columns on other South Dakota state parks and recreation areas, visit his state parks page.
