Tag: custer county

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Historic Ranch Turned to Ash

By John Andrews

The Williams Ranch had survived many a Black Hills wildfire. When we first explored the ranch in 1992, the most recent blaze had been extinguished just one hill away. The 18 buildings — all built by hand from Black Hills pine by Albert Williams in the 1890s — were safe.

Then last week, the metal blade of a road grader smoothing one of the Hills’ many twisting, gravelly paths sliced a rock in half, flinging sparks into the dreadfully drought stricken grass. The resulting Myrtle Fire, which has burned 16 square miles near Pringle, consumed the Williams Ranch on July 20.

“It’s hard to deal with,” says Michael Engelhart, an archaeologist with the U.S. Forest Service who has worked to preserve the ranch.”This was a part of my life for five years. It was a pretty sad day when I heard it had gone.”

The Williams Ranch, nestled 3 miles south of Pringle in peaceful Shirttail Canyon, was one of the oldest remaining homesteads in the Black Hills. Albert Williams felled Black Hills pine trees and milled them at his personal sawmill to build his house, which he finished in 1896. Over the next decade he added a smokehouse, outhouse, root cellar, granary, workshop, garage, corral, barn and other miscellaneous outbuildings.

“They did a little bit of everything,” Engelhart says.”They raised pigs, cows, sold cream for cash. For a while Emma ran a telephone station out of their house in the 1930s. It’s a wonder that they did everything they could to make it from 1896 to 1944, living off the land and taking care of themselves and their neighbors because it can be really harsh out there. Emma used to raise gooseberries and apples, and people wondered how she did it because it’s so dry and inhospitable down there.”

Trees and lilac bushes planted by the Williamses survived 115 years until the fire swept through last week. Engelhart says firefighters tried valiantly to save the ranch. Fires in the corral and barn were extinguished and a line had been drawn to protect the other buildings.”They thought they had it,” he says, exasperation evident in his voice.”They put a lot of resources into protecting it. But they turned their back for a second and the whole thing just went up. They were shocked and saddened because they were winning the battle. They thought they had beat it.”

Albert and Emma Williams lived on the ranch until 1944, when poor health forced them to move to Hot Springs. The ranch held other occupants until 1984. The next year, federal authorities made one of the largest drug busts in state history there. The ranch changed hands several times until the U.S. Forest Service took possession in the late 1980s.

Forest Service personnel had grand plans for the Williams Ranch. Archaeologists rebuilt the porch and did other rehabilitation work. There were dreams of turning it into a living history ranch and creating a trail system. Engelhart escorted dozens of school and service group tours. It was only a step or two away from inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

As devastating a loss as it is to the Black Hills and South Dakota, it’s worse for the family. The Williamses’ youngest daughter Betty and her family were actively involved in rehabilitating the ranch in the early 2000s.”I felt bad to have to break such news to them,” Engelhart says.”They really cared about that place. It was history to us, but it was their personal history.”

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Recapturing Custer’s Trail [Video]

We are big fans of Black Hills photographer Paul Horsted. That’s why we were so thrilled to see Fox 7 News in Rapid City do a three-part series on his re-photographing projects, where he captures a South Dakota scene or landscape based on a historical photo.

Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer’s 1874 Expedition passed within a mile of Horsted’s house. That closeness to history led Horsted and writer Ernest Grafe to retrace the Expedition’s Black Hills footsteps in their 2002 book Exploring with Custer. The two teamed up again along with historian Jon Nelson on a companion volume called Crossing the Plains with Custer, which follows the entire Expedition route from Fort Lincoln.

When we featured the books in our Sept/Oct 2009 issue, Horsted told us “I’m really excited by anything that connects us to history in a more direct way.” That includes photographing the same scenes the Expedition’s photographer captured 138 years ago and finding cartridges, buttons and horseshoes soldiers left behind.

PART 1:

PART 2:

PART 3:

For more information on Paul or to order books, visit Dakota Photographic.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Explorers of an Unseen World

By Paul Higbee

Editor’s Note: Jan & Herb Conn were inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 2011. Herb died Feb. 1, 2012 at age 91. They were featured in this story, revised from the Jan/Feb 1998 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

Jan & Herb Conn discovered miles of passageways and chambers in Jewel Cave. This Jewel Cave National Monument photo shows them near Treasure Aisle in 1961.

Over 60 years after Jan and Herb Conn found the Black Hills on a cross-country rock climbing trip, they still lived here deep in the forest. The rustic cabin they built sits west of Custer State Park, and from their property you can gaze at the granite Needles’ formations, including spectacular Cathedral Spires.

They filled many days with long hikes to Black Hills landmarks they named. They were detached from the wide world in some ways, but are certainly not naÔve about it, and they didn’t come to South Dakota to hide from the world. They’ll live in Black Hills history forever as the spelunkers who proved Jewel Cave to be among the world’s largest. Both are published writers. Herb used to dangle from the Rushmore heads each fall, doing annual maintenance on the four faces. Jan’s musical play, Run to Catch a Pine Cone, has been performed throughout the country. Fellow climber and cave explorer Dwight Deal, in the foreword to a book the Conns authored about Jewel Cave, called them simply, “two of the most remarkable human beings I have ever met.”

Herb grew up in New York state and Jan in the Washington, D.C., area. Not long after they fell in love with one another, they fell in love also with rock climbing, which they learned on the Potomac River cliffs. “When you’re learning to climb, it’s handy to have a river below you,” noted Jan.

Herb Conn dangled from the faces on Mount Rushmore each fall to do maintenance work. (U.S. Dept. of Interior photo)

They married in 1944 and Herb made good money as a civilian electrician for the Navy during World War II. The young couple tucked most of those dollars away for post-war, transcontinental rock climbing treks. Careers, they decided, would be sacrificed for outdoor adventuring; they’d seek out seasonal odd jobs to pay their bills. A seemingly innate belief that they could do most anything served them well. For example, Jan once answered a help-wanted ad for an experienced Venetian blind assembler. She got the job and then got busy at home disassembling and re-assembling a set of blinds. When she reported to work the next day she was, indeed, experienced.

They took seasonal tourism jobs from New England ski resorts to an Arizona dude ranch, “until we got tired of smiling at people,” Jan recalled. Returning east from California in 1947, driving a panel truck the Conns describe as “the world’s first RV,” they decided to check into climbing challenges at Devil’s Tower. Much impressed by Devil’s Tower and the rest of the Black Hills, they nonetheless were unprepared for their first glimpse of the Needles. “If you’re a rock climber, you won’t find anyplace better,” said Jan. In 1949 they bought 20 acres adjacent to the Needles. A couple years after that they’d built a rustic shelter on the place.

Rock climbers in the 1950s were far less common than today. If you’ve got vacation photos from that era showing people scaling the Needles, it’s a good bet the subjects are Jan and Herb. They never guessed, up there in the wind, where their next adventure would lead them.

By 1959 Jan and Herb had been scaling rocky heights for 17 years, and were supporting their climbing addiction by creating customized leather and wood products. That year they broke routine and went spelunking with friend Dwight Deal at nearby Jewel Cave. For the next 22 years they explored Jewel almost weekly.

Jan & Herb during their spelunking days.

Spelunking, they found, put to use some of their well-developed climbing techniques, required tremendous stamina, and took a toll on knees and elbows. Compact and strong, both Conns could wriggle through spaces sometimes only eight inches wide for long distances. They came to live for the magic words, “It goes!” meaning they’d found a passage extending deep into the black unknown.

Jewel Cave, it turned out, goes farther than anyone dreamed 40 years ago. Today it ranks as the world’s third longest cavern system, with known passages extending 110 miles. Located west of Custer, Jewel was designated a national monument by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908. In 1959 it was still considered a small cave, measured by yards, not miles.

‘There was talk then that it wasn’t up to national monument standards,” said Jan. “I think maybe the Park Service was happy to have us explore, so they would know what they were getting rid of.”

The Park Service granted the Conns a special use permit, meaning Jan and Herb Conn could volunteer all the time they wanted exploring, as long as they also mapped their routes. Then the Park Service sat back in awe as the duo, accompanied by Deal and a series of other capable partners, filed reports describing a dizzyingly complex network of passageways, lofts, and chambers.

Jan and Herb named their finds: Mighty Tight Street, Long Winded Passage, Carnegie Hall, Torture Chamber, Hell’s Half Acre, The Other Half Acre, Black and Blue Grottoes, to name a few. Santa Claus Chimney they discovered one Christmas Eve. Benny’s Vault echoed like a sound effect they remembered from Jack Benny’s radio show. Within a couple years they’d found big, scenic chambers perfect for public tours; problem was, it took seasoned spelunkers a good ten hours to reach those chambers from the cave’s entrance. The Conns helped the Park Service calculate where to drill a vertical shaft, from the surface to the scenic chambers 190 feet below, so visitors could eventually descend by elevator in about 30 seconds (prior to the elevator the Park Service offered tours in the natural entrance vicinity, still the area for candlelight tours today.)

As early visitors stepped off the elevator, Jan and Herb were exploring remote sections of the cave to the southeast, through tight passages called Calorie Counter, Miseries and, tighter yet, Mini Miseries. In the era when Apollo astronauts stepped on the moon, the Conns also left footprints where no one had walked before. On December 4, 1973, they recorded the cave’s 50th mile — a mark deemed unthinkable a few years earlier.

“You don’t do it for the mileage,” said Jan. “And yet the mileage gets in your blood.” That’s especially true as a cave climbs onto the list of the world’s longest.

The Conns fell in love with each other and then with rock climbing. Photo by Paul Higbee.

Now, almost two decades after the Conns turned the exploration over to others, the mileage continues to mount. There’s long been speculation that Jewel and Wind caves might be one and the same, but Jan and Herb couldn’t imagine spelunkers proving it so. Eight hours of rugged going from the elevator will take you two miles toward Wind Cave; that’s as far as Jewel’s been explored that direction. From that point, the nearest Wind Cave could be is about 20 miles (those 110 known miles don’t run anywhere near 20 miles in any one direction; they twist and double back to form a baffling maze).

Today visitors can take guided tours in the elevator vicinity, where there are electric lights and smooth walkways, or they can take the more rugged candlelight excursions. And for those small enough and physically fit enough, there are spelunking tours that let you feel like Jan and Herb for a few hours. Combined, these tours take visitors to only a tiny portion of this mostly wild cave.

Yet another way to experience Jewel Cave is by reading the Conns’ book, The Jewel Cave Adventure ñ Fifty Miles Of Discovery Under South Dakota, published in 1977 by the National Speleological Society. Filled with the excitement of discovery and lots of humor, the book even features a recipe for spelunkers’ bread, and cave songs Jan composed.

Once committed to a wayfaring lifestyle, the Conns seldom traveled in the years before Herb’s death in 2002. Jan and Herb said they’d cling to most any excuse to stay home, like deciding canned goods might freeze in their absence.

“Anyway,” said one visitor, “out here you’re living a life people dream of.”

“If they really dreamed it,” said Jan, “they’d be living it.”

Posted on by — Leave a comment

South Dakota Adventurer

By Rebecca Johnson

Hello to all our South Dakota Magazine readers. My name is Rebecca Johnson. I look forward to sharing my experiences of outdoor adventure and travel in South Dakota. I am a Yankton native and attended the University of South Dakota to study communications. It was my dream at graduation to work at South Dakota Magazine, but alas, they were not hiring at the time! My husband Jeremy and I returned to Yankton anyway and I worked as a graphic designer for several years.

I fulfilled my dream of joining the South Dakota Magazine staff about two years ago and am currently the Special Projects Coordinator. I’ve enjoyed a lot of behind the scenes projects as well as writing for the magazine.

My parents taught me an early appreciation for the beauty of our state — almost all of my childhood vacations were to some part of the Black Hills. I still remember the excitement I felt when we finally reached the tall pine trees and winding roads. It made the long, boring car ride worthwhile.

A favorite vacation memory is hiking Sunday Gulch Trail off Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park. Finding its trailhead seemed serendipitous as we hiked down the rocks among little waterfalls. I felt like a real rock climber. Unfortunately, we didn’t bring any water or snacks, nor had we researched the length of the hike. Eventually my sisters and I became tired and cranky. We dramatically plodded along, complaining that we were starving. We were sure we couldn’t go any further. Finally my Dad gave in to our whining and jogged ahead to look for the car. It makes me smile now to think that it was only about three miles. I’ve hiked longer and more difficult trails since but I still get that feeling of awe when I return to Sunday Gulch.

Jeremy and I continue to explore the outdoors through running, hiking and biking. I even completed my first marathon last fall when Sioux Falls brought back their full marathon. We are also big music fans and love to take in live shows around the state, especially the outdoor ones. So you might even catch me writing about a local band or two. I can’t wait to share our future adventures with you!

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Could You Refuse The Burros?

Thousands of vacationing families have encountered the friendly pack of burros that lives along the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park. It’s become tradition to stop and feed them a treat, but while preparing our May/June 2011 issue’s “Oughta Do” list for kids, we discovered the burros were never meant to be there and visitors really shouldn’t feed them.

Of course we should have known not to give them food. There are signs posted throughout the park discouraging feeding any wildlife. Like most motorists, we assumed that meant the buffalo, bighorn sheep, and the other more dangerous creatures. But certainly not the affable burros.

However, when we called the park seeking more information, a ranger told us the burros are just as wild as any other animal that roams the Black Hills National Forest. She further reported that burros are not native to the Hills. Workers brought them to help haul materials while building roads and bridges, and to carry visitors up Harney Peak. When construction work was finished, the men turned the burros loose.

Nowadays, when you drive the Wildlife Loop, the fearless burros walk right up to your car. They’ll even stick their heads in the window if they smell something good. And that could be anything. A burro once snatched a cough drop from a driver’s hand.

Park rangers don’t recommend visitors feed them, but they know it happens. And it probably always will. Very few people can say no to the world’s cutest beggars.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

No Gold In Those Hills

By John Andrews

Sorry, treasure hunters. We’re about to burst your bubble.

Our blog last week about the South Dakota guidebook written in the 1930s prompted a note from Custer, South Dakota photographer Paul Horsted. He’s been trying to correct a myth that’s been circulating ever since the book appeared.

Apparently the writer was told a tall tale about buried treasure. The story says that as Custer and his men were leaving the Black Hills following their 1874 expedition, they buried a large cache of arms, ammunition, gold and whiskey at their campsite where Box Elder Creek meets Bogus Jim Creek.

Horsted has done two books that retrace the Custer Expedition’s trail, so he has spent hours digging through old accounts of the trip. He regularly receives inquiries about this stash because the story appears on numerous treasure hunting websites, and he’s eager to set the record straight.

Here’s why Horsted believes the story is garbage: “No one has ever been able to explain why Custer would bury anything. They were about to re-cross Indian territory and would want all their guns. Based on accounts, the whiskey was being consumed in large enough quantities that burying it would make no sense at this point. as they were heading home. There’s no discussion in the accounts of enough gold being found to bury any of it due to weight. They had over 100 wagons to carry supplies, many of which would have been quite empty by this part of the expedition.”

And here’s what Horsted says really happened: “A wagon (possibly carrying a Gatling gun) and apparently some other wagons tipped over on a rough section of trail. The gun was recovered but parts of the wrecked carriage it was on may have been left behind. This somehow turned into ‘buried guns’ and then ‘buried gold’ and the rest over time. Great story, but there is absolutely no mention of anything like that in the 15 first-hand eyewitness accounts of this expedition which we have researched for our books. (If there was, I’d be out there looking myself!)”