Tag: day county

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Our Vinegar Town

By Katie Hunhoff

Roslyn was best known as the birthplace of Myron Floren until Lawrence Diggs moved to town and opened the International Vinegar Museum. Now the tiny town of 183 is visited by people from across the country who want to learn more about vinegar and see a slice of small town life.

Diggs was living in San Francisco when he purchased some balsamic vinegar and wanted to find out how to make his own.”I started tracking down information and borrowing books from around the world,” Diggs told us when we interviewed him for South Dakota Magazine.”The more I found out, the more interested I got.” He not only found out how vinegar was made, but he uncovered the sociological, historical and economic aspects of the versatile liquid.

He relocated to Roslyn in 1989. Townspeople opened their handsome old brick town hall to Diggs when he decided to pursue opening a vinegar museum. Since then, Diggs has also published books and traveled across the U.S. and overseas to teach others about vinegar.

Volunteers from a non-profit group called CARE (Community Advancement of Roslyn and Eden) took over museum operations in 2008. One of the museum highlights is vinegar tasting. A variety of flavors are available; several you wouldn’t associate with vinegar, like tequila lime, strawberry champagne and raspberry. Museum volunteer Mary Wagner said some visitors buy vinegar by the case.

The museum is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, Friday through Sunday. A $2 fee is charged, but”instant scholarships” are awarded for anyone who finds it a hardship. The museum also hosts the annual Vinegar Festival, to be held on June 16 in 2012. Call 605-486-0075 for more information.


Chicken Adobo

Editor’s note: this recipe originally appeared in the July/August 1996 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

This is a traditional dish of the Philippines, usually served with rice and, Diggs told us, the chicken’s head. Diggs encourages cooks to add cinnamon or nutmeg to this stew and make your own call on the chicken head.

In a large pot, place the following ingredients:

1 chicken, cut into small pieces
1 cup vinegar
1 cup water
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 bay leaf
5 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons salt
5 peppercorns
2 mild red peppers

Chop the peppers if you want a hotter, spicier stew. Otherwise, add them whole near the end of the cooking time for a milder flavor. Cook slowly, until chicken starts to come off bones and gravy begins forming. If the stew is too sour, add a little more water. Remove some of the oil if desired.

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Danger: Thin Ice

By Bernie Hunhoff

The other day, a nice dog fell through the ice on the James River just east of Yankton. Rescuers were able to get him out alive.

We’re hearing stories like that every day. Debbie Hemmer of the Grant County Review reported this week that ice shacks are falling through the ice into Big Stone Lake, and huge parts of the lake are now open. Randy Stuckey, whose family ran the Bay View Resort for nearly 30 years, said he’s neer seen anything like it.

Apparently, a husband and wife on an ATV fell through the ice on Goose Lake. They were also pulled to safety.

GF&P officials recommend that ice fishermen not venture onto the lake alone. The 50-degree January days can melt the ice in a hurry.

I just got off the phone with Gary Block of Waubay, a Day County commissioner and jack-of-all-trades. He was in an ice shack on Bitter Lake. He says the ice there is a foot deep so he thinks he’s safe.

“Oh, I gotta go. A fat perch is biting,” he said.

Enjoy the winter, everyone. But you might want to wear a life jacket instead of a parka.

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The Perfect Babysitter

By Lee Schoenbeck

Photo courtesy of Webster Reporter and Farmer.

Our parents never hired a babysitter — never. But Mom would regularly announce that the $25 she spent each year for the family season pass at Webster’s public pool was the best money she ever spent on a babysitter. No wonder.

Like all the other neighborhood kids in Webster, we lived at the pool from Memorial Day until Labor Day. Depending on ages and the class, mornings were for swimming lessons, and then home for lunch. The pool opened at 1 p.m. and it was good etiquette to be in line at least 15 minutes early. Not sure what happened to those who couldn’t get there until after 1 p.m., but nobody in the neighborhood wanted to take the chance and find out.

The pool closed at 5 p.m., but that’s when then first round of swim team practices started, and they took you right to the evening general swim at 7 p.m. Sometimes after the pool closed at 9 p.m. we could still swim laps or have swim team practice.

Life for a city kid in Webster meant days at the pool. It also meant love.

For twenty years the first crush every pool-going boy in Webster had was on one of the many Baukol girls. They greeted us in the morning teaching our lessons, coached us on swim team, and beautifully occupied the lifeguard chairs at all hours of general swim in between. Romance didn’t get much better than that if you were between the ages of 8 and 14. After about 20 years Harmon Baukol quit providing daughters to the pool staff, and I left for college. I’m not sure how the young pre-teens in Webster survived, or who filled in for all those Baukol girls.

Whole summers of trouble and excitement were designed at the pool. Poor Mr. Meyer owned the apple trees closest to the pool, which made it the first and most obvious target for mandatory raids that took place almost nightly after practice. Sometimes we’d even get as far as Grandma Hoven or Grandma Johnson’s, but the absence of yard lights and the presence of way too many gardening devices brought a certain risk with running through those dark enclaves.

You also didn’t need much cash to hang out at the pool. With a quarter you could get all the Hot Tamales and other snacks you needed. Fashion hadn’t really hit the neighborhood, so cutoffs worked just fine for looking good at general swim. As for female fashion, there were really only three choices — Anthony’s, Nerger’s or The Elevator Store. The chances that they would have neighbors in the same summer fashion wear was pretty much a lock.

While we swim team folks thought life in the pool was built for speed, there was another way to prove prowess — the diving pool. Flips off the high board that didn’t finish in the form of a belly flop were to be admired and worshipped. For those lacking the death-defying urge, there was another option — the cannonball. Danny Giese perfected the 4:45 p.m., high board, soak-the-lifeguard cannonball. The one that got you kicked out for the afternoon (which was why it was best to wait for about 4:45).

Last week I drove by the pool, and saw that my old babysitter isn’t what she used to be. It was kind of sad to see such a big part of neighborhood life reduced to a hole in the ground. To this day, the old swim team crowd is still my close friends. Next year the young people in the community get to start building memories with a new pool. I’m sure all of us from the neighborhood wish for them the many great memories that the city parents built for us over fifty years ago.

Lee Schoenbeck grew up in Webster, practices law in Watertown, and is a freelance writer for the South Dakota Magazine website.

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Langford Smithy Helped Build First Tractor

Many agricultural innovations have come from South Dakota. Farmers have equipment they believe can be improved, and with a little tinkering there’s a brand new product. Norman Olson, a Langford native, writes to us from Colorado this week to tell us about Will Mann, a Day County homesteader and mechanic who helped build the world’s first successful gasoline-powered tractor.

Mann worked with John Froelich, from Iowa. Froelich brought a threshing crew to Langford every year, and became intrigued by the problems his straw-burning, steam-powered rig presented. It was dangerous to burn straw in strong Dakota winds with little available water, so Froelich started tinkering with a gas-powered substitute.

In 1892, Froelich and a team of inventors including Mann finished a tractor that could move forward and backward. They used it to power a thresher, then brought it to Day County for 52 days of harvest that fall.

Unfortunately Froelich and Mann were ahead of their time. Froelich started a tractor company, but his new invention didn’t catch on until long after he left the company.