Tag: midland

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West River Melting Pot

By John Andrews

We really have a thing for rocks at South Dakota Magazine. I’m not ready to call it an unnatural obsession because rocks really can be quite fascinating. And they are natural, so I guess it would be natural obsession?

Anyway, two weeks ago in our online feature on Moody County, we wrote about Lone Rock, a huge glacial erratic and local landmark. Lone Rock had been our selection back in the summer of 2011, when the magazine did a feature on one unusual thing to see in every county.

When it came to Haakon County, guess what we chose? Yep. More rocks. This time a pile of them. But just like Lone Rock, there’s a story behind the stack that helps us understand the uncertainty that came with settling Haakon County, a 1,800-square-mile tract right in the middle of West River whose untamed prairie could easily have intimidated homesteaders as they eventually trickled across the Missouri River.

This manmade landmark is the Silent Guide Monument, built sometime in the late 1800s or early 1900s by a sheepherder who wanted to mark a well that never seemed to go dry. It originally stood 14 feet tall and could be seen from 35 miles around. As cowboys and sheepherders battled for land, cattlemen sometimes roped the monument and pulled the stones to the ground. Once, a fed-up sheep man sat atop the pile with his shotgun, daring others to destroy it.

James “Scotty” Philip.

The monument’s importance faded as more homesteaders arrived and found their own wells. Still, locals kept watch over it, rebuilding its stones when they naturally toppled to the earth. Eventually they were permanently cemented together. You’ll find the Silent Guide Monument about 8 miles west of Philip on the way to Grindstone.

Many of the early homesteaders who relied on the monument were Scandinavian, which explains why the county was named after King Haakon VII of Norway after its creation in 1914. It’s the only county in South Dakota named for a non-American person, and is one of nine named for people who did not live in South Dakota.

One exception to that immigration rule was James”Scotty” Philip, who came from Scotland in 1874 and settled east of Philip in 1881. Philip is best known as”the man who saved the buffalo,” although history has shown that fellow rancher Fred Dupris deserves just as much credit as Scotty. Still, you can’t think of Philip without thinking of buffalo.

Scotty Philip’s bison were up to the challenge presented by Mexican fighting bulls.

Our favorite story involving Scotty’s herd happened in 1907, when Philip was on a fall buying trip to Texas. He encountered two men from Juarez, Mexico, who were bragging about the toughness and stamina of their country’s fighting bulls. Philip suggested that any one of his bison could easily take down a bull, and offered to prove it by shipping one or more south for a fight.

Philip selected an 8-year-old named Pierre and a 4-year-old, and under the guidance of his nephew, George, they departed for Juarez. On the day of the fight, Pierre sauntered into the ring and, tired from his long journey, flopped down right in the middle. The crowd roared when the Mexican fighting bull was released. He was eager to fight because darts had been plunged into his shoulder to enhance his spirit.

A favorite hangout for local ranchers is the Philip Livestock Auction Barn. Cattle sales are held on Tuesdays, and the popular cafe is open daily. Gathered (from left) are Jake Schofield, Barry Barber, Boyd Waara and Thor Roseth, the owner and operator.

Pierre got to his feet in time to absorb the bull’s first charge. When the dust cleared, there stood Pierre, with the dazed bull wondering what had just happened. A couple more charges left the bull shaking in the arena, the crowd showering him with jeers.

The Mexicans, believing this first bout to be a fluke, sent three more bulls to square off against Pierre. Each time the bison stood his ground, and the question of species superiority was settled once and for all.

Philip became a prominent stockman and legislator before he died suddenly in 1911 at the age of 53. It is said that as he was buried in the family cemetery, his buffalo crested a nearby hill to say a final goodbye. His life was the subject of a recent documentary called The Buffalo King, written and produced by Justin Koehler, who grew up near the tiny settlement of Nowlin in Haakon County and named his Colorado-based film company Nowlin Town Productions.

George Stroppel’s healing hands still soothe aches and pains in Midland.

Philip left several lasting legacies, including the buffalo herd at Custer State Park, which descends from his animals. Another is the town of Philip, formed in 1907 and named after him. It’s the largest city in Haakon County, with 762 people, and is definitely a cow town. The Cattle Business Weekly newspaper is published on Center Street and sale days at Philip Livestock Auction are lively. But there are also amenities you won’t find in most towns fewer than 800, including the Gem, the only movie theater between Pierre and Rapid City.

Just up Highway 14 is Midland, a town of 130 people tucked into the hills of the Bad River Valley. Midland has been known for decades for its healing hot springs and the hands of George Stroppel, longtime operator of the Stroppel Hotel. He has sold the business, and its now called the Lava Water Hotel, but he still offers the massages that draw people from hundreds of miles.

Sundays are busy in Milesville, pop. 2.

If you relish an even slower pace of life, visit tiny Milesville, pop. 2 — Dan and Gayla Piroutek. The postal service no longer delivers mail there, but two churches still hold Sunday services and the town hall hosts birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions.

Outside of those towns, there’s a lot of open space in Haakon County — and, if you believe in legends, a buried treasure. Ed Sanchez was one of Haakon County’s earliest homesteaders, settling on land near the Grindstone Buttes in 1878. He operated a roadhouse, ran cattle and carried the mail from Grindstone to Pedro. His business ventures must have been lucrative because local legend says that before Sanchez died in 1902, he buried his fortune in fruit jars along Dirty Woman Creek. Buy a shovel at the hardware store in Philip, head west out of town on the Grindstone Road and try your luck. If you unearth any rocks, just pile them up. They won’t look out of place.

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

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A Spa at Midland

By Mikkel J. Pates

I’ve wanted to take the plunge in Midland’s hot mineral baths since I was a kid. Every summer our family would pack the station wagon and take a road trip from Brookings to my father’s childhood home, a ranch north of Philip.

Half an hour before arriving we’d pass Midland, a dusty prairie town whose rooftops were barely visible from the eastern approach. A sign beckoned,”Downtown: HOT Mineral Baths. Stroppel Hotel.” When I asked my parents what a mineral bath was, the answers were vague, something about healthful properties. My grandpa, H.W.”Herb” Pates, once told me he went to the spa to treat his sore old rancher bones.

George Stroppel’s healing hands still soothe aches and pains.

Last fall I was planning a pheasant hunt near Pierre and thought I might need such a treatment after a day of walking fields. I searched the Stroppel Hotel online. To my delight I found it still existed, but was renamed the Lava Water Inn.

I dialed the phone number and found George Stroppel. He said he was 86 years old, but he was still a masseuse at the hotel and he remembered my grandpa. I made reservations for a mineral bath and massage.

George told me to meet him at his house next door to the hotel. He cleared the dining room table, poured me a cup of coffee and began telling me the history of the Stroppel Hotel. The story began when his father, John, moved to South Dakota from Iowa in 1907 and homesteaded 19 miles southwest of Midland. In 1914 John married a neighbor girl, Violet. They grew the ranch to 5,000 acres and had five children from 1915 to 1926.

John had a lung ailment since childhood and coughed regularly. He sought relief at a mineral bath, or plunge, in Capa, 10 miles east of Midland. A doctor operated the medicinal plunge that was fed by a well originally dug for railroad steam engines. The water’s supposed curative properties were discovered by accident. One night a local drunk, who also suffered from arthritis, passed out in a ditch full of the warm water.”They say that when he came to, he didn’t ache anymore,” George says.

In the Stroppel Hotel’s early years, as many as 75 people a day sought treatment from masseuse John Stroppel.

In 1929 John visited a hot springs mineral bath in Thermopolis, Wyo., and saw potential. He tried to purchase the spa in Capa but couldn’t close a deal, so he looked at the Bastion House in Midland.

The Bastion was built as a roadhouse during the stagecoach era in 1905. The building was moved to town in 1907 because it was too close to the new railroad tracks. In the Dirty Thirties the Bastion’s business declined and it was forfeited to Haakon County due to unpaid taxes. John bought it, hired a well digger and built three plunges. The original well descended 1,780 feet. Under natural pressure, the hot, soft water flowed to the surface at 33 gallons per minute.

In February of 1940, Stroppel began selling mineral baths. The hotel had 20 rooms that rented for 50 cents a night and 75 cents for double occupancy. People suffering a variety of ills would come for a 21-day regimen. Others came regularly for Saturday night baths. Patrons would warm up in the plunge, be wrapped in blankets and lie in a bed for 30 minutes to sweat. John hired a chiropractor to come in and give treatments. But the man drank too much, so John fired him, took a Swedish massage course and discovered a natural talent.

The Stroppel Inn halted train traffic for two hours when it was moved across the tracks in 1907.

Up to 75 people came through daily. The Stroppel was particularly known for treating folks with excess alcohol or tobacco problems.”Dad used to say that it seemed to take the poisons out of their systems,” George says.”My idea was that the heat and dilating blood vessels let the blood through quicker.”

George’s older brother, John”Jack” Stroppel, was a World War II fighter pilot in the South Pacific. Jack came home, took chiropractic training and replaced his father, John, who retired in 1949.

George served as a gunner’s mate on the USS New Jersey and came home from World War II at age 20. He finished high school and married Alice. In 1955 he moved to Pierre to help build the Oahe Dam. In 1958, his father paid George’s tuition for a Swedish massage correspondence course from a school in Chicago. But George was busy building stock dams with a cat-and-scraper business in Philip, and didn’t immediately use the gift.

John died of a heart attack in 1959. Jack stayed until 1966, when he relocated to Rapid City with his wife. George and Alice moved from Philip with their six young children in 1969 to help Violet run the hotel.

George remembers his first, awkward massage.”Mom introduced me to three guys in the lobby,” he recalls.”They were taking baths. They said, ‘You’re Jack’s brother, you ought to be able to give massages.’ I told them no, I could hurt them. They just laughed and finally talked me into it. I felt like I mauled them around like an old bear.” When the men asked for a second massage, George had a new career.

George and Alice bought the place in 1973. George considered updating the hotel but was discouraged by the rising cost of building materials and the declining flow of the well. In 1977 he had a new well drilled. He installed a submersible pump that still runs today, bringing up 20 gallons a minute. The hotel cut back to two plunges and George used some of the water to heat the hotel.

The author begins a treatment with a soak in one of the spa’s plunges. The 110-degree water has been used to treat ills from sore muscles to alcoholism.

“People started asking, ‘Does medical insurance cover it?'” George says of the treatment costs.”When I said no, they started saying they had to go somewhere else where they could use the insurance. At that time medical doctors were the only ones that could collect insurance.”

After telling me the Stroppel’s history, George showed me the hotel. Inside its glassed-in, pillared porch is a utilitarian lobby that George says was probably fancy in 1907, but isn’t today. One wall has historic clippings and photographs on various surfaces. The business is operated from a vintage roll-top desk.

Behind it are doorways leading to the”plunges.” Each has a small dressing area, leading to another door that opens to concrete stairs descending into the water. The 8-by-8 foot tanks are four feet deep. Light streaming through glass blocks glows off white fiberglass walls. The hot water pours in from a PVC pipe above the bath surface. A standing pipe”drain” is in the concrete, taking overflow to Mitchell Creek east of town.

The treatment lasts about an hour. Step one is a soothing soak for 15 minutes. The water is about 110 degrees, depending on the weather. George tells me to immerse a shoulder that has been bothering me, and move it around. The charge for the bath is $4. Step two is a 45-minute massage. George employs the Swedish massage method, using techniques he’s honed on countless patients. The massage charge is $40.

In 1998, George and Alice sold the hotel to their oldest daughter, Patricia, and her husband, Reuben Vollmer, a local maintenance man. In 2004, the Vollmers sold it to Jill O’Neill of New Florence, Pennsylvania. The Vollmers managed it for O’Neill until 2012, when they recruited Kathy Jensen of Sioux City, Iowa, to take their place. Jensen’s family owns and runs the Bio-Chi Institute of Massage Therapy in Sioux City. She first visited the hotel in the early 2000s and was intrigued. She now operates the business as the Historic Lava Water Hotel.

George says he isn’t getting rich, but he’ll keep working as long as he’s able and as long as people get results.”Massage takes a lot out of you,” George said.”But it also gives you a lot.” He believes in the healing powers of the bath.”Think of the thousands of people who have come through and gotten help from it,” he says.

About the Author: Mikkel Pates is a Brookings native. He spent 17 years writing ag stories for The Forum of Fargo. He currently writes for the Grand Forks Herald and Agweek.

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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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.

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Bad River Road: a Hidden Photographic Gem

By Chad Coppess

Some of South Dakota’s backroads offer not much to a photographer and some offer great rewards. The Bad River Road in central South Dakota between Fort Pierre and Midland provides more than most.

In roughly 45 miles of gravel road, you can find rolling prairie landscapes, winding waterways, a huge herd of buffalo, abundant other wildlife and a great ghost town. No matter what the season or weather, there’s bound to be something interesting to photograph here.

The start/finish lines for this photographic journey are just outside of Midland at the top of the hill near the city cemetery or just southeast of Fort Pierre off Highway 83. Depending on your vehicle, road conditions, amount of time you’ve got to spend, lighting conditions, etc., you might want to tackle this road from each end on separate trips.

From the Fort Pierre end you’ll come to the beginning of Ted Turner’s Bad River Ranches within roughly 10 miles. The large herd of bison here has an immense expanse of territory to roam, so there’s no guarantee that you will see them at all. When they are near the road however, they are spectacular. Even if you don’t find the herd, you’ll see some beautiful prairie and river scenery.

From the Midland end of the road, it’s approximately nine miles to the ghost town of Capa. Never a hugely populated place, Capa now boasts one resident, hundreds of prairie dogs and a few cows. Please don’t trespass on Phil’s yard without his permission, but do stop and say hi. He appreciates the company and doesn’t mind photographers. GPS coordinates for Capa are N44.96.641, W100.58.862.

Fourteen buildings are standing in Capa if you count three outhouses. Photographers (and painters) could spend a lot of time here capturing various subject matter. I love using High Dynamic Range techniques with this type of shooting. That involves shooting three or more different exposures of the same scene without moving the camera and then blending them together in the computer later. HDR gives you the ability to brighten shadows, darken highlights and emphasize texture. It also tends to give a vintage feel to a lot of photos.

There are many more hidden photographic treasures out there on South Dakota’s backroads. If you’ve got favorites you’re willing to share, let’s hear about them!

Chad Coppess is the senior photographer at the South Dakota Department of Tourism. He lives in Pierre with his wife, Lisa. To view more of his work, visit www.dakotagraph.com.