Tag: scotty

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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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Philip: The Rugged West

By Paul Higbee

On horseback and in wagons, adventurers rode for a week in July 2011 across prime shortgrass country, along the Bad River from Philip to Fort Pierre. Could there have been a better way to honor Scotty Philip, the man credited with saving the buffalo and for whom the town is named? Scotty would recognize every stream and butte along the route.

Born in 1858 at Morayshire, Scotland, Scotty is best remembered as for his buffalo conservation, although South Dakotans of his era knew him just as well as a cattle baron, financier and legislator. He always seemed bigger than life, and the state was stunned when he died suddenly on July 23, 1911 at age 53.

In the 1880s, still in his mid-20s, Scotty grazed cattle along the Bad River. By 1891 letter writers across America could address an envelope to Philip, South Dakota, and it would come to a makeshift post office near Scotty’s ranch headquarters. Most of the letters (and bills) were for his own cowhands. This rural post office proved remarkably mobile the next several years, bouncing from ranch to ranch. The post office ended up at today’s Philip townsite after the Chicago and North Western announced its rails were coming through, connecting Pierre and the Black Hills. By the time the first locomotive rumbled its way to the site in June 1907, businesses had sprung up, including the 73 Saloon. The saloon is still serving drinks today. Scotty Philip had called his cattle outfit”The 73,” and the saloon founder was Slim Taggert, a 73 cowboy.

Sign painter Barry Knutson’s customers include Wall Drug, Al’s Oasis and other West River must-stops. Most of his billboards are along U.S. highways, but he created a Wall Drug sign in Italy while serving there in the National Guard.

Another early Philip business was the North Western Hotel, where homesteaders who rode the rails into town slept, ate and met locators who showed them prospective farm sites. Among those who stepped off the train in 1908 was Besse Gause, 24 years old, single and from Iowa. She established a homestead and landed a teaching job in a one-room school. Her life was later profiled as part of the Daughters of Dakota historical collection. Besse’s adult daughter wrote that she wondered why her mother opted for such a hardscrabble existence.

Suffice it to say some people are drawn to the Dakota prairie, the more remote the locale, the better. Marie Slovek, like Besse a teacher, is a modern day example. Originally from Chicago, vacations west told Marie she was cut out for a life removed from city lights. Still, when she pulled into Philip several years ago, she recalls,”I thought I’d teach third grade for the nine-month school year and maybe move on. But I absolutely fell in love with the area and the town.”

That relationship was cemented when Marie suffered a house fire in Philip.”By the next morning,” she says,”people had arranged for a place for me to live, and I had furniture, appliances, food and clothing. People in Philip really look out for one another.”

She stayed, married buffalo rancher Dwight Slovek, and became the school’s technology coordinator and elementary computer teacher.”When my family visits from Chicago,” Marie notes,”they’re awed. They sit on the deck at night and see no man made lights, or in the day they can watch weather moving in, watch it before it happens.”

Kerry Hostetler (pictured with her son, Jesse) is a rancher’s wife who runs a flower shop in Philip.

Philip puts the surrounding vastness to creative use. Early residents took the lead in complaining that Stanley County was too vast, that it should be broken up to create two or more additional counties. They believed Philip sat perfectly positioned to serve as a county seat, which it became in 1914 after Haakon County was established. Municipal leaders also worked to make certain Highway 14 was routed their way, and in 1935 won support for a municipal auditorium. The idea was to create the region’s main center for live entertainment and athletics. The brick structure went up fast after gaining Works Progress Administration (WPA) designation. For the next quarter century Philip hosted district high school basketball tournaments and popular dances featuring big band leaders Lawrence Welk and Tommy Dorsey.

In the early 1960s, just as the shine had worn off the auditorium (the historic building is now a well-stocked Hardware Hank), Art Kroetch decided it was time to take his Philip salvage yard enterprise in a new direction. He started Scotchman Industries, a manufacturer any community — big or small — would be proud to claim. First Kroetch and his crew built heavy-duty farm and ranch products: corral panels, chutes, gates, and pickup racks. In the process the company acquired enough modern metal working know-how to manufacture its own metal fabricating systems, beginning with an innovative hydraulic ironworker. Kroetch, who died in 2007, aggressively pursued international markets, and the company he founded remains a worldwide industry leader.

Mark Buchholz and his son, Kent, operate Kennedy Implement, a farm machinery headquarters.

Art Kroetch”had the community of Philip in his heart” says his son, Jerry, who is current Scotchman Industries president. Indeed, the company is a key to how Philip has successfully weathered ag country’s economic ups and downs, steadily maintaining a population of about 800 over the decades. Today there are 60 Scotchman Industries employees.

Visitors find an intriguing small town — and not just because of the storied hardware store and 73 Saloon. Center Avenue, two blocks long, is understated until an observer takes a look at the array of small businesses — a steakhouse, attorney, pharmacy, several bars, Cattle Business Weekly newspaper (“For cattlemen — by cattlemen”), a variety store, insurance, auto parts. And there’s something most unusual for a town of less than a thousand residents. The Gem, with 212 seats, is a first-run movie theater.

“We’re the only movie theater between Pierre and Rapid City,” says Amy Moses, whose family owns and operates the Gem. In saying that she echoes the way dozens of Philip entrepreneurs have promoted their businesses over the years. At the Gem, $6 will buy an adult admission (a dollar less at matinees) and a sack of large popcorn is just $1.50. Once in a while movie-goers will drive more than an hour from Rapid City, not surprising given the reasonable prices and the pretty prairie drive most summer evenings. First-time visitors see the Gem as something of a museum piece in this age of multiplexes.”It goes clear back to the silent movie days,” says Moses, pointing out show bills from that era, displayed on the walls. The original ticket booth — a narrow booth, indeed, with room for one ticket seller — stands in the middle of the lobby. Movies run Friday through Monday.

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.

Although it has its charms, like the Gem, Philip overall exudes a feeling of West River ruggedness and functionality. It’s not a place that seeks the label”quaint.” Residents know, too, that there’s always been more interest statewide in Scotty Philip the man, than Philip the namesake town.

Today’s historians are quick to explain that Scotty Philip had help in saving the buffalo, beginning with Frederick Dupree. Both men ended up with South Dakota towns named after them. And both made fortunes on cattle, in part because their marriages to Indian women allowed them to graze stock on the Great Sioux Reservation. Dupree, his sons, and probably some ranch hands captured five buffalo calves in 1883. After Frederick died in 1898, Scotty bought the buffalo. When he died in 1911, the herd had grown to over 900 head. Five years later, part of the herd moved west to Custer State Park, an event that was key to the buffalo’s comeback both regionally and nationally.

Some historians consider Scotty Philip and Frederick Dupree emblematic of the culture that jeopardized the buffalo’s existence in the first place. Even such critics, though, agree both men were likely influenced by their wives, and their wives’ extended families, to see buffalo as more than mammoth pests.

Out there on the prairie, after the wagons stopped rolling for the night, all that history made for good talk under the stars.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2011 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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The Buffalo vs. the Bull

By Jim Dickson
Folks from both sides of the border gathered to watch the contest between Scotty Philip’s buffalo and a Juarez fighting bull.


There’s no one quite like a four-year-old for pondering the imponderable. My grandson Little Jack once asked me if a saber-toothed tiger could beat up a Tyrannosaurus rex. I told him I’d have to think about that, but I did know that a South Dakota buffalo could beat up four Mexican fighting bulls. At least that’s what happened in Juarez, Mexico in 1907.

Scotty Philip, the well-known Stanley County cattleman and buffalo fancier, was in Texas on a fall buying trip and encountered a couple of sports from Juarez who were given to loud and repeated boastings about the stamina, fierceness, and fighting heart of the sharp-horned bulls they bred for combat in the bull rings of that country.

In response to this chauvinistic yammering, Philip politely suggested to the boastful Mexicans that he had, on his ranch, any number of ordinary buffalo that by damn could mop up the ring with the finest of those so-called fighting bulls. He furthermore offered to ship one or more of these buffalo to Juarez to prove his point and solidified his proposition with a substantial wager.

The Mexicans had seen only pictures of buffalo, and the prospect of one of the awkward, shaggy creatures challenging their fast-stepping, muscled beasts of destruction translated to them as an unprecedented opportunity for mucho dinero. Philip’s sporting proposition was quickly joined, and arrangements were made for publicity and use of the Juarez bullring.

Unfortunately, a severe blizzard required Scotty Philip’s presence on the ranch that January, so he was unable to make the trip to Mexico. In his stead, he dispatched his nephew, George Philip, to look after family interests and those of the local community, which had accumulated a sizeable pot to be wagered on behalf of the buffalo. Cowboys Eb Jones and Bob Yokum were sent along to tend the livestock.

From his ranch near Ft. Pierre, Scotty Philip selected two run-of-the-herd buffalo bulls, an eight-year-old and a four-year-old, for the contest. He called the older one Pierre; the name of the other isn’t recorded — Murdo, perhaps. The bulls were loaded into a specially reinforced boxcar, and the entire party made the trip to El Paso and across the Rio Grande to Juarez in seven days, amidst a generous amount of en route hoopla due to the advance publicity and general interest in the outcome of the matchup.

Stanley County matadors? George Philip and fellow South Dakota businessmen posed in the ring after the famous fight. Photo from S.D. Historical Society.

When they got the buffalo to the bullring on the designated Saturday, George Philip (according to his account of the trip in South Dakota Historical Review thirty years later) and company were surprised not only at the size of the facility, but at the number and fervor of the partisans from both sides of the border who had gathered for the spectacle.

When Pierre ambled out into the arena, the crowd emitted a buzz of anticipation. But the buzz became a groan as the shaggy bison reached the center of the ring and, tired from his long trip, calmly flopped himself down. Then there was a great reverberating roar as the Mexican bull was turned into the ring. Enraged by the darts that had been plunged into his shoulder to enhance his fighting spirit, the snorting, pawing bull launched himself at the unkempt mound in the middle of the arena like some 1,500 pound juggernaut from hell.

Pierre managed to get to his feet in time to take the bull’s charge head-on. There was what sounded like an underground explosion, and the dust cleared to reveal the unmoved Pierre stoically contemplating a surprised and slightly dazed bundle of bovine bewilderment that had been bounced back a rod or so from the point of impact.

But the bull’s momma hadn’t raised any dummies; after all, hadn’t he a pair of sharp horns that could slice this upstart’s liver right out of his body? So he sidestepped to a position that gave a clear shot at the buffalo’s uncovered flank, lowered his head and charged in for the vivisection.

Alas, the bull’s momma hadn’t told him about a major difference between bulls and buffalo; namely, that buffalo turn on their front, rather than rear, legs. This ability allowed Pierre to pivot at the last minute and once more absorb the bull’s charge with his massive skull plate. And this time, the buffalo put some thrust behind powerful counter-blows.

After the final encounter had brought him to his knees, the once-fearsome fighting bull fled to the nether regions of the arena and tried to climb out of the ring. Failing that, he could only stand shaking as the catcalls and imprecations of the angry crowd rained down.

Claiming a fluke, the Mexican breeders called on George Philip to allow them to try one of their “best” bulls against the buffalo. Ever willing to go the extra mile, George agreed; and a fresh contender — sinewy and belligerent as the first bull — roared out of the corral directly at Pierre, who stood patiently at ring center. The outcome was the same as before: no matter from which direction the bull charged, he was met head-on.

This scenario was replayed that afternoon with yet two more bulls — and to the same end. By the time the sun had started to sink behind the stands, four battered and shaking Mexican fighting bulls huddled in the shadows by the west wall while the pride of Stanley County rolled contentedly on his back in the arena sand. George Philip offered the younger buffalo in combat the next day, but all the heart had gone out of the Mexican breeders, and they declined. For them the question had been settled, and they had no desire for any further decimation of their prize stock.

It would be nice to report that the buffalo were given heroes’ welcomes back home; but because of transportation costs, they were sold in Juarez. One hopes they were used to enrich the fighting bull genetic strain, but the likelihood is that the burrito might have been replaced by the buffalito as the fast food mainstay in old Juarez for a time.

Later that year Mr. Scotty Philip founded the town that bears his name. His nephew, George, eventually became a respected lawyer in Rapid City. Eb Jones served as a Stanley County commissioner, and Bob Yokum has evidently been lost to history.

As I told my grandson, a South Dakota buffalo might have a struggle with old Tyrannosaurus rex, but I’m sure he’d give a sabre-toothed tiger all the fight he wants, and then some.

Editor’s Note: The author, Jim Dickson, is a Sturgis native who currently lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. This story is revised from the March/April 1995 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a back issue or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.