Photographer Christian Begeman captured the brilliant fall colors in Sioux Falls this month. See more of Begeman’s photos at cbegeman.blogspot.com or on our website.
Sioux Falls Fall
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The Parents of Sioux Falls
I spent a day working on a story in Sioux Falls last week and my travels took me through some of our biggest city’s most historic spots: the McKennan Park Historic District, the Pioneer Memorial that overlooks the town near John Morrell’s and Mount Pleasant Cemetery.
As I walked through the rows of gravestones at Mount Pleasant (the oldest active cemetery in Sioux Falls) I quite accidentally stumbled upon the gravesite of Josiah Phillips. I say accidentally because his small, white military stone caught my eye before the 8-foot concrete marker immediately to its right.
The name Phillips is easily recognizable; Phillips Avenue is a main thoroughfare through downtown Sioux Falls. But I never understood the extent of Phillips’ involvement in creating Sioux Falls, and his wife’s devotion to the city long after her husband’s untimely death.
You could say that Sioux Falls was actually created twice. Its original founders were speculators from eastern land companies who organized to establish a city on the falls of the Big Sioux River in 1856. Josiah Phillips was among them, becoming the area’s first doctor and justice of the peace. Settlers trickled in, but outbreaks of violence between fellow homesteaders and Indians led to the total evacuation of Sioux Falls in 1862.
The federal government responded by setting up Fort Dakota. The military presence was meant to alleviate fears of resettling the region, and families did slowly return. By 1869, with the threat of violence receding, citizens petitioned to have the fort removed.
Phillips returned in 1869, and his wife Hattie followed the next year. He bought the old Fort Dakota buildings at auction and the Phillips family used the officers’ quarters as their first home. In 1871 he became the first man to survey and plat land, creating several downtown blocks. Businesses soon sprang up: Richard Pettigrew’s law office, Harry Corson’s Cataract Hotel and William Van Eps’ general store.
When Sioux Falls incorporated in 1877, Phillips was elected as a trustee. Though he was trained as a physician, he rarely practiced in Sioux Falls. While serving as a surgeon during the Civil War, he suffered an injury to his eyes during General William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea and never completely recovered. Instead he devoted himself to various business interests and helping govern the budding city.
Phillips grew ill and died unexpectedly in June of 1882 at just 47 years of age. He left six children and Hattie, who was pregnant with their seventh. While raising her family, Hattie became just as involved in Sioux Falls’ growth as her husband had been. She helped create the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Women’s Benevolent Association, the YMCA, the Children’s Home Society and the Women’s History Club. Later in life, she wrote,”I call the city ‘my child,’ for I feel that I mothered it from the beginning. I am sure no one cared more for it than I did, nor prayed more earnestly that it might grow in all ways that were good.”
Today Sioux Falls is a booming city of 160,000 people. New businesses sprout every day, including a quaint coffee shop downtown called Josiah’s in honor of the city’s patriarch. No doubt the Phillips family would be proud of their town along the Big Sioux River.
125 Years on Canvas
By John Andrews
South Dakota means something different to all of us. As we celebrate our state’s 125th birthday this year, a collection of artists have put their interpretations of life in South Dakota into a special exhibit currently on display at the Center for Western Studies in Sioux Falls. “South Dakota 2014 Art Exhibit and Sale: Observing the State’s 125th Anniversary” is a juried show highlighting the works of 40 artists from around the state. Each piece tackles themes of statehood from a personal angle.
There’s an amazing array of diversity throughout the exhibit. Artists painted rural landscapes and city scenes, ranch crews and depictions of Native American life. The exhibit runs through Sept. 27 in the Center’s Simmons/Madsen/Nelson/Elmen galleries. Here’s a small sampling of what you’ll find on display:
La Hoo-Catt, by George Prisbe-Przybysz, depicts the Missouri River as it was originally surveyed by William Clark in 1804.
Bear Creek Branding, by Ariadne Albright, is based on a vintage photograph of cowboys working on a Harding County ranch in the 1930s.
Cave Hills Twilight, by Peter Kilian, showcases the beauty of Harding County’s unique landscape.
Toronto Morning Patterns, by Gary Steinley, portrays a scene at the Toronto grain elevator.
United, by Ron Backer, shows the Fort Pierre railroad depot, which is currently under restoration at the Verendrye Museum in Fort Pierre after years as a storage shed and sheep shearing facility on a local farm.
Pow-Wow Dancer, by Dennis Linn, features a young dancer preserving his Lakota culture.
Falls Park Flooding
June’s heavy rains and Big Sioux River flooding attracted curious onlookers to Falls Park in Sioux Falls. Photos by Scott and Marilyn Korsten.
The Sales Secrets of Oscar Austad
Editor’s Note: Oscar Austad’s entrepreneurial spirit was unmatched, as evidenced by the golf empire he founded in Sioux Falls 1963. Austad’s Golf remains headquartered there, but has grown to include 10 locations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa. We visited Austad in 1991, five years before his death, to find out how he became South Dakota’s mail-order millionaire.
Many Norwegians in South Dakota work too hard, shun alcohol and tobacco, shy away from golf courses, vote Republican and make lots of money. If they ever gather under one roof and form an association, it is likely to be called the Oscar Austad Society. Nobody exemplifies their values like the mail-order millionaire from Sioux Falls who started by selling cardboard golf club tubes from his car trunk.
Austad’s early background seemed ideally suited for business mediocrity. His father wanted him to follow in his footsteps as a Fargo, North Dakota carpenter. Austad considered a law career but quit college after three years.
He was fired from the insurance business twice. (He had the unpopular habit of advising superiors on how to run their firms.) He disliked salesmanship, avoided social occasions where alcohol was served and couldn’t resist telling prospects where to find the best deal, even if it wasn’t from his company.
Just the kind of guy you want to do business with if you’re buying golf equipment by mail, apparently, because 770,000 people placed orders with The Austad Company in 1990 and total sales exceeded $50 million.
The Sioux Falls firm has been the largest user of UPS ever since the brown trucks started rolling on South Dakota roads, and Oscar’s WATTS line phone bill runs about $1 million annually. Telephones are manned 24 hours a day by a team of 160 people.
Austad once candidly told a newspaper reporter his weaknesses may have also been his strengths. “I had been a failure at a lot of things and I had five children to support (when he was fired again in 1963 as an insurance adjuster in Sioux Falls.) But I had no antagonism … it merely spurred me on: Anytime I got fired or had a bad break, it became a good break because it made me buckle down like nothing else.”
Austad’s parents were Norwegian Lutheran immigrants. He learned how to work at an early age, earning 11 cents an hour as a bellhop at the local hotel and peddling newspapers on the street for a nickel.
He married Dorothy Hansberger and as the years passed, they found themselves with a houseful of kids (six, eventually). To earn extra cash, he sold golf equipment for his wife’s brothers, who founded Ram Golf. His first product was a cardboard tube that golfers used to protect their clubs.
Initially he sold to retailers, but the idea of going directly to the consumer by mail intrigued him, so he got a list of Minnesota bankers and sent a postcard which advertised the tubes. “I thought bankers probably had the money to buy and the time to golf,” he recalled. “To my pleasant surprise, they bought.”
He added a few more products, mimeographed a flyer that his 12-person art department would laugh at today, and found another list. The phone company helped by providing free directories for every city in the United States. Gradually, he developed one of the hottest mailing lists in the sports world, with well over 2 million names of people who buy by mail.
“We experimented with 30 categories,” he said.”Bankers are probably the best. We also tried savings and loan executives, dentists, doctors, lawyers and stockbrokers. Doctors have the money, but they don’t have the time so they haven’t been that good. I would say stockbrokers and CPAs are among the poorest. I guess they’re working too hard. We also tried insurance agents, funeral directors, teachers and ministers, with not such good results.”
The Austads keep the list “clean” which means if you don’t buy from them in two or three years, you get a letter asking if you want to continue to receive their mailings. They also collect data on the type of person on their list. The average catalog reader is male, middle-aged, earns $49,000 a year and, of course, plays golf.
Though business has mushroomed from year to year at Austad’s, it has not grown without some crafty moves. Austad tried to expand into other types of sporting equipment but he eventually came to the conclusion his niche is with golfers. However, expansion has been continued by the development of Austad lines of golf clothing under the names Linksport and Sycamore Hills (the company headquarters is at Sycamore and 10th in Sioux Falls.)
“We have our own people who draw up the designs,” he said. “We hire our own models and do the photo sessions in California and Hawaii and other resort locations.”
A variety of golf-related products aside from clubs and balls have also increased sales. For example, linksters can order fur knit head covers for their clubs, a Caddy Plus electronic scorekeeper, a Sure Catch plastic gizmo which retrieves balls “from murky and deep water” and an $84.95 electronic Pro Golf game of the country’s toughest holes. Personalized golf tees, monogrammed towels and a 24-karat gold plated putter are other products stocked and sold at Austads.
The products and price are important, Austad says, but the real trick to success by mail is service. Before employees can take orders for Austad’s, they must complete an extensive two-week training session that includes directions to service but not sell. “We don’t hire a single salesman in the entire company,” he says. In fact, even the clerks in the company’s three retail stores are directed to simply greet customers and then allow them to browse without interruption. Service is stressed, not salesmanship.
“The key to mail order is to get the message across to people who want the product, and then have the right product at the right price and get it out to them quickly,” Austad says.”That impresses people.”
Most orders are in the mail within 24 hours after arrival. Dissatisfied customers are a rarity. “We give faster attention to complaints than we do to new orders,” he said. Buyers can receive a full refund even if they don’t like the shade of pink. And it’s not uncommon for the company to throw in a dozen golf balls to soothe a customer.
Austad seems to have been born with a knack for treating people like he would like to be treated, a nice sales trick that many big corporations wish they could emulate. But he doesn’t consider himself a commercial genius, and he points to credit cards as proof. “I was kind of stupid along that line. I fought it for years and my son, who was then in junior high school, finally convinced me that we had to accept credit cards. He was right. No mail order company could stay in business today without them.”
Unlike the characters in a lot of rags to riches stories, Austad says he never experienced a doubt in his mind or a serious crisis once the mail order business was under way. When he left his final insurance job in 1963, he figured his customers would buy enough golf balls to feed the kids. Today he employs two of those kids and 460 other people.
Dave is president of the company. Under his leadership, the mail order business has expanded internationally and two retail stores were recently opened at Minneapolis. A third store is located in Sioux Falls.
Randy, a former state senator from Minnehaha County and by many estimates a rising star for the state GOP, is executive vice president. Oscar served as a state senator during the Kneip administration in the early 1970s, and the Austad political tradition gave rise to a line of clubs and balls called Senator, which is gaining in popularity.
Politics has been but one of several of Oscar’s causes. He has also been active with the National Right to Work Committee and the Center for National Labor Policy, which furnishes attorneys for workers who are being discriminated against because they refuse to join a union.
His employees have always been non-union, maybe because the boss is an advocate for more benefits. Austad’s features profit-sharing, health coverage, protective glasses for computer operators, liberal leave policies for vacations and illnesses and such perks as free milk and orange juice during breaks.
But when the company asks workers to specify their favorite fringe benefit, they often write in one that is not even listed on the questionnaire: clean air.
Which leads to another Oscar Austad cause. He has never permitted smoking in his stores or offices ó by customers or employees. “In our 28 years of business, we have not allowed anyone to smoke in our building. People once thought I was crazy, but now they’re coming around to our way of thinking,” he said.
For the past five years, it has been company policy to not hire anyone who smokes. “Somebody is probably going to take me to court for discrimination on that one,” he said with a determined grin. “Let them. I’ll enjoy every minute of it.”
His no smoking rule knows no exceptions. “We even kicked two governors out of here (Richard Kneip and Bill Janklow) for lighting up. They took it very well.”
For many years, Austad served as board member and chairman of a national group called Action on Smoking and Health. He has also been a local advocate for the rights of non-smokers and has spoken at many business and health conferences on the subject. “It irritated me every time I was sitting next to a smoker, breathing impure air.”
Austad also isn’t a fan of alcoholic beverages. According to one story, as a 9-year-old he promised his mother he would never drink or smoke, and when he found that their church was using wine at communion, he tried to convince the minister to substitute grape juice. Although The Austad Company has hosted employees at numerous social functions, alcohol has never been served.
Although Austad says South Dakota has been a good place to build a business ó primarily because of the honest and hardworking labor force ó he is glad he doesn’t have to rely on his home state for income. Only about 2 percent of the company’s mail order sales are from South Dakotans. The rest come from the remaining 49 states and from 53 foreign countries. Business from Japan and Sweden has grown so much that the Austads now publish catalogs in Japanese and Swedish.
Austad also investigated the potential of publishing a catalog for his parents’ homeland, Norway, but he discovered there aren’t many Norwegian golfers. It might be in the blood. He never golfed until he started selling golf equipment, and he jokes that he quit a few years later “because I was such a poor advertisement for our equipment!”
Today, he says, his sons handle the responsibilities on the golf course, as well as most of the other duties at the company. “They have been doing a great job, a tremendous job. I know they are because every few weeks, some big outfit contacts us and wants to buy us out.”
There’s no chance of a sale. Dave is 30 and Randy just 34. “And we’re all having fun in this business,” he said.
That includes the employees. There is remarkably little turnover at the firm. Austad’s first employee, Sharon Stahl, whom he describes as “a farm girl from Yale,” is still on the payroll. In fact, she is now corporate treasurer and a member of the board of directors.
He and Sharon recall those early days when they both answered the phone, opened the mail and greeted customers in a dumpy Eighth Street warehouse in the industrial section of Sioux Falls. In those days, he was discouraged from answering the phone because if he didn’t have exactly what the caller wanted he was quick to recommend a competitor. “I never was much of a salesman,” he claims modestly.
He can say it. But he isn’t fooling many people today. The quiet Norwegian from Fargo might be one of the smoothest salesmen of our times.
Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 1991 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.
Fine Fermenting
I started drinking kombucha a few years ago. Maybe you’ve seen it in your nearest health food store. It’s a beverage fermented from black tea, sugar and a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY). I like the tart flavor and refreshing fizziness. The probiotics and nutrients are great, too. But the $4 a bottle price tag makes me cringe. A friend gave me a starter SCOBY (it looked like a flat mushroom cap) to brew my own, but I was too nervous. I’d heard rumors of people dying from bad homebrews.
That’s why I was excited to find Cultures for Health, a website headquartered in Sioux Falls with an abundance of fermentation information and products. Founder Julie Feickert became interested in healthy living after her first child was born.”I took a class on living sustainably and learned about eating a whole foods diet and the amazing number of fermented foods you could make at home,” Feickert says. She purged her cupboards of processed foods and started making her own yogurt, kombucha, kefir and sauerkraut. And the more she made, the more she realized the need for a website with quality instructions, recipes and starter cultures.
“Meanwhile, I was facing a decision to go back to work teaching at night,” Feickert says.”My son was still quite young, and I really didn’t want to leave him, so I was looking for a way to work from home.” In 2009 she built a simple website and stocked a few products.”It took off beyond anything I had ever imagined.”
Cultures for Health now offers over 350 products for at-home fermentation and has a staff of 20. Feickert moved her business headquarters and her family from Portland, Oregon, to Sioux Falls in 2012.”We needed to be more centrally located to better control the quality of shipping perishable products and keep shipping costs and transit times as low as possible for our customers,” Feickert says.”Sioux Falls had a great mix of excellent shipping conditions, affordable living and a safe place to raise our young children.”
I haven’t made my own kombucha yet, but I feel more confident to try. Feickert’s website has a wealth of “how-to” videos and articles and sells pH indicator strips for the squeamish to test when the beverage is ready. And besides kombucha, they have products for yogurt, kefir, sourdough, buttermilk, cheese and more to help people ferment confidently.
A World War I Primer
All of the men and women who served in World War I are gone, and the only people today who can tell their stories are the friends and family members who had the foresight to interview veterans of the Great War before it was too late. World War I was the focus of last month’s Dakota Conference at Augustana College in Sioux Falls. Presenters told fascinating tales of South Dakotans who were on the front lines.
Marian Cramer is a Hamlin County historian known for her work at the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead in De Smet. But in the 1970s, she interviewed a handful of World War I veterans from Bryant, De Smet and Willow Lake. One of her subjects was Fred Huizenga, whom Cramer found living in a car as an old man in Willow Lake. Huizenga was only 16 when the United States entered the war in 1917, so he was turned away when he tried to enlist. He spent time as a wrestler with a traveling carnival, but the next year he made his way into the Army. He became a military policeman, and after the war, as he escorted former prisoners back to Germany, he happened upon a man with a tiny black mustache speaking on a street corner. Adolf Hitler was then a leader in the National Socialist German Workers Party. “He seemed so dangerous,” Huizenga remembered.
After Cramer’s interview with Huizenga, the town of Willow Lake decided to take better care of their veteran. Leaders installed a bed and television inside the American Legion hall, where he lived during summers on furlough from the State Veterans Home in Hot Springs.
Albin Bergstrom was a farmer from De Smet. He trained as an infantryman at Camp Pike and served at Chateau Thierry. Bergstrom served on burial detail. He told Cramer that sometimes they fell behind, so they simply covered dead bodies with a light dusting of dirt and left one boot exposed so a follow-up detail would know they hadn’t been properly buried yet.
Alvin Kangas of Lake Norden talked about his great uncle, Pfc. Arvid Tormanen, who served in France with the 30th Division, 118 Machine Gun Company. Tormanen was gassed at La Haie in October 1918, and his company was the first to attack the Hindenburg rail line. Before one particularly dangerous mission, Tormanen’s platoon leader said,”I’ll meet you in heaven, hell or Hoboken.” Only five soldiers, including Tormanen, survived. He lived west of Lake Norden for the rest of his life.
Fred Christopherson was city editor of the Sioux Falls Press when he enlisted in February 1918. He trained as a bomber pilot, but the armistice was signed before he saw action. He saw great victory parades in London and overheard English women with two different perspectives on American involvement.”These Americans will be insufferable now,” one said.”They’ll think they won the war.” A second woman seemed more appreciative.”Thank God for you Americans,” she said.”You won the war.”
Surely there are other stories like these that can be gleaned from letters and artifacts, probably tucked away inside trunks in an attic or basement. Since their authors are long gone, it’s up to us to find them.
Hanging With My Political Neighbors
Now I know why Rick Weiland is smiling.
I had the pleasure of touring South Dakota last week and talking politics with a wide array of my neighbors. It was a blast.
After charging up with a sunny morning run up Lookout Mountain, I started my political tour in Rapid City, where I interviewed Gordon Howie, our newly certified Independent candidate for U.S. Senate. We talked about EB-5, the federal budget, abortion and guns. Gordon threatened to shoot me, and I threatened to run, further supporting my argument that guns don’t offer nearly as much utility as a good pair of sneakers. We smiled and laughed through arguments and agreements alike.
Later in the week I headed for friendlier turf, the Sioux Falls Democratic Forum. I listened to aspiring pol Cody Hausman discourse and field lots of questions on how Democrats can draw the youth vote (emphasize ideals over wonkishness; talk global economy, diversity, and civil rights). I watched Democratic gubernatorial candidate Joe Lowe wind Dem stems with a passionate campaign speech. And I shook hands and chatted up all sorts of fellow hopeful Dems.
That afternoon I sat down for coffee with Independent gubernatorial candidate Mike Myers. Once we got past his initial ire at my past blog critique of his political theater, we had a good hour-long conversation about the policies he’d like to discuss with South Dakota and the problems he’d like to fix.
Then I raced up to Brookings to join my friend and co-blogger Toby Uecker for a Corinna Robinson fundraiser at former state senator Pam Merchant’s house. We chatted up our Brookings neighbors, Corinna’s staff, and Corinna herself about issues and campaign tactics. Toby and I then spent the rest of the evening evaluating the event and plotting Dem revolution (over a hot Greek Supreme loaded with gyro meat at George’s, one of the best pizzas on the prairie).
Toby and I continued our political analysis over breakfast at Cottonwood CafÈ (bagels, oatmeal, and political discourse downtown — a fine Saturday morning) before I chased a spring dust storm east to Pierre and sailed on to Sturgis, where friends of the blog invited me for afternoon tea and more political conversation. We talked the Rally, road construction, campaign finance … just the sort of weekend conversation you’d expect from your neighbors, right?
I was going to cap my tour off by putting my feet up at the Franklin Hotel. But then I got a text telling me to get up to the Lincoln Day Dinner in Spearfish, so up Highway 85 and through the I-90 obstacle course I went. I stationed myself discreetly at the back of the hall, tweeting the speeches. Even as I tweeted, my Republican neighbors greeted me warmly. I enjoyed pleasant conversations with Larry Rhoden and his wife Sandy, Pat Miller and her husband Walter Dale, Stace Nelson and his much prettier, quieter, better half Aiza. I got an unexpected and hilarious ribbing from Shantel Krebs. I lassoed a Tea Party activist and made progress in changing his mind on Keystone XL (two words: eminent domain). In a Republican room where a casual observer might think a liberal blogger would get tarred and feathered, I received almost nothing but warm handshakes and rational conversation from neighbors who share my keen interest in good policy for South Dakota.
South Dakotans are a friendly political bunch, even the ones with whom I disagree. My week hanging out with them and talking politics was a week well spent.
Editor’s Note: Cory Heidelberger is our political columnist from the left. For a conservative perspective on politics, please look for columns by Dr. Ken Blanchard on this site.
Cory Allen Heidelberger writes the Madville Times political blog. He grew up on the shores of Lake Herman. He studied math and history at SDSU and information systems at DSU, and has taught math, English, speech, and French at high schools East and West River.
Searching for Spring
The last two years I have chronicled my search for spring in South Dakota in this column. In 2012, it was a very mild winter and an early spring. Last year saw a nasty April ice storm and spring seemed to tarry until almost mid-May. This year it seems like winter and spring are in a tug of war. A handful of beautiful and warm days are followed by gusty, cold winds that chill to the bone. I’m hopeful the last cold spell is done by the time this column is posted, but who knows. This is South Dakota, where the weather does what it wants when it wants.
March 9
With temperatures in Sioux Falls nearing 60, I went for a Sunday afternoon drive. The snow along the back road ditches of Kingsbury and Lake counties was dirty, dusty and full of rooster pheasants staking out their territory for the coming spring. Southeast of Lake Thompson just before sunset, I witnessed three flocks of snow geese converge in a cornfield. These were the first snow geese of the year for me.
March 16
I happened to catch the full Worm Moon rising through the hazy evening air in rural Turner County. It’s called the Worm Moon because it’s the time of year that earthworms begin stirring in the rapidly warming soil.
March 19
Spring-like showers moved through the area even though the temperatures only topped out in the mid 40s. North of Humboldt I happened upon a rare scene of spring and winter clashing. A rainbow with accompanying snow geese hung in the sky above a small lake with ice fishermen still on it. It is also the time of the year when the sun sets due west, which can be problematic when driving east/west roads in the evening or early morning. However, it can make for an interesting picture as I found at Island Lake on the border of McCook and Minnehaha County.
March 20
The first official day of spring. A co-worker told me she saw over 30 bald eagles near her home north of Hartford the night before. After work I investigated, and found 18 still there. One was perched on a tree not far from a county road bridge over Skunk Creek. After a minute or two of him watching me take his photo from the bridge, he decided he didn’t like the looks of me after all and flew to a new perch.
March 22
Two days into spring and it certainly didn’t feel like it. The temps only got up to the mid-20s and the wind was bitter. The sunset in southwest Turner County, however, looked warm and inviting.
March 27
A heavy wet snow fell most of the day. The weather system began to clear just before sunset allowing me to get some interesting images of Zion Lutheran Church and the area northwest of Wall Lake.
March 29
On my way to Fort Pierre, I saw thousands of snow and white fronted geese flocking at Lehrman Slough near the Spencer exit on I-90. It is always impressive to see so many birds concentrated in one little area.
April 6
Spring is knocking on the door again. The high temp is just under 70 degrees and I spotted my first pasqueflower of the year at Lake Vermillion Recreation Area. Only three blooms were showing and each was probably just a day or two old.
April 9
The temperature hit 81 in Sioux Falls. After work, I drove down to Newton Hills State Park to search for snow trillium. I’ve never seen or photographed this wildflower before, but according to the March/April 2014 issue of South Dakota Magazine, they grow on northward facing slopes under the trees. Sure enough I found several little clumps of the white flowers pushing through the dead leaf carpet. Another sign that spring is winning the battle of the seasons!
April 10
After work there was very little wind and the temps were hanging in the mid-60s, so I drove to one of my favorite known pasque patches in Hanson County. Clouds came up from the west to obscure the late sun, but the soft evening light and no wind made for unique conditions to take a portrait of our state flower.
April 14-15
A bright full”Pink Moon” began to rise just before sunset. It is called a pink moon because this is the time of the year when the wild ground phlox usually starts to bloom. Ironically this full moon turned to a blood moon just after 2 a.m., as a full lunar eclipse took place. I tried to use Sioux Falls landmarks to frame the moon shots including the Old Courthouse Museum clock tower and St. Joseph Cathedral’s spires. The night air was brisk, but the calendar now shows that April is half over. Spring must be here for good, right? Only time will tell.
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 South Dakota’s prettiest spots. Follow Begeman on his blog.
Making It Rain
Eastern South Dakota was in the throes of a drought in 1894. Farmers wanted nothing more than a few drops of rain to help their tiny crops grow and flourish. Then a man named Mr. Jewell from Iowa showed up in Sioux Falls and said he could provide exactly that.
Concerned citizens presented a petition with 40 signatures to the Minnehaha County Commission and asked them to appropriate $800 to have Jewell bring his gas tube and box trap and”mix up his chemicals and wet down Minnehaha County as it should be.” The commissioners refused, but the drought persisted and their constituents became ever more vocal. The sheriff and a few businessmen guaranteed Jewell $200 plus another $400 if he produced a fair amount of rain. Finally Jewell himself appeared before the commission on June 19.
“Jewell knew what he was talking about, and assured the commissioners that he had conducted 51 experiments, and had been successful 51 times,” according to the History of Minnehaha County.”He said, among other things, that he could produce rain under any circumstances, although it would not be so copious if high winds prevailed and the temperature was below 50 degrees, but with both of these obstacles in his way he could still milk the atmosphere. At Des Moines after the weather bureau had announced there were no prospects of rain and there was no moisture in the atmosphere within a circle of 100 miles of the city, he liberated the gas in the box car he was traveling about in, and it shot up into the ethereal canopy through his three little tin tubes and the parched earth was drenched with water.”
This convinced a majority of the commissioners, but Andrew Berdahl remained opposed. The Berdahls had come in a caravan of 11 covered wagons with other Norwegian families to Dakota Territory in 1873. Andrew Berdahl quickly became a respected member of the community around Garretson, but his moisture-starved neighbors railed against his stance.”When I came home from the rainmaking session to Garretson there was a farmer who wanted to beat me black and blue for voting against and writing something against the rainmaking,” Berdahl wrote in his memoir.
The commissioners agreed to pay Jewell $200 for chemicals and another $400 if he produced a half-inch of rain. Now the talk turned to logistics. One commissioner wanted the gases released in the geographical center of the county. Another man believed each commissioner’s district should receive the same amount of rain. Jewell assured them he could do just that.
After the meeting Jewell went to the local drugstore, bought $1.50 worth of chemicals, returned to his box car and”let loose to an unsuspecting, unprepared firmament all the gas he could produce from the materials he purchased.” The next day he announced through local newspapers that Sioux Falls would be deluged before 6 p.m. Thursday evening. But Thursday passed with no rain. On Friday, Jewell admitted”the great altitude of Sioux Falls made it difficult for him to inject his gas into the atmosphere and bring it down to the dew point.”
On Saturday a writer for the Sioux Falls Preset explained how ludicrous Jewell’s scheme had been.”He went at the problem from a scientific standpoint and demonstrated how impossible it would be, even by the use of trainloads of chemicals to condense the moisture in a single cubic mile of the atmosphere, to say nothing about causing a rainfall over an area of 816 square miles of territory.”
Jewell left Sioux Falls that very day, but not before selling the rights to use his invention in Hanson and McCook counties, bilking each local government out of $700.”Since then,” wrote a local reporter,”rainmakers are not on the schedule of quotations.”
