Tag: south dakota pride

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Alcester’s Music Man

By John Andrews

DeeCort Hammitt organized the Alcester Community Band in 1921 and directed it for 25 years. Hammitt, an Alcester banker and musician, is best known for composing the state song, “Hail, South Dakota.”

WHEN DIGNITARIES GATHERED in downtown Yankton in November of 2013 to officially begin South Dakota’s upcoming sesquicentennial (125th birthday), students from the city’s elementary schools were on hand to sing our official state song,”Hail, South Dakota.” My daughter, Elizabeth, a student at Beadle Elementary at the time, was part of the energetic young chorus. I remember her singing snippets in the car rides to and from school or at home in the evenings and feeling glad that she was learning a bit of our state’s history.

This summer, we were all gathered in our living room. The television was on but not tuned to a program, which meant that after a certain period of inactivity it went to sleep and reverted to its screensaver. Photographs that we’ve uploaded to our Amazon account travel via a Fire Stick and appear as a slideshow during these entertainment downtimes.

As we watched the images roll past, we saw our daughter, dressed in the patriotic red, white and blue dress that my wife had sewn in advance of that gathering nine years ago. I recalled speeches by the governor and lieutenant governor and the swing band that played well into the evening. But Elizabeth remembered none of that.

“What was I even doing there, anyway?” she asked.

When I reminded her that she and her classmates were there to sing the state song, it didn’t jog a single memory.”Hail, South Dakota,” with its lines praising the”Black Hills, and mines with gold so rare,” and our”farms and prairies, blessed with bright sunshine,” was long forgotten.

*****

LAURA BAKER AND her siblings, Jane Allard and Mark, Kurt and Paul Hammitt, grew up immersed in the culture of the state song because it was written by their grandfather, an Alcester banker and musician named DeeCort Hammitt. The five of them grew up in Elk Point, where their parents, Howard and Dorothy Hammitt, had taken on the mantle of promoting the state song. Every spring, the Hammitts would give each graduating Elk Point High School senior a card with a two-dollar bill and a copy of the song. Dorothy called schools around South Dakota to make sure they all had the music and lyrics.”Everybody wanted a copy of it, and every school played it,” Baker says.”Community groups sang it.”

“I remember having to sing it when I was in school,” Allard recalls.”I don’t know when it started to fade away.”

In fact, that’s not something they thought much about until Howard Hammitt died in 2012 and his children found an assortment of photographs and clippings about their grandfather tucked away in the service station that Howard ran for decades. They began to learn even more about DeeCort (pronounced DECK-ert) and worried that his legacy as the man behind South Dakota’s state song might disappear.

Hammitt learned to play piano by ear and provided the sound for silent films shown in his family’s movie theater.

Hammitt was born in Spencer in 1893. His father, Franklin, started the town’s drug store in 1888 and worked both there and in Montrose. Franklin was preparing to move, buying a new house, drug store and theatre in Alcester, but he died in 1900, shortly after the purchases became final. His wife, Mae, and their five children still made the move. She hired a druggist and operated the movie theater, where DeeCort demonstrated his remarkable musical abilities to the rest of their new community. He had learned to play piano by ear and provided the sound for silent films.

Hammitt graduated from Alcester High School in 1912 and married Bessie Durkee from Alexandria in 1913. That same year, he composed a song called”The South Dakota Rag.” The Hammitts settled into life in Alcester, eventually raising 11 children. DeeCort worked at the McKellips family’s Alcester State Bank by day and served terms as the city treasurer and assistant postmaster. Music, however, remained his passion.

Hammitt formed the Sunshine State Music Company and continued writing music that found its way into the repertoires of bandleaders like Tommy Dorsey and Lawrence Welk. In 1915, the John T. Hall Music publishing company in New York selected his song”Don’t Take My Lovin’ Baby Away” as the winner in a nationwide songwriting contest with more than 1,500 entrants. Three years later, the Pace and Handy Music Company published a Hammitt song called,”I Want to Love You All the Time.” W.C. Handy, a composer and musician who often called himself”the father of the blues,” said it was one of the year’s best blues songs. His company advertised it as a”beautiful one-step ballad, different than the rest.”

Hammitt organized the Alcester Community Band in 1921 and directed it for 25 years. The group took regular trips to the Belle Fourche Roundup and played for President Calvin Coolidge when he and First Lady Grace Coolidge vacationed in the Black Hills in 1927. Hammitt wrote a piece called”The Roundup March,” and included special lyrics for Coolidge’s visit. The Alcester Community Band earned such a good reputation that it was chosen to represent South Dakota at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1933 and 1934.

He also dabbled in radio, forming the Hammitt Radio Company in 1922, just two years after the nation’s first commercial radio broadcast originated in Pittsburgh. The inaugural program included a saxophone solo, a vocal solo, a men’s quartet and a poem recited by his son, Keith. Hammitt created weekly programs for several years, entertaining farmers within a 5- or 6-mile radius of Alcester.

A Chicago hat salesman eventually vaulted Hammitt to statewide prominence. Warner Putnam sold hats and other clothing around South Dakota. In 1941, he discovered that South Dakota did not have an official state song that could be performed at certain functions. He approached the Sioux Falls Argus Leader about organizing a statewide song contest.

The Hammitt brothers, from left: Ralph, Forest, DeeCort and Charles (Chick).

The newspaper assembled a committee of judges headed by Carl Christensen, a professor and band director at South Dakota State College in Brookings. Out of 158 entries, the judges chose six finalists including”Hail, South Dakota,” a renamed version of a Hammitt favorite.”When he read about the contest, he knew that ‘The Roundup March’ would be the perfect song for our state song,” Baker says.”It remained a very popular song with marching bands in the years after 1927. He got a lot of traction out of ‘The Roundup March’ right up until the contest.”

Ballots were printed in all South Dakota newspapers. Radio stations in the state’s largest cities scheduled 30-minute blocks on January 9 and 10, 1942, during which all six entries were played. South Dakotans sent their ballots to the Argus Leader, where staff tallied the results and declared”Hail, South Dakota” the winner. Gov. Harlan Bushfield presented Hammitt with an award for composing the new state song, and the legislature made it official in March 1943.

To honor DeeCort after the contest, he and Bessie were the guests of honor at the South Dakota Press Association’s annual banquet in Sioux Falls. The new state song was performed in public for the first time since the contest concluded.”While Hammitt was pleased with the honor and attention the song received, he said he simply wanted to promote the state he loved,” a newspaper reported.

DeeCort and Bessie moved to California in 1947, where he continued to write and publish music. He operated the C&H Music Store in Sacramento with his son, Orlin, until his death in 1970.

*****

TODAY, 48 STATES have at least one state song. New Jersey never adopted one and Maryland retired its state song,”Maryland, My Maryland,” in 2021 because of language that was deemed inappropriate. Tennessee has the most with 10, including”Rocky Top,” which you’re likely to hear throughout University of Tennessee football games. Other states have adopted songs from popular culture as well. In 1979, Georgia chose”Georgia on My Mind,” written by Hoagy Carmichael but made popular by Ray Charles. John Denver’s”Take Me Home, Country Roads” became a state song of West Virginia in 2014.”Home on the Range” is among Kansas’s three tunes, and Louisianans sing”You Are My Sunshine.”

But since 1943, DeeCort Hammitt’s”Hail, South Dakota” has remained South Dakota’s stalwart single tune, though there have been occasional challenges.”A couple of times they’ve tried to change the state song,” Allard says.”They wanted a newer, livelier and more modern state song. Mom would just send more copies to the legislature.”

While it may not hold the place it once did in the state’s popular culture, it remains an important part of certain musical catalogs. Terry Beckler is a music professor at Northern State University in Aberdeen and commander of the South Dakota National Guard’s 147th Army Band.”I’ve played the state song many times. It’s the last part of a march titled ‘The Roundup,'” he says.”By regulation, military bands should play the last 32 bars of ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ following ‘Ruffles and Flourishes’ for a governor. In South Dakota, tradition has been to play ‘Hail, South Dakota’ instead. We’ve done this for every governor, as long as I’m aware.”

For that, the Hammitt family can be proud.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the November/December 2022 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Restaurant Road Trip

South Dakota has fewer restaurants per square mile than perhaps any other state, but the distance between them only makes our hearts fonder and our appetites stronger. Bernie Hunhoff visited several of our quirky cafes and grills for a story in our January/February issue. Here are some of his photos that didn’t make the magazine.

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Coming Home

By Paul Higbee

The verdict is still out. Some friends say I’ve found mature contentment and others claim I’m turning into a stay-at-home curmudgeon.

At issue is the fact that I’ve often traveled out of state in the last year. Sometimes I’ve flown and sometimes I’ve driven but either way, friends say, I’m more inclined to talk about how good it is to return home rather than describe the marvels found in Texas, Minnesota, Montana, Ohio and elsewhere.

This trend began when I spent time in Minneapolis and couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to buy cheap Timberwolves tickets. Then five minutes after crossing into South Dakota via I-90 I heard a radio commercial about a high school boys basketball triple-header at the Corn Palace, and I made a beeline for Mitchell. Of course, what’s a Corn Palace triple-header without a pregame steak at Chef Louie? What an evening: Chef Louie, three games in one of the nation’s unique and most comfortable basketball venues, and good visits with folk from Mitchell, Howard and Stickney. I wouldn’t trade the evening for any NBA ticket.

Anyway, back home in Spearfish, I maybe talked a little too enthusiastically about my big night in Mitchell, maybe even called the Chef Louie and Corn Palace combo the ultimate South Dakota winter experience, and some relatives and friends said I was no longer the jump-on-a-jet-and-see-the-country guy they once knew.

Some other things I’ve found thoroughly enthralling upon returning home (home being anywhere within South Dakota’s borders):

Interstate 90 and Interstate 29

Like most South Dakotans I’ve bashed these highways over the years, saying they’re boring compared to two-lane roads that conform to the prairie’s roll and pitch. But, unlike some eastern turnpikes, they’re toll-free, well marked, and food and fuel services are immediately adjacent. Speaking of fuel …

Mighty Few Pre-Pay Gas Pumps

In some parts of the country, wanting to pay for anything in cash makes you somewhat suspect. So you’re expected to pay for your gas before pumping it. A gasoline purchase is a business transaction. Leave it to South Dakota, a state that still prides itself in conducting business on a handshake, to believe a customer should be trusted to fuel up and then walk 50 feet in full view to the cashier.

Sioux Falls’ Small Town Charm

I know Sioux Falls sometimes promotes itself as urban, and maybe that’s smart, but thank goodness it isn’t a true big city. Re-entering the state from south or east, up I-29 or along I-90, I sometimes stop for coffee or lunch at one of Phillips Avenue’s sidewalk cafes. Pulling off the I-229 bypass I can be in the heart of downtown in 10 minutes, placing my order instead of navigating through rings of suburbs. And the inclusive sidewalk conversations and eye contact are anything but big city — especially noticeable if you’ve spent the previous days in ¸ber-urban America.

America’s Best Highway Rest Stop

It’s located at Chamberlain and offers a sweeping view of the Missouri River/Lake Francis Case. Plus there’s a Lewis and Clark museum display, wide lawns, trails, picnic shelters and spotless restrooms. This rest stop so out-distances others that I can’t even think where the nation’s number two or number three stops might be.

Scenic Overlook At I-90 Mile Marker 138

It’s an OK view of the wide prairie, especially at sunset. But if you’re a West River resident returning from the east, the scenery isn’t what impresses you here. Rather, this is where the air starts smelling right again: clear, dry, spiced by grama grass.

Wall Drug Donuts

A few years ago, when the rest of America was going bonkers over Krispy Kreme doughnuts and deciding they were the world’s best, South Dakotans knew better.

Crow Peak View

At Elkhorn Ridge, near I-90 exit 17, westbound traffic makes a wide turn and the whole north range of the Black Hills comes into view. A minute later, mighty Crow Peak dominates the horizon. It stands right on the state’s western edge and I’ve always thought of it as a mammoth bookend, keeping our stories and personalities and traditions from toppling into Wyoming. For me Crow Peak also marks the end of my journeys; we live so close to its base that I can’t see it unless I back away half a mile or so. But I always know it’s there; I always sense its presence. Maybe it’s what keeps me in South Dakota instead of toppling away into the far West.

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

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Infinite Variety’ Describes South Dakotans

By Katie Hunhoff

Gov. Nils Boe and his dog, Beagle Boe, walk the wintry Capitol grounds.

What does a modest governor, mountain rescuers and 2,000-pound athletes have in common? All can be found in the pages of our newest issue of South Dakota Magazine.

Our Managing Editor John Andrews writes about Nils Boe, a former governor, federal judge and founder of Augustana University’s Boe Forum on Public Affairs.

The story was difficult to research because Boe was a private man with few confidants. He has no surviving family members, was a bachelor and never married. Most of what we learned came from boxes of photos, papers, postcards and report cards archived at Augustana University’s fine Center for Western Studies.

Boe was noted for his quiet ways. When he was elderly and seriously ill, a close friend went to Arizona to help him pack and move to Sioux Falls, where he wanted to live his remaining days. While packing boxes, his friend met a neighbor who told him that Boe had lived next to him for two years before acknowledging that he was once South Dakota’s governor.

Boe died shortly after coming home in 1992 at the age of 79. He is remembered as a champion of education. In 1965, his first year as governor, he proposed a 50 percent increase in education funding. By the time he left office four years later, education funding had increased 90 percent over the previous biennium.

Boe also left a legacy by instituting the Boe Forum on Public Affairs at Augustana University. His goal was to bring topics of worldwide concern to South Dakota. He established an endowment to make it happen, stipulating that he wanted the forum to be free. The first event was held in 1995 with General Colin Powell speaking on the Gulf War. Other speakers have included George H.W. Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf and Madeleine Albright.

The modest Norwegian governor’s commitment to South Dakota is equaled by volunteers of the Custer Search and Rescue Team who spend thousands of hours training and are on-call 24-7 should someone become lost or injured in the Hills. They’ve had to carry a 200-pound man with a broken ankle from the Cathedral Spires to an ambulance far below. That rescue took 18 people, rotating turns, to accomplish.

On another occasion they received a call about a girl missing for four hours in the woods near her home. They found her within 7 minutes by using a trained border collie’s help.

Our March/April issue also features some of the world’s biggest and toughest athletes.”They weigh a ton, can twist and turn like a limber NFL running back and have more tricks than baseball’s best knuckleballers,” writes Bernie Hunhoff in our cover story about South Dakota’s famous bucking bulls. Rodeo now ranks above golf and tennis as a spectator sport, thanks in no small part to the big bulls who entertain the crowds. Some of America’s best and meanest live their off-seasons on a small cluster of ranches east of Pierre.

If you find the bulls interesting then wait until you meet the ranchers who raise them and love them like over-sized pets.

When we say South Dakota truly is the land of infinite variety, we’re referring to the people, not the landscapes — and those four-legged champion athletes with horns and tails.

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Growing a South Dakotan

By Katie Hunhoff

How do you grow a South Dakotan? We all want the children in our lives to grow up with a sense of place and pride. But nobody has ever published a”how to” guide on accomplishing such a goal. Finally the void has been filled. You’ll find such a guide in our Jan/Feb 2016 issue.

Our magazine staff began the task by recalling our own childhood experiences. Then we asked experts (anglers, cowboys, artists, rock hounds and a rattlesnake professor) to help. The result is a guide for parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers and all adults who play important roles in young South Dakotans’ lives.

Much of the guide touches on ways to involve children with nature. We offer advice on best hikes, rock hunting, rattlesnake etiquette, and guides on how to identify South Dakota fish, trees and the most common cattle breeds.

Joel Vasek, a popular fishing guide from Geddes, tells how he engages children on a fishing trip. “Get them involved in some of the decisions,” he suggests. “We can catch fish on anything, so let them look through the tackle box and pick out a few lures. I also make sure the live well is accessible to them, and then I’ll ask them to check on the fish now and then.”

Are you familiar with”Hail, South Dakota,” our state song? That’s one of several cultural pieces we suggest are important to raising a South Dakotan. The song was written by DeeCort Hammitt of Alcester and adopted in 1947. He was the first director of the Alcester town band that performed for President Calvin Coolidge during his Black Hills vacation in 1927.

We also recommend a reading list and a compilation of art museums where they’ll find some of the most important works South Dakotans have created. And of course we suggest that kids learn about Badger Clark, our state’s first poet laureate who wrote the beloved poem “A Cowboy’s Prayer.”

We also solicited suggestions from the Reinhold family of Sturgis, operators of Rainbow Bible Ranch; Suzanne Hegg, the first executive director of the Children’s Museum in Brookings; and Steve Van Bockern, an education professor at Augustana University in Sioux Falls.

And we visited with Marla Bull Bear, director of the Native American Advocacy Program that hosts summer camps for youth at Milk’s Camp in Gregory County. Marla uses stories about nature to teach life lessons. At a recent camp, she and camp participants spooked a blue heron while taking a walk. That prompted her to tell the group a story of a heron that forgot it was a migratory bird. “It didn’t know its own history and forgot who it was,” she said. “It thought it could be a winter bird, but when the cold weather came it nearly froze to death because it was too proud and refused help.”

Like blue herons, it’s important for our youngsters to know their place. Our guide is a good start.

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Soul Butter & Hog Wash

Rock Garden Tour, a South Dakota Public Radio show, is doing a barn tour called “Soul Butter and Hog Wash.” They taped at Governor Dennis Daugaard’s rural Dell Rapids barn earlier, and on August 29 they taped the show at the Bernie and Myrna Hunhoff barn north of Yankton near the little farming town of Utica.
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A New Year for South Dakota

By Katie Hunhoff

Our magazine readers are a varied group, but united by the belief that South Dakota is a unique place to live. Our beautiful landscapes, independent citizens, and wholesome values make us just a little bit different than other states — and that makes us proud. Since January is a time to set goals and resolutions for the New Year, I think South Dakotans should set goals for the state as well. We love our great state as it is, but what can we do to improve South Dakota in 2015?

I brought the suggestion up at a staff meeting and soon enough I had several good ideas to consider.

Roger Holtzmann, a writer and columnist here for 25 years, was the first to respond. Roger writes a humor column for the magazine, but he has a serious side. “I believe we as a state should strive to overcome our ‘us and them’ attitude regarding the reservations and Indian people,” he wrote. “We put the appalling conditions on the reservations out of mind because they’re not ‘our’ problem. They are.”

Jana Lane, our circulation director, advised South Dakotans to be more present, “to appreciate and learn more about the landscape and culture.” Jana also asked her husband Jim, a history-lover. He urged South Dakotans to organize old photos and donate them to a museum or archive. “The photos might not mean anything right now but they will in the future,” he says. “A picture of you and your friends in the 1950s, someone will appreciate it.”

Our special projects coordinator, Rebecca Johnson, recommended reading at least one book by a South Dakota author in 2015. She is planning to read The Commandant of Lubizec by Sioux Falls poet and author Patrick Hicks. She also thinks state residents would benefit from visiting a South Dakota community they have never been to before. Her 2015 goal is to visit the busy Bird Feeder restaurant in tiny Twin Brooks, near Milbank. Although Twin Brooks has fewer than 100 residents, the restaurant does a booming business and reservations must be made weeks in advance.

Heidi Marsh, my co-publisher, proposed hugging a farmer in 2015 — although she clearly has a conflict of interest: her husband Craig is an agronomist. Still, she thinks South Dakotans could benefit from learning more about South Dakota’s number one industry. “Let’s try harder to be more educated about ranching, markets, row crops, land conservation, and while we’re at it, show some extra love for the people who feed our world.”

Laura Andrews, our marketing assistant and staff writer, focuses her resolution on the early months of 2015. “When the holidays are over and the darkness and cold descend upon us, there’s a tendency among people of my acquaintance to hunker down and hide out until spring. Then summer comes and it’s too hot to leave their air-conditioned shelters,” Laura wrote. (I’m a bit worried that I might be her “acquaintance.”)

In 2015, Laura wants South Dakota residents to bundle up and get outside. “Our state parks have snowshoe hikes and other neat programs in January that help you appreciate our chilly outdoors,” she says. “Or, just drive out to a gravel road and go for a walk. It’s good exercise and good for the soul, too. There’s something about our vast blue sky that puts problems in perspective.”

So take a picture of yourself hugging a farmer while taking a walk on a chilly day and send it to the local museum for posterity’s sake. Then let’s resolve to shovel the snow off the sidewalks and get ready for springtime in South Dakota.

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How Have You Said”Happy Birthday?”

By John Andrews

I was 10 years old when South Dakota celebrated its centennial. I remember the wagon train rolling through Main Street of Lake Norden, and Marian Henjum’s homage to homesteaders on the centennial postage stamp that she designed.

As the state turns 125, there have been several similar traditional celebrations. A wagon train rolled out of Yankton in September, making a 17-day journey to Pierre. Last weekend the South Dakota Symphony performed in the halls of the state capitol, as the dome’s restored stained glass was officially unveiled. And there’s cake today (Tuesday) at the University of South Dakota’s Muenster Center.

In Sioux Falls, you’ll find a quirkier celebration of South Dakota. You’ve seen the kitschy tourist ads that line Interstate 90 a thousand times, but you probably never thought of them as art. Neither did Altman Studeny until he was living in Maine, going to graduate school and missing the art and culture of the Great Plains.”My mind was filled with thoughts of the time I spent on the road, seeing examples of the unique visual culture that grows from the land and the history of South Dakota: jackalopes, grain palaces, cowboy orchestras, dinosaurs silhouetted in the evening sun,” Studeny says.

Studeny is curator of a new exhibit featuring such items at the IPSO Gallery in Sioux Falls called”This Exit, Last Chance,” running Nov. 7 through Jan. 30. It commemorates the 125th anniversary of South Dakota and the 10th anniversary of Fresh Produce, the Sioux Falls advertising agency that houses the IPSO Gallery on Main Avenue. Gallery director Liz Heeren knows it’s an ambitious idea. “We can analyze them differently and celebrate them as the art pieces that they are,” she says. “I think we’ll see common threads. We’ll see a do-it-yourself attitude that seems to come from South Dakota tourism. I love that about the pieces that we’re collecting.”

Participating partners include Wall Drug, the Corn Palace and Reptile Gardens, just to name a few. An opening reception is scheduled at the IPSO Gallery Friday, Nov. 7 at 6 p.m. Plan to attend, and wish South Dakota your best on its next 125 years.

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The Black Hills in Watercolor

Our new Black Hills map prints are here! You probably recognize watercolor artist Mike Reagan’s work — his map of South Dakota appears on the Table of Contents page of each issue of South Dakota Magazine. Now he has created a companion map of the Black Hills that evokes the character and spirit of the land through delicate watercolors. We’re proud to offer his work as an unframed 16″ x 20″ art print for just $24.95 plus shipping and handling. Click here if you’d like to buy the new Black Hills map print for your home or office, or order a set of both Reagan prints for just $45.95.

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Searching for the “Oldest”

By Katie Hunhoff

Imagine what South Dakota looked like when our state was created 125 years ago. Every road was made of dirt except a few streets of stone. A few grand courthouses and church steeples rose above log cabins and sod homes. The open prairie was largely treeless. But hope and excitement for the future of the new state could probably be felt in the air.

It makes us wonder how many physical relics have survived the last 125 years. In honor of our state’s anniversary we want to find the state’s oldest places and things and print them in South Dakota Magazine this fall. We’ve kicked around several categories (oldest fence, church, barn, tree, business, newspaper, bridge, log cabin, street, opera house, boat, restaurant, schoolhouse, celebration, pow wow, jail, bar or pub, West River ranch, East River farm, band, railroad depot and piece of art). We’re hoping our readers can offer even more ideas.

Each selection should match two criteria: it must have existed in 1889 (the year South Dakota became a state) and must remain or be in operation to this day. In the end the feature will be both a travel guide and a reminder that some of our state’s original artifacts are here for us to observe and protect.

In our 29 years of publishing South Dakota Magazine, we have come across a few things that have been proclaimed “oldest.” Flandreau has the state’s oldest church still in operation. The First Presbyterian Church still celebrates services in a 141-year-old church building. The church itself was established four years earlier in 1869.

The Bon Homme Hutterite Colony was created in the 1870s, making it the oldest colony of dozens that exist today. Located on the Missouri River south of Tabor, the colony still uses some of its earliest buildings made from chalk rock. One is an old carpenter shop. Another is a large stone building with a full-length arched-roof cellar where Hutterite women store hundreds of gallon jars of fruits and vegetables.

Among the oldest West River ranches is the Landers’ operation in Fall River County. William Landers, a German immigrant and mason, homesteaded the land in 1885, and the men and women of the Landers family have raised cattle there ever since. “He was a progressive rancher,” his grandson, Tom, told us in 1999. “He was the first to build fences and dams. And he was the first to spread the water out. He developed a ditch-style irrigation system that we still use today.”

William arrived in South Dakota with a mule, his wife, two sons and some cattle. His other mule died on the trail, so he hooked a steer to the wagon to finish the long journey. He grew his cattle herd to over 500 head before dying of pneumonia in 1904. He left behind three sons who divided the ranch into three parts. Reminders of the ranch’s past remain intact, including several homesteaders’ shacks that are used as farm sheds. Grandpa Landers’ old steel plow decorates a flower garden. When William’s descendants walk the land he homesteaded, I doubt they can see much changed in the last 129 years.

We have leads on log cabins, stone fences, historic trees and other such things. Birthdays are always fun, but they really get interesting at 125 years. You can suggest 125-year-old artifact ideas to South Dakota Magazine editors by emailing editor@southdakotamagazine.com or calling (800) 456-5117.