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Turton’s Jelly Makers

By Bernie Hunhoff

Char Barrie has blazed a trail for other jelly makers and home kitchen entrepreneurs. She’s known for quality products and a tireless approach to marketing, thanks in part to her husband Rolland, who still enjoys forays to fairs and shows.

Life is sweeter in South Dakota thanks to Char Barrie, the Turton woman who turned a family farmstead into a popular jelly factory.

Growing up as one of five”Navy brats” in Oklahoma, there was never enough food in the house, so she began to cook at her mother’s knee. When the family moved to South Dakota in 1967, she learned even more from her grandmother in Doland, who introduced her to the wild berries and plums of Spink County.

She married Rolland Barrie, a farmer from Turton. They have six daughters. When their grandchildren began to arrive, Char filled some of the many baby food jars with jellies to give as gifts. Friends suggested that she sell her rhubarb jelly at a VFW crafts show in Doland in 1995. Soon, there weren’t enough grandbabies, so she began to order jelly jars by the hundreds. Today, Char’s Kitchen is likely the biggest jelly maker in South Dakota.

The home-grown business is headquartered in The Jelly House, a quaint little blue-and-white building that was formerly home to a bachelor farmer.”Mr. Huber was a nice old man,” Char says.”He lived five miles east of here. When he was older, he played cards all day at the kitchen table.”

The Barries moved the house, which is only 14 feet wide, to their farmyard in 1999 when they realized that the jelly business was outgrowing the kitchen. A few years later, they built a storage and shipping building next to The Jelly House. The newer building also stores Rolland’s 1946 Ford coupe, which happens to be the same purple color as the popular chokecherry jelly.

“Ford stopped manufacturing cars in 1942 and they started making Jeeps and tanks for the army,” he said.”This was one of the first cars built after the war.”

Rolland helps with packaging and shipping the jellies, and he tends a produce garden where some of the rhubarb and other fruits and vegetables are grown. In the early years, he and Char loaded their car with boxes of jellies and spent weekends at arts and crafts shows. They weren’t always successful.

“You learn to not take it too personal,” Rolland says.”You can be Jimi Hendrix at the Castlewood gymnasium, and just because no one shows up doesn’t mean you aren’t good on the guitar.”

Though Char’s Kitchen now sells jellies and other products online and at 34 shops and stores throughout the Dakotas and Minnesota, the Barries continue to pack boxes in a car and travel to shows.”We still do about 15 a year,” Char says.”It’s a chance to meet the customers face to face. We learn what they like, and it’s pretty sweet when someone says, ‘I love your jams.’ I never get tired of that.”

Years of cultivating customer relations at the shows is evidence of a marketing savvy and commitment that sets Char’s jellies apart from her competitors, says Kevin Fiedler, who operates Ken’s Super Fair Foods Store in Aberdeen and five surrounding towns in northeast South Dakota.

Fiedler watched the Barries’ business grow from the very beginning.”Char came to us as a wholesaler to purchase some of her supplies, the jars and lids and sugars and other products. We love having South Dakota products, so it was a no-brainer to find a nice location for her products on our shelves and they sell very well.”

The Aberdeen grocer says he sells cheaper jellies, but customers are loyal to the Turton jelly maker.”When you know something is produced in your backyard and you know the commitment and the consistent quality that Char provides, then you figure it’s sure worth the value.”

Fiedler believes her unique products also grab attention.”You’re not going to find Welches or Smuckers putting out a rhubarb or a South Dakota chokecherry jelly,” he laughs. And you aren’t likely to find those companies competing to pick the wild fruits that grow along the Spink County backroads.

Big-time competitors would also be jealous of the business networks that the Barries have fostered. For example, the staff at Ken’s Grocery in Aberdeen saves watermelon rinds that the Barries pickle and sell in jars (the rinds taste like peaches). Youth from the Hillside Hutterite Colony at Doland help to pick berries, and the colony gardeners grow cucumbers and green beans for them.

Kristi Barrie, a shirttail relative, is Char’s steady assistant with the jelly-making when she’s not running the Turton post office. Other neighbors and relatives also assist during busy seasons, such as when they make and package hundreds of jars of corn cob jelly for Mitchell’s Corn Palace gift shop.

Many South Dakota food hobbyists have dreamed of starting a home-based business, and some have tried. Few of them sell like the Barries.

On a summer afternoon, Char agreed to halt jelly-making long enough to share her thoughts on why she’s succeeded in a challenging and competitive food-making industry when so many others struggle. As she related her journey, Rolland drove the old Ford out of the shed so we could get a closer look.

“What really helped me was starting out slowly,” she says.”We made our mistakes when we were small. It has taken me 25 years to get where I am, and it really blossomed in just the last few years.”

Char didn’t use the word”persistence,” but it surely defines her approach and personality. Just as she was beginning, state health officials began to regulate cottage foods, a term used by bureaucrats that does seem to describe The Jelly House. Laws and regulations have been evolving ever since. Rather than fight the trend, she worked with lawmakers and bureaucrats to write reasonable regulations. In 2004 she was issued South Dakota’s first home-based food service license.

She invests in advertising and marketing campaigns, juggles the supply-chain issues and inflationary cost pressures that small businesses face today, and still finds time to launch products.

“Our newest is corn relish,” she says.”We had some people asking for it. Rolland didn’t think he’d like the cabbage, but he says it’s good.”

The Barries have also started to make syrups for pancakes, waffles and ice cream.”We are doing chokecherry, raspberry, cinnamon, elderberry and four varieties with rhubarb — strawberry, blueberry, raspberry and apricot rhubarb.”

“Oh, we also make a pickled asparagus,” she says.”It’s very good with beer.”

For special orders and gift baskets, she wraps festive cloth around the lids of the 8-ounce and 16-ounce jelly jars. The fabric designs in the shipping room include walleye, camouflage and farm implements.”You never know what’s going to catch peoples’ eyes,” she laughs.”Rolland loves it when I go to the fabric store.”

“That’s an hour-and-a-half stop,” he groans.

On a typical day at the farm, Rolland tends to the garden while Char and Kristie work in the kitchen. She says there are a lot of steps to the process of jelly-making.”First, we wash the fruits and vegetables. Then we cook the fruit to get the juice. You have to measure the sugar. You have all the jars sterilized, washed and ready. You mix the jelly. You fill the jars, label them — some we decorate with the fabric.”

She says most jars are handled five times, and maybe more if they are packed and loaded for a craft fair.

Last year, Char’s Kitchen used 12,000 jars. Annually, she averages 2 tons of sugar, 1,000 pounds of rhubarb and 1,600 pounds of chokecherries.

Strawberry-rhubarb jelly is the most popular product, followed closely by raspberry-rhubarb, blueberry-rhubarb and apricot-rhubarb.”South Dakotans do like rhubarb,” Char says. Chokecherry is also a good seller. Char’s Kitchen also produces apple butter, pickles, salsas and other spreads and sauces.

The Barries are in their early 70s and showing no signs of slowing the pace.”We do take time off for blizzards, holidays and fishing,” Char says.”We like to go walleye fishing at Mobridge. Other than that, you’ll find us here making jelly.”

Unless, of course, you see the couple cruising Spink County’s rural roads in their chokecherry-purple Ford coupe.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Spink’s Cheese Makers

By Bernie Hunhoff

When milk prices soured in 2018, members of the Spink Hutterite Colony considered selling their dairy cows. Then someone offered a better idea. Why not start a cheese factory?

Now their Kasemeister cheeses (pronounced Kay-sah-meister) are sold in 140 stores throughout the Dakotas and Minnesota, and the colony’s cows are as happy as ever.

“The most popular sellers are cheddar, gouda, baby Swiss and Colby,” says Jeremy Wipf, who manages the cheese factory with help from four full-timers and a dozen part-timers. They work in a gleaming, state-of-the-art stainless-steel plant designed with the help of consultants. However, cheese-making is not entirely new to the Hutterite families; for generations, they’ve made pane cheese, using recipes that date back to their European roots.

Though most of the cheeses are sold in stores, the colony also established a small gift shop in the front of the factory. The shelves and coolers feature jams, honey, pickles, canned goods, chicken pot pies and all the cheese varieties. The shopkeepers sell a few cold beverages and offer free samples of the cheeses, including a rich and crumbly white cheddar”Special Reserve” that is aged for four years.

The cheese factory is located just east of the colony farm, across a field from the happy cows, at 39685 182nd Street. It is about 30 miles northwest of Huron, or 9 miles south of Frankfort.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Staying Humble in Doland

By Chad Coppess

Doland, in Spink County, is home to 150 hearty souls.

Despite being the boyhood home of a vice president and hometown of twin Olympic wrestlers and twin Air Force generals, Doland stays humble.

In his 1960 biography of U.S. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, Michael Amrine described Doland’s main street as”a dog asleep and a few dragonflies that are only pretending to be busy.” A recent Wednesday morning didn’t seem much different when city leaders stood in the middle of Humphrey Drive to have a photo taken. No one worried about traffic interruptions.

Former mayor Craig Schroeder is a founder and 20-year board member of the rural economic development group called Basec. The organization was formed in 1994 with federal funds that most towns used in a one-time application. Doland looked at the bigger picture and utilized the money in a longer-term program.”We were challenged to think outside the box, but when we suggested creating a revolving loan fund to continue long-term, we were told that would have to go all the way to the president for approval,” Schroeder says. Tackling the challenge led a Doland delegation to Washington, D.C., where they enjoyed dinner on the White House lawn, a meeting with Vice President Al Gore and shook hands with President Bill Clinton.

Since then, Basec has provided small business loans, home mortgages and funding for community improvement projects, a testament to the forward-thinking of those town leaders in the 1990s.”Everybody worked hard and believed that we didn’t want the town to die,” Schroeder says.”Why would you not want to make the place you live better?”

Hundreds of home loans have been provided through Basec, a splash pad is on the way, and the city-owned daycare has a staff of seven employees and averages 25 children per day.”I’m extremely fortunate to have the daycare available,” said Basec Executive Assistant Samantha Noethlich.”And it’s really rewarding to see how it helps people in other jobs around town.”

Doland Mayor Stuart Bell, Finance Officer Kam DesLauries, Basec Executive Assistant Samantha Noethlich and former mayor Craig Schroeder are proud of their town and the area’s economic growth.

When the Riley Opera House/Twin Kiss Theatre building that housed the Doland Post Office was determined to contain asbestos, it shut down the post office for a short time. Avoiding what might have been the town’s death knell, the city renovated the former library building to make sure postal service stayed in town.

Other businesses in town include two bars, Mayor Stuart Bell’s auto body shop, Full Circle Ag, a convenience store, an insurance office and Jamie and Glenda McNutt’s Just Beecuz Floral and Trophy of a Lifetime Taxidermy.

Glenda McNutt is a Doland native. Though the couple moved away for several years, they found themselves drawn closer to family.”Our oldest son went to school for acting and was chasing his dream, so Glenda wanted to chase her dream of owning a flower shop,” Jamie says. They also purchased the Bottoms Up bar when it became available.”We work our butts off and still don’t make much money at the end of the month,” he says with a laugh.

About 150 mounted animals come out of the taxidermy shop each year. Deer heads, fish and birds mounted by youngest son Dalton are the typical fare. Jamie has done longhorn cattle mounts and once did an armadillo laying on his back drinking a can of beer.”It keeps me from getting a real job,” he quips.

McNutt sees Doland’s location at the corner of highways 37 and 212 as a factor in the continued prosperity of the tiny town. Mayor Bell and Schroeder agree that having a school and post office have been big advantages.”That and people are really giving,” Schroeder says.”We have small town values and people really care.”

A 1983 centennial celebration brought enough people to town that it sparked an every-five-years festival called”Back to Doland” with a big car show and street dance. The most recent”Back to Doland” happened in 2015, but the 2020 celebration was cancelled due to COVID, so residents are looking forward to 2025.

Former resident Hubert H. Humphrey will be celebrated along with former South Dakota governor and Spink County native Harvey Wollman, who passed away in October of 2022. Doland’s famous twins — Dennis and Duane Koslowski, who wrestled in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, and Air Force Generals Marvin and Melvin McNickle — will also be honored.

That will be enough to wake Main Street’s dogs and dragonflies.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Retracing Roads to Our Round Barns

By Bernie Hunhoff

A barn-like pavilion is the centerpiece of the two-county fairgrounds near Nisland.

South Dakota Magazine staffers crisscrossed South Dakota 25 years ago in search of that rare architectural treasure — the round barn.

With help from the State Historical Society, we eventually found 29. They included livestock sales barns, the Butte-Lawrence county fairgrounds pavilion, two octagonal machine sheds and a charming, vertical-log barn near Sturgis. South Dakota never had many round barns, so forgive us for loosely interpreting the term.

We also learned that circular barn construction dates at least to the Bronze Age (hundreds of years B.C.), when boulders were used not just for castles in Britain but also for barns.

George Washington was among the first American farmers to build a barn in the round. A reconstruction of his original 16-sided barn, based on the first president’s own drawings, is a popular attraction at Mount Vernon.

The Shakers were the first Americans to experiment with round construction. A Shaker stone barn built at Hancock, Massachusetts, in 1824 is among the country’s oldest.

There’s just something about roundness. Eric Sloane, author of An Age of Barns, wrote,”Farmers made circular designs on their barns and their wives sewed circular patterns on quilts. They took delight in round hats, rugs and boxes, and they made round drawer pulls and hand rests for their severely-angled furniture.”

Anton Anfinson, a contractor from Wakonda, promoted the round barn concept in southeast South Dakota. Anfinson believed a round barn was the most efficient way to feed cattle. Many round barns featured a silo or a hole in the hay mow at the center. Livestock stood with their heads to the center at feeding or milking time, making it easier to feed the animals and clean their waste.

Most farmers who constructed round barns must have believed in Anfinson’s economic theory, but it’s likely that they were also intrigued by the thought of having something out of the ordinary.

They got what they bargained for. During our 1990s search, we found that if we got within 10 miles of a round barn and asked for help, somebody would soon have directions. Any well-kept old barn gets people’s attention, but a round barn becomes a neighborhood landmark.

“A man’s barn bespoke his worth as a man,” wrote Bob Lacy in a foreword to his book, Barn.”It expressed his earthly aspirations and symbolized the substance of his legacy to his children.”

Rural historians estimate that fewer than 3,000 round barns existed in North America, and most were built in Canada. South Dakota never had more than three or four dozen.

Twenty-five years ago, it was heartening to learn that someone cared about nearly every round barn we discovered. Over the past year, we retraced our travels and found that most of those barns still stand. Following are stories about the barns and the people who care for them in the 21st century.

Watertown

The Corson Emminger barn south of Watertown along Highway 81.

East River’s most visible round barn stands just south of Watertown along U.S. Highway 81. Corson Emminger came to South Dakota in 1905 from Wisconsin, where round barns were popular with dairy farmers, and built the 50-foot diameter barn with concrete blocks in 1910. He added an attractive cupola for good measure. The barn served as a milking parlor for decades. Today, the Emminger barn is missing a few shingles but it remains in good shape thanks to the Moeller family, its longtime owners.

1880 Town

West River’s most prominent round barn serves as a grand entry to the Hullinger family’s 1880 Town, a pioneer village located 22 miles west of Murdo along Interstate 90. Richard Hullinger remembers the day they moved the 14-sided barn from a ranch near Draper, about 45 miles away.”We came across the country on a ridge, and we had to do a little dirt work on the draws to make the crossings.” Built in 1919, before the invention of power tools, the barn’s symmetrical roof is high art to anyone who ever handled a handsaw or hammer.

Mission Hill

Norman Nelsen would be pleased to see the place he named New Hope Farm more than a century ago. Nelsen was a man who appreciated detail. He kept a journal of the materials and costs when he built an octagonal barn in 1913 as a machinery shed.”He recorded how many nails and how many boards he used, and he kept track of the costs,” says his great-grandson Chris Nelsen, who now lives on the farm, northwest of Mission Hill, with his wife Cindy and their children.”You can still see the hooks in the round barn where he hung the longest ears of corn to dry,” Nelsen says.”It was his method of doing natural seed selection.”

In 1914, Norman built a traditional rectangular barn just a stone’s throw to the west. Today, calves and sheep enjoy the big barn, and the smaller one is still used for storage. Chris and Cindy tend fastidiously to both barns — they plan to re-shingle the round barn and they recently sided and roofed the big barn, where letters atop the main door read NEW HOPE FARM.

Sioux Falls

The Shafer family has tended to a round barn on the northeast edge of Sioux Falls for many years. The barn was built of hollow block in 1919-20 by bankers Art Winters and Ray Stevens, who liked the round concept for cattle feeding. They installed a nearby scale and operated the farm like a stockyard.

However, the feeder cattle created too much moisture in the winter months, causing thick layers of ice to collect on the walls. The bankers eventually abandoned their operation and sold the barn to the Shafer family, which owns it today. For years, they operated a dairy in the barn; today it’s mostly used for storage.

Ron Hodne says Lawrence Welk and his band entertained in the round barn.

Winfred

Lawrence Welk and his band played a few songs at a dance in the Hodne family’s big round barn southwest of Madison near the little town of Winfred. Entertaining seems to fit the Hodne family, which now operates a big hunting lodge affectionately called Hodneville (officially the Bird’s Nest) within shotgun range of the barn.

The 80-foot diameter barn was built for beef cattle in 1918. Ron Hodne’s parents bought the place in 1946 and today he lives nearby with his wife, Ev. They and three sons — Brad, Brian and Brandon — run the lodge, which can accommodate 50 overnight guests.

A few years ago, Hodne asked his sons if they thought the barn was worth preserving because it needed a $40,000 roof.”They said, ‘Do it,'” he says.

The family has used the round barn for just about everything you can raise in South Dakota — cattle, hogs and chickens.”We even tried artichokes,” Hodne jokes. It’s empty today, except for a farm cat, but he and his family may eventually find a way to incorporate it into the lodge.

Draper

The Freier barn near Draper was built from a pre-cut mail order kit, possibly from the Gordon Van Tine Company of Davenport, Iowa. It was used as a sheep barn for decades.

Renner

Blocks for a round barn on the northern outskirts of Renner were made from sand and gravel collected at a nearby pit in 1917. The Sorum family has owned the barn for generations. They used it as a dairy for many years, but in recent decades it has served as a horse stable and a cat paradise.

Gettysburg

South Dakota’s largest round barn is on the Sloat farm north of Gettysburg. Measuring 100 feet in diameter, the wood-frame structure is used for swine, beef and dairy.

Sturgis

A barn of vertical pine logs stands in Bulldog Gulch near Sturgis.

South Dakota’s only round barn made of logs lies in Bulldog Gulch, just south of the Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis. It was built of pine logs, stood vertically on a circular concrete footing, in about 1941 by the Blairs, a prominent pioneer ranching family.

Dick and Lonna Morkert removed 2 feet of cattle manure when they bought the barn 30 years ago. Once cleaned, they found the barn was perfect for their four horses. Lonna, who then worked at a clinic in Sturgis, met the man who cut the logs.”He was an old-timer who was known for his mules,” she says.”The Blairs gave him the job of cutting the trees. He said he skidded them down from the mountain just to the west.”

Bulldog Gulch has a rich history. The 1874 Custer Expedition stopped there and watered horses at the same creek that the Morkert horses enjoy. Some think the gulch was named for Madame Bulldog, who ran a saloon there.

The Blairs arrived in 1907. They raised registered Hereford cattle and held bull sales at the log barn in the early 1940s. Dick Morkert says old-timers remembered that bidders sat on long benches.

Weddings are sometimes celebrated at the No Name City campground, which borders the Morkerts’ barn and corrals. On a few occasions, a bride with good taste in architecture will ask to have a picture taken by the very clean log barn.

A round barn is among the collection of 14 old agricultural buildings at the Little Village Farm near Trent.

Trent

When the Big Sioux River threatened a century-old round barn near Trent in the 1990s, the landowners called Jim Lacey and said,”You need that barn!”

Lacey agreed, but moving round barns is not easy because they lack the floor beams of rectangular structures. Still, the Beckers of Marion agreed to move it with Lacey’s help, and together they brought it out of the river valley and onto what’s now known as Little Village Farm, a collection of 14 old agricultural buildings.

The village’s only other round barn is a brooder house.”It was a prefab job, probably sold by Sears or Wards,” Lacey says.”You put it together just like the old redwood water tanks, with steel bands. Tenant farmers could buy one, and then take it with them if they moved from one farm to another.” If the chickens dirtied a spot, the farmer simply pulled the brooder house to an area with fresh grass.

Jim and Joan Lacey welcome guests to their Little Village Farm, located west of Trent in Moody County. The buildings are full of farm and ranch machinery, tools and collectibles, including more than 6,000 farm caps. There is a small admission fee.

Zell

Twin 12-sided round barns sit in a horse pasture on the northeast corner of Zell, a small village west of Redfield on Highway 212. Zell was named by Benedictine sisters who built a wood monastery there in 1886 which is also standing, though showing its age.

Unityville

A big tile barn once stood just west of a little town with the fine name of Unityville in McCook County. The town was christened as Stark when it was founded in 1907, but when officials learned that there was already a Stark in North Dakota they unified around the new name. The landmark round barn was built in 1921. Unfortunately, Unityville is all but gone, the farmstead is now a cornfield and only the barn’s silo is now standing. Life is stark in Unityville.

Potter County

A 20-sided hog house built by John Nold in 1903 may be the first round barn built in South Dakota, according to a 1995 study by the South Dakota State Historical Society.

Nisland

The entire Butte-Lawrence County Fairgrounds is on the National Registry of Historic Places. Its jewel is the round pavilion.

Buried in the cottonwood and oak forest of the Belle Fourche River valley lies one of America’s truly unique county fairgrounds, and its centerpiece is a century-old, octagon pavilion.

The forested 40-acre site is a mile west of Nisland in Butte County, which has shared a county fair with Lawrence County since 1980. And who wouldn’t want to share such fairgrounds?

The white-washed buildings include two long, rectangular barracks that housed German POWs during World War II. The prisoners helped farmers with the sugar beet harvest. Big-branched cottonwoods shade the buildings and grass. The entire fairgrounds are on the National Registry of Historic Places, but the pine jewel is the round pavilion. President Calvin Coolidge attended the fair and was pictured at the pavilion when he vacationed in the Black Hills in 1927.

The sturdy structure survived several calamities, including a 2012 windstorm that damaged the roof and windows. The two counties and their fair board invested nearly $300,000 in repairs and updates. Officials hope to find ways to use the pavilion throughout the year — maybe for weddings and family reunions — to garner income for future expenses.

The fair is held the first weekend of August, a week before the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Area 4-Hers exhibit crafts, garden produce and other projects on the main floor and a second story balcony of the pavilion. REA co-ops host a free barbecue. Boys and girls show their livestock and compete in catch-the-sheep and dress-a-rabbit contests. At sunset, animals sleep in the barns as country music wafts to the high ceiling of the pavilion.

Admission is free at the fair, perhaps because the atmosphere is priceless.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2020 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Pheasant Tales from South Dakota

By Katie Hunhoff

Redfield recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of South Dakota’s first official pheasant hunt. Hundreds of men and women marched the cornfields of Spink County and then gathered for a prime rib dinner and some wonderful storytelling. The festive event prompted us to remember some of our favorite pheasant tales from the last 35 years of publishing South Dakota Magazine.

Madison wildlife artist John Green once told us the story of when he went afield with some out-of-state sportsmen who had only seen jackalopes in pictures and gift shops. As they neared the end of a corn row, a jackrabbit with tall ears — but, needless to say, no antlers — jumped from the corn and hopped away. One of the hunters yelled out,”Don’t shoot! It’s a doe!”

Lots of famous people have come to South Dakota to hunt pheasants. That makes for some interesting conversations, especially for the Zoss family. Adolf Zoss was hunting near Letcher in 1945 when an old Ford came down a dirt road. It was Lawrence Welk, the famous champagne music man, with members of his band. Welk asked Adolf if he knew where there might be birds, and the South Dakotan gladly guided them to several of his favorite spots.

Zoss couldn’t wait to tell his wife, Amelia, but unfortunately neither she or any of their 11 children believed him because he was known for telling stories.

As Welk gained greater fame and a national TV audience, Zoss told and retold the story to his doubting family until he died in 1957.

Imagine his survivors’ surprise, however, when an issue of Lawrence Welk Magazine was published in 1968 with stories about Welk’s days in the Dakotas and a picture and story about a successful pheasant hunt. There on page 56 was a photo of Welk with a shotgun, and sitting in the old Ford were his band members and a slightly bemused Adolf Zoss. No doubt they all had a”wunnerful” time.

The Brooklyn Dodgers came to Winner to hunt pheasants in the 1930s. After quickly limiting on birds, the players were looking for more to do so the hotel manager suggested they talk to David Busk, who told them about rattlesnake hunting. Busk was known for eradicating more than 3,000 rattlesnakes to protect local children. He took the ballplayers to the White River valley where they caught and killed quite a few snakes. The players came back for several years to help Busk in his mission, giving double meaning to the old Dodger saying,”Wait’til next year!”

Peggy Schiedel of Yankton remembers meeting Cary Grant when he came to their Faulkton farm to hunt. He was a friend of her uncle, who was a Navy captain in California.”My brothers and I slept in the mudroom so our guests could have our bedrooms, but we were still thrilled to have them because they brought boxes of La Fama Candy.” She says Grant taught them how to walk on stilts, and he showed her dad how to build them.

Monte James, a South Dakota farm broadcaster on the Ag Network, once guided some Coca Cola executives from Atlanta on a hunt near Vivian. Despite their enthusiasm, the Southerners couldn’t hit the proverbial barn. But they were determined to get some birds. Finally, James and his dog Ice Cream flushed some pheasants in some very high grass and the hunters emptied their shotguns to no avail. But James hollered,”You knocked a couple down!”

Then he and Ice Cream disappeared into the brush to look for the birds. He stealthily pulled a few birds from his own pouch. He sent one with Ice Cream and he carried the other himself. The hunters were giddy with excitement and left James a big tip, which he used in part to buy Ice Cream a buffalo ribeye.

Out-of-state hunters do, unfortunately, become the inspiration for some of our pheasant humor but they probably don’t mind — at least not any more than we mind the joke about the South Dakota cowboy who traveled to Kansas to see the Statue of Liberty.

These past 100 pheasant hunting seasons have been all about having a fun time and turning strangers into friends. Here’s to another 100 years, humor and all.

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Crossing the James

The James River meanders and oxbows for 474 miles across eastern South Dakota. Our March/April issue includes a feature on our state’s efforts to maintain its many bridges, many of them century-old relics. Bernie Hunhoff explored the backroads of Spink County to get the story. Here are some of his photos that didn’t make the magazine.

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Of Birds and Baseball

By John Andrews

What comes to mind when you’re asked to think about South Dakota? Two images rise to the top of my list: the iconic ring-necked pheasant and amateur baseball on a summer night, and it seems that no where in South Dakota are these more ingrained in the local culture than in Spink County.

Many other cities in South Dakota call themselves”The Pheasant Capitol of the World,” but Redfield has claimed the title since June of 1908. That’s when a group of city leaders acquired three pairs of pheasants from Grants Pass, Oregon, and released them in Hagmann’s Grove, just north of Redfield. The newcomers seemed to do well in Spink County, and in 1919 the first one-day open season on roosters was held. Pheasants have since become the state bird and have transformed the state’s outdoor tourism industry. Thousands of resident and non-resident hunters will roam the fields when pheasant season opens on the third Saturday of October.

The national pastime has also been an important part of life in Spink County, and affects those who are only tangentially connected to the area. ESPN.com writer David Schoenfield wrote a tribute to baseball in Redfield that appeared in our May/June issue. Schoenfield’s father grew up in Redfield, and later brought his wife and children back to his hometown. Among the memories that still stand out for Schoenfield are baseball games on Redfield’s emerald green diamond.

Pheasants were introduced near Redfield in 1908. Now they come in fiberglass.

His article prompted a reader to share the memories he has of watching Redfield win the state amateur baseball championship on its home turf in 1954. Redfield had amassed an early 10-0 lead, but Aberdeen slowly chipped away until it was 10-9 in the ninth inning. Aberdeen had the bases loaded with their most feared hitter, Blackie Engelhart, coming to bat. With one out, Engelhart crushed a ball that seemed destined to be a grand slam, but Redfield’s center fielder leaped and caught it before it sailed over the fence. Then he wheeled around and fired the ball to the second baseman for a double play (the runners had been certain Engelhart would at least have a base hit, and took off running as the ball soared into the outfield).

Redfield is the hub of activity in Spink County.

Spink County was also the site of a unique baseball battle in 1920. Redfield had secured a professional team, but because the Congregational church owned the field and grandstand, no games were allowed on Sundays. Ten miles south in Tulare, Mike Anderson, editor of the town newspaper and manager of the Tulare baseball team, invited the Redfield squad to play its games there, provided Redfield would finance the cost of a new grandstand.

Both towns agreed, the grandstand was constructed in record time and games began. That’s when the Methodists of Tulare began to suspect something might be amiss. They thought the charging of admission on Sunday might violate one of South Dakota’s”blue laws.”

Six Methodist church members agreed to attend a Sunday game. Once they had purchased tickets, they filed a statement at the courthouse in Redfield. The judge ultimately ruled that Sunday baseball could continue, and admission could be charged, provided a separate area was maintained for those who wished to watch the games for free.

Chief Drifting Goose was a thorn in the side to Spink County’s early settlers.

Spink County has even produced a Major League Baseball player. Deacon Phillippe grew up learning to play baseball in the small town of Athol. As a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Phillippe defeated Cy Young in the first World Series game ever played in 1903. He won 189 games in a 13-year career that began when he was 27.

Long before the days of pheasants and baseball, the settlers who trickled into Spink County as early as the 1850s had to contend with the notorious Chief Drifting Goose. His Hunkpati band of Yanktonai was headquartered at Armadale, an island in the James River four miles northeast of Mellette. He’s remembered as a peace-loving leader who preferred pranking homesteaders to violence. Legend says he once stole the clothes from a settler and then made him run back to his sod shanty naked. When railroad surveyors marked a line through his encampment, he moved the stakes. Eventually the rail was routed through Northville, a more respectful 10 miles west of Drifting Goose’s camp.

Locals tell Drifting Goose stories with a chuckle, but they also respect the leader who never signed a treaty and, in his mind, never ceded any land. Historians have named a bridge that spans the James River on Highway 20 after Drifting Goose.

Redfield’s Carnegie Library is the oldest of its kind in South Dakota that has been continually used as a library.

Of course, the colorful leader’s tricks couldn’t stop the eventual settlement and organization of Spink County, created by the territorial legislature in 1873. The area was named for Solomon Lewis Spink, a New York native who worked in law and journalism before President Abraham Lincoln appointed him secretary of Dakota Territory in 1864. He also served in Congress and practiced law in Yankton until his death in 1881.

Several towns emerged along rail lines that passed through Spink County. The largest is Redfield (pop. 2,385), where the state legislature placed the Northern Hospital for the Insane in 1902. Called the South Dakota Developmental Center, the facility still cares for roughly 145 people with disabilities. Redfield is also home to the state’s oldest continually used Carnegie Library. Built in 1902, the red brick building with a sandstone foundation and domed cupola stands at 5 E. Fifth Ave.

Hubert Humphrey as a boy in Doland.

Fisher Grove State Park, east of Redfield near Frankfort, straddles the James River. It’s where the old Watertown-Pierre stage line crossed for the first time using a traditional rock crossing used by Native Americans. Further east on Highway 212 you’ll find Doland, the hometown of Hubert Humphrey, vice president of the United States under Lyndon Johnson from 1965 to 1969.

Follow Highway 37 north of Doland to Turton, (pop. 49) home of the Frogs. The tiny town still holds a Frogtown Festival every June, even though the Jim River is 15 miles away and the closest stream is called Dry Run. The pillar of Turton is the St. Joseph Catholic Church, where St. John the Baptist’s birthday is celebrated in June. The tradition dates to 1899, making it one of the nation’s oldest birthday parties for a saint (besides St. Patrick and St. Nick).

Five generations of Glenn Overby’s family have grown wheat in Spink County.

Spink County covers 1,500 square miles, and much of it is ideal wheat growing country. Farms are plentiful and elevators dot the horizon, especially along Highway 20 through Conde, Brentford, Mellette and Northville in the northern third of the county. The South Dakota Wheatgrowers’ Co-op at Mellette can store 5.5 million bushels, but chances are good you’ll see the overflow of this year’s harvest piled outdoors.

Several years ago we visited the Glenn Overby farm near Mellette. Glenn’s father, John, was a self-taught agronomist who developed his own varieties of wheat: Marvel Wheat and Spinkcota. You can see an exhibit about John Overby and his other inventions at the South Dakota Agricultural Heritage Museum in Brookings.

Wheat farming requires long hours, but we noticed this summer while attending the state amateur baseball tournament in Mitchell that the Northville team’s roster included A.J. Overby, the fifth generation of Overbys to work the Spink County land. That means there’s still time for baseball, and probably pheasants in October, too.

Editor’s Note: This is the 10th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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Turton: Food, Frogs and Philosophy


Funny how so many memories of life in a small town revolve around food. That’s the thought that came to me as I thumbed through a little book called”Memories of Turton” that was sent to me awhile back by Kay Britten.
Turton is south of Aberdeen, a town of a few dozen with a magnificent old Catholic church. In June, the feast day of St. John the Baptist is celebrated with real gusto at St. Joe’s. The public school’s mascot was The Frogs, a reference to the French culture of the first settlers. Students now go to Doland and neighboring towns, but good-humored folks still carry on the frog theme.
The school and church are also fondly remembered in the little book, but they take second fiddle to the culinary delights of rural South Dakota.
Jean Barrie Sundvold related that she likes to tell about”when Dad was chopping the heads off the chickens in the backyard, and they would flop all over the yard. We canned them one year and had to take the meat off the drumsticks because they were too big to fit in a quart jar.”
On that same topic, Jeff Barrie reported that there is truth behind the old saying,”Running around with your head cut off.”
Myrna Barrie Syverson recalled the little cafe where she gathered with friends after ballgames to enjoy fried egg sandwiches and Cokes with salted peanuts. She also mentioned,”the rabbit hunts on Sundays … making hot chocolate and sandwiches for the hunters.”
Cory Syverson liked burgers and Mello Yello at the Corner Station and catching pike on the bridge over the river. He also recalled big frog hunts — but those didn’t end with a meal.”When we caught them all, we took them all up to the church and let them go!”
Jeff Barrie said one lesson he learned early:”If you’re a vegetarian, pack your own lunch.”
But there were many memories that have more to do with feeding the soul. Alaish Wren said it best when she wrote,”I love the freedom of Turton, and the steadiness of it. I love the forgotten-ness of it. When you come home from Turton you’re never really sure if all of that really happened, or if it even exists or goes on existing while you’re away. Maybe it just appears for you only. What a treasure.”

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Dressed for Calving

By June Ohm

This morning a newsman told of a fireman who rescued a kitten from a burning building and gave it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. When asked what it tasted like, he answered,”fur.”

The story reminded me of Dress Up Day 1960 at Redfield School. In an age where girls always wore skirts to school, Dress Up Day was a big deal. I wore the brown tweed suit I’d made in home economics class (and got an A, by the way). My outfit was completed with a white ruffled blouse, button earrings, a necklace, high heels and nylons with a garter belt. The boys wore suits or dress pants and sport coats.

It was Friday, so instead of changing clothes and preparing for an evening of triple deck Mexican Canasta with Celia and her friends (Celia was my landlord/friend/surrogate grandmother with whom I stayed during the school week) I packed a suitcase and rode home with the neighbors, Zelda and Quentin. Zelda was the older of the two siblings. She worked at the Spink County Bank and had a car. Quentin was my age and kind of an older brother. We had a love/hate relationship. Zelda was known to stop the car during the 20-mile trip and make us get out and walk until we stopped arguing.

Despite the walks, I arrived home well dressed and ready for a family weekend. We planned to drive to Orient to visit Grandma and Granddad Stoner, so I kept my good clothes on. We were eating supper when my younger brother, Chuck, ran into the house and cried,”There’s a foot sticking out!”

That might seem like a really strange comment, but we knew he had been checking his pregnant heifer, Sandy. Dad and I jumped from the table and ran for the barn. Dad surveyed the situation and got out his trusty calf puller. He put his hand into the womb to try and straighten the calf out so it could be born normally; he seemed to have the job done, but nothing happened.

Sandy looked tired and stressed — straining hard to bring her offspring into the light of day. Finally, Dad tied the bands of the calf puller to the calf’s legs, handed me the rope and said,”When I say ‘Pull,’ you pull with everything you’ve got.” Chuck grabbed the rope behind me. Finally Dad was ready and said,”Pull!” All three of us strained and slowly that little calf slid from its mother’s womb unto the golden straw where the new mommy stood. Dad knelt down beside the calf while Chuck and I held our breath. The calf was very still. Was it dead?

Dad took his handkerchief and cleaned the calf’s mouth out. Nothing. Then he held the mouth shut, put his mouth over that nose and started blowing big breaths into the lungs — once, twice, three times — and rubbing the calf’s side. Now Sandy started licking her baby and Dad was blowing into the nose again — once, twice, aha! At last, a breath on its own. Movement. The baby was alive!

As Sandy continued licking her baby, she looked at us as if to say,”Thank you,” and”I can take care of it now.” The baby was struggling to right itself — the prettiest little Jersey calf you ever saw. The three of us all stood in amazement at the miracle. After allowing ourselves a few minutes of wonder, we went back to the house and reported on the new birth. I washed my shoes off. Dad had to change clothes. Finally we got in the car to leave for grandpa’s farm. What a story we had to tell.

Grandma Stoner wasn’t sure I had been dressed appropriately for such an event. Almost 50 years later, I remember the brown tweed outfit more in conjunction with the calf’s birth than I do for getting a good grade at school. I also remember that I learned a lot about Dad that night. I never asked him what his resuscitative efforts tasted like, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have said”fur.”

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2010 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.