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The Thrill of the Chase

By John Andrews

Watertown’s Alex Resel is happiest chasing storms across South Dakota.

Alex Resel’s passions are photography and severe weather, and they intertwine perfectly from late spring to early fall. Though he is only three years out of college, the Watertown storm chaser has already driven tens of thousands of miles in pursuit of thunderstorms, tornadoes, derechos and all manner of nasty weather, returning with beautiful photographs that often belie the dangers.

He’s quickly learned the ins and outs of chasing, such as what to look for on radar and where to safely position himself, but it wasn’t that long ago that his interests in storms and photography were just blossoming. On a humid Father’s Day in 2012, storms rolled into Watertown, bringing heavy hail and setting off the city’s tornado sirens.”Until that point, I had no interest in weather, but something clicked after that storm,” says Resel, who was 12 at the time.”From there, I would draw maps of South Dakota and look at the local weather forecast and do my own weather map forecasting.”

His first”chase” came three years later, when his dad drove him 30 miles north to Summit after seeing a forecast from the National Weather Service’s Aberdeen bureau. Storms were set to fire northwest of the little Roberts County town.”We sat there for probably an hour, just watching them move in. Eventually they merged into a line and drifted toward Watertown.”

Any photos taken that day were captured with a smartphone, but in 2016 he got his first digital camera. He spent the next few years practicing landscape and storm photography and earned a business degree with an emphasis in photography and media from Lake Area Technical College in 2021.

A supercell over Clark.

Resel launched Outer Shots Photography, where he offers prints of landscapes, the Northern lights and the severe weather that he’s been chasing in earnest since the summer of 2020. The makings for strong storms were present west of the Missouri River on June 6, so he headed to the Badlands on his first solo chase.

“It looked like a couple cells could fire, but it didn’t happen because of an ingredient called cap, which prevents storms from growing,” he says.”It’s like putting a lid on a boiling pot of water. I thought the day was over, so I went to the Badlands to hike around for a couple hours and then head home. But I noticed dark clouds were coming in from the south and west, so I decided to wait and see what was going on. A big line of storms started moving in from Nebraska and Wyoming. It developed a beautiful shelf cloud and packed a lot of winds. I watched it move in from one of the overlooks. I was looking south, and as the line was moving overhead a tornado formed right in front of me in the Badlands. That was my first tornado, and it was a really cool thing to see.”

Resel plans his routes based on weather models and utilizes a weather app on his phone, which stays mounted to his windshield.”I’m looking for moisture, instability, lift and shear,” he says.”If all of those ingredients are in place, it’s usually a good sign that you’re going to get some organized severe storms. If multiple storm cells are firing at the same time, I look at which one is the tallest. Usually that’s going to be the dominant storm. Hopefully I’ve picked the right storm so I can get the shots I need.”

A lightning storm over Watertown.

That doesn’t always happen. South Dakotans likely remember where they were on May 12, 2022, the day an unusual and violent derecho raced across the state at 50 to 70 mph, packing straight line winds of 60 to 100 mph, the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane. Resel noticed a localized enhanced tornado risk forming near Redfield, so he headed to Spink County.”Big cumulus clouds started to form, which is a good sign that storm activity is brewing, but as soon as they bloomed the derecho moved through and they disappeared. We didn’t get any storms to mature.” At the same time, he heard concerning reports closer to Watertown, including the tornado that caused extensive damage in Castlewood.”It’s a scary feeling being away from home and not knowing what’s going on.”

To help assuage those same feelings in others, he regularly reports what he sees to the National Weather Service, either by calling an office directly or through social media. Chasing severe weather can provide an adrenaline rush unequalled in other endeavors, but chasers are generally not simply reckless thrill seekers. There’s an important public service component to their work.

Peter Rogers, the warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Sioux Falls bureau, says information received from storm chasers and spotters can be crucial.”We have a lot of complex technology at our fingertips that helps us determine what’s going on, the radar probably being the most important,” Rogers says.”But there are still limitations to that, and there’s nothing better than having eyes and ears on ground watching what’s happening. From the Weather Service perspective, it’s all about the protection of life and property, and all the information that comes from chasers and other spotters is critical information to accomplish that mission.”

Storms that moved from Huron into northwest Iowa in the summer of 2022 turned the skies near Sioux Falls an eerie green. “It was the meanest looking storm I’ve ever seen,” Resel said.

Resel attends the NWS’s yearly severe weather awareness classes, which are offered in the spring. Meteorologists begin with basic terminology, such as the differences between watches and warnings, and then discuss weather in more detail, including how to identify supercell thunderstorms that could produce tornadoes and multicell storms that can cause other hazards. The classes emphasize safety, but Resel also uses the information to help identify the best position for photographing storms.”You’ve got to be on the southeast side of a storm. That’s where you get updraft and it’s where the photogenic parts of the storm are. That also keeps you safe from a tornado or large hail.”

Dangerous situations can still arise. Resel was in a caravan of storm chasers following severe weather in Colorado in August of 2023 when a tornado developed.”It wasn’t on the ground yet, so I felt comfortable, and I knew where to go to get out of its path. As the backside of those tornadic winds wrapped around it picked up rocks and broke out my back windshield. That ended my chase. I did get to see the tornado develop in front of me, but I got out of there as soon as I could to prevent any further damage. That was my first mistake in storm chasing, but luckily it only cost me a back windshield.”

Moments like that are learning opportunities, and not likely to quell the excitement that comes from storm chasing.”Watching the atmosphere work its magic and to have that unfold right in front of you is an amazing experience,” Resel says.”It’s not one that many people know. Each time is different, but you get those same feelings.”

Looking at his photos, you can almost feel it, too.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2024 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Watertown’s Pizza Champ

By John Andrews

Sean Dempsey’s innovative pizzas are turning heads in Watertown, where he owns Dempsey’s Brewery, Pub and Restaurant.

“Another 30 seconds,” Sean Dempsey says as he slides an Oktoberfest pizza back inside a 550-degree oven. A quick tap on the crust hadn’t produced the light knocking sound he wanted, indicating that it wasn’t quite done. There’s no timer in sight, but exactly half a minute later the pizza comes out and onto the counter, where Dempsey applies a brush of butter around the outside edges of the crust along with a little sea salt. Then come crumbles of sharp port cheddar cheese, a dash of oregano and tiny dollops of sweet lingonberries to complement the spicy sausage, dilly sauerkraut and spicy brown mustard.

This is not the simple cheese, pepperoni or sausage pizza that many of us have eaten all our lives. Dempsey’s daring creations are earning him a reputation among the best pizza makers in the world. And they might make him a pizza champion.

Dempsey was there the day in 1999 when his father Bill opened the Highland Laddie in a historic building on Watertown’s Broadway Avenue. Bill had long dreamed of a Celtic-themed pub; he occasionally donned a kilt and played bagpipes for customers. (The elder Dempsey was a pipe major for the Glacial Lakes Pipe and Drum Corps.)

Dempsey’s Brewery, Pub and Restaurant, as it became known in 2001, is largely unchanged 25 years later.

Flags still hang from the ceiling, a large mural of a castle in the Scottish highlands adorns the western dining room wall and its menu of burgers, steaks and pasta remains as popular as ever. But as Sean worked his way up through nearly every job in the restaurant — from bus boy to dishwasher to server to cook — it eventually became clear that he would have a future in the family business. He just needed to find a way to make his own mark.

Inspiration struck in 2013 when the Dempseys attended the International Pizza Expo and Conference in Las Vegas. It’s a trade show for all things pizza, where chefs explore new toppings, ingredients and baking methods. The Dempseys had begun offering pizzas a few years earlier, and like all good business owners, wanted to learn as much as they could.

Dempsey launched Danger von Dempsey’s, an offshoot of the original Watertown restaurant, to focus on pizza and craft beer.

“It was an eye-opener, because in my mind pizza had always been this dough you make, you put some cheese and sauce on it, bake it, cut it and you eat it when you’re drunk and it’s great,” he says.”But at the Pizza Expo I saw the different styles and how you could express yourself. You could get really creative with this and do things that other people haven’t done. That’s what sparked my interest.”

A year later, Dempsey traveled to San Francisco to study with Tony Gemigani, an international pizza champion who had launched the International School of Pizza and the United States School of Pizza, both under the Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli, an Italian school offering the most complete training of pizza chefs in the world. He is now the only certified pizzaiola (pizza maker) in South Dakota.

With that boost in experience, he went all-in on pizza. The kitchen at Dempsey’s took on the air of a science lab as he tweaked dough recipes and topping combinations. More importantly, he had to convince South Dakotans to trust his pizzas, a challenge in a region where national chains are the norm and people passionately debate the merits of pineapple on pizza.

“The first year was a nightmare,” he says.”I’d just gotten back from Tony’s school, and we bought a $20,000, two-ton double decker oven. We built an entire pizza room for it, and then when we started making pizzas people weren’t really wild about them. People like a lot of toppings and they want a large serving. Our pizzas were different, and they were a little more expensive. We spent a lot of time emphasizing the use of Italian ingredients, but still it was a solid year of educating. Why would you pay $18 for this pizza when you could get one at Domino’s for $6?”

Eventually customers warmed to his unique creations. That behemoth of an oven now cooks as many as 700 pizzas a week, ranging from a simple margherita featuring his house red sauce, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil and tomatoes to his more daring”pizza of the week.” The Argentine Horizon features roasted red pepper hummus, mozzarella, Argentine shrimp, red peppers, chives, cilantro and a squeeze of lemon. The Fisherman’s Hangover has shrimp, crab, shredded carrots, garlic, onions and lemon zest. The French Onion includes roast beef, French-fried onions, mushrooms and shallots.

About five minutes inside a 550-degree oven, give or take a few seconds, should give the pizza’s crust the perfect color and texture.

His pizzas are also turning heads around the globe. In 2017, the year after he took over ownership of the restaurant from his father, who is now enjoying retirement, Dempsey began competing at the International Pizza Challenge, part of the annual Las Vegas expo. He took 10th place in the traditional division and first in the Northwest region. He won the Northwest twice more, in 2018 and again in 2022, a year in which he also finished .02 points behind the overall winner in the traditional division.

Which brings us back to the Oktoberfest pizza. This is his 2024 competition pizza, which he presented to judges in Las Vegas in March and will bring to Naples, Italy in June, where he’ll compete internationally as a member of the United States Pizza Team, earned by virtue of his wins in Las Vegas. It was still a work in progress when we visited Dempsey’s kitchen in February, where he practiced baking it under competition conditions.

The Oktoberfest was inspired by a celebration he attended with relatives in Austria. While the original components are still there, he has tweaked the ingredients, including a sauerkraut made with whiskey and dill. He tried muenster cheese instead of the port cheddar, but it wasn’t strong enough. Same with the lingonberries blended into a drizzle. He’s experimenting with tiny pieces of Granny Smith apple and a German beer reduction drizzled over the top.

There’s beer in the dough, too, a constantly evolving combination of high-gluten flour and rye that ferments for four days and sits out for 10 hours before it’s stretched into a crust. Sausage slices are crisped in the oven before being placed on the pizza along with the German mustard base, mozzarella, red onion rings and sauerkraut.

The pizza goes into the oven for two and a half minutes, then is rotated and cooked another two and half minutes, give or take a few seconds based on the crust’s color and texture. After a minute of rest, he adds the crumbles of sharp port cheddar cheese and spoons of lingonberries, all arranged so that a single bite includes every component and the slices — cut with pizza shears to protect the integrity of the crust — are uniformly topped.

Dempsey hopes the Oktoberfest is enough to put him over the top in competitions this year. Even if it’s not, South Dakotans have already demonstrated their willingness to”try weird things on pizza,” as he puts it. His Danger von Dempsey’s, an offshoot of the original Dempsey’s featuring pizzas and craft beer, has expanded to Aberdeen, Brookings and the Watertown airport. Sauerkraut, shrimp — and maybe even pineapple — on pizza is here to stay.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2024 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Last Hunt with John

By Lucas Nogelmeier

Time spent outdoors helped soothe Lucas Nogelmeier’s grieving soul after the death of his father-in-law. Photo by Dean Pearson

When we lose someone dear to us, we yearn for one more conversation, one more Christmas or one more smile. When I lost my father-in-law John Wiles in November of 2019, I wanted one more hunt with the man who took me on so many memorable outdoor excursions in South Dakota. Thankfully, we got it.

On my annual West River deer hunting trip, my phone rang with the news. My father-in-law had been in the hospital for several weeks. After many ups and downs, he ultimately suffered a setback and there was nothing keeping him alive beyond the machines. I loaded my gear and came home. I stayed with the kids, and my wife went to be with her mom and family. I could have gone, and maybe I should have, but I remembered my grandfather in the hospital during his final days and selfishly decided that wasn’t the memory I wanted to have of John. A little after 2 a.m., the call came. My father-in-law was at eternal rest.

I spent most of the following morning feeling sorry for myself, thinking of the times John and I shared. As most South Dakotans know, hunting isn’t about the harvest. It’s about the connection we feel when interacting with the outdoors. My hunting trips with John were no exception. I remembered watching the sunrise with him out at the Pass, our local hunting club near Watertown, where he would recall moments from his childhood, his early adulthood and as a new parent. His life was tethered to that spot and it was a gift to be there with him. My memories weren’t of bag limits or trophy animals. They were simply of being together.

Unable to clear my head, I grabbed my gun and loaded up my dog. It was a magnificent mid-November day, the perfect medicine for my soul. I didn’t care about shooting a pheasant. I just wanted to be outside with my yellow lab Sage, to feel the sunshine on my face and the grasses brushing the backs of my hands as I walked through the prairie.

Using the Game, Fish and Parks map, I picked a spot I’d never hunted before. I arrived to find that cattle had grazed the ground so short it would be hard for a mouse to hide. Sage and I walked around the edge toward a slough to see what we could find. The property extended back into more public ground that had served as pasture but was fenced off and probably hadn’t been grazed in years. It was about 75 acres of overgrown feedlot.

It was a nightmare to walk through. The habitat was thick, layered and tall, but I knew it was prime hunting ground. About 10 yards in, Sage pointed and we dropped our first rooster. Another bird took flight. I kept an eye on where he landed, and Sage and I trudged over to the spot. As excited as we were to get to him, I slowed my pace. Soon my dog’s tail and demeanor indicated we were close. Sage moved north and I followed.

Watertown’s John Wiles (far right) loved hunting, and used the outdoor experiences to impart life lessons to his family, including (from left) son-in-law Lucas Nogelmeier and daughters Amber Nogelmeier and Shannon Bahr.

And then it happened. It was one of those moments that people travel from all over the world to South Dakota to experience. Hens exploded from the ground like popcorn. There were roosters in front of me, behind me, next to me. Cackling and beating wings roared in my ears. I shot once, twice three times, and didn’t touch a feather on any of them. I didn’t have time to reload completely, so I threw a shell in the chamber and shot. And missed again. Pheasants kept flushing, so I threw in another shell and still I missed. No less than 75 birds were piled into an area the size of half a basketball court. My dog looked at me quizzically, and all I could hear was my father-in-law’s boisterous laugh. He had a laugh that rose above the crowd. Amidst my tears, I couldn’t help but laugh as well.

Sage and I headed to a spot where the habitat was a little lighter. I was hoping for easier walking, and maybe some water for my dog. Just before we reached the easier stuff, a rooster flushed. This time, I focused and put him on the ground. We made a beeline out of the nastiness and back to the grazed land.

I walked Sage over to the slough and busted a hole through the ice with my heel so she could drink. Naturally, she ignored the water and acted birdy. I imagined that any one of the horde of birds we flushed could have landed anywhere, even out here in the short grass. I wandered behind her as she worked back and forth into the wind. We were close to the truck, but I didn’t want to go home and I didn’t want to keep pressing for my limit. I simply needed to be outdoors. Just as food and water nourish the body, nature nourishes the soul.

I was deep in thought as Sage and I walked the edge of the slough. The shoreline wound its way back into the thick cover, and soon we came to the spot where we first entered the overgrown feedlot. Rather than jump back in, I walked the grazed outside and let Sage work the edge of the prairie wilds.

I strode slowly north, the ancient, overgrown pasture on my right and the setting sun on my left. Geese honked above and two deer ambled out of the trees while I tried to wrap my head around losing someone who held such an exalted place in my life. Then Sage flushed a rooster about 30 yards into the mess, but I just didn’t feel like shooting. The purples, blues and greens radiated from the bird, and the scene was so idyllic that it seemed better just to admire.

Up ahead, the public land cut off and on the other side was an alfalfa field. Our hunt would soon be over. Fifty yards to go, then 20, then 10. And quiet. Sage and I stop. Tears began to pour down my cheeks again. I knew what was coming. My dog knew it too, and I could feel my father-in-law’s hand on my shoulder. My word for Sage to break point is”okay.” I let it out and Sage pounced. I heard the wingbeats before I saw the pheasant rise above the habitat, colors ablaze. Deliberately, I pulled the gun up and made a good shot. I knelt, sobbing, and Sage returned with the bird in her mouth.

For most of the day, I had been grieving, desperately wishing for one more hunt with my father-in-law. It was on my knees on the South Dakota prairie, my dog by my side and a limit of roosters in the vest that I realized this was that hunt. I didn’t want it to end, so we stayed a moment, together in spirit, in prayer and thanksgiving.

The same warm, November sun shone a bit brighter as we headed back to the truck, and my grief had been replaced with gratitude. A small trickle of water ran amidst the pasture, and Sage found the muddiest place to lie down and cool off. I typically try to keep her out of the mud, but if she’s willing to let me do the easy walking while she busts through the hard stuff to flush pheasants, I think it’s fair to let her wallow in the muck. She stepped out looking two-tone with mud covering every square inch from the middle of her belly and down. And I heard John laugh once more.

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

Upland hunting fall 2019 Grouse Pheasant
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A Renewed Energy

By John Andrews

Executive Director Jamie Mack and Events Coordinator Kathryn Jurrens help oversee daily activities at Watertown’s Goss Opera House.

TEN YEARS AGO, Watertown’s Goss Opera House was abuzz with activity. Comedy shows and concerts were being staged in its grand, second-floor theater. Diners raved about the steaks at Charley’s Restaurant and the delicious coffee brewed in a little shop called Common Ground. Local artist Josh Spies displayed his oil paintings and exotic wildlife mounts taken during African safaris. Retired high school speech teacher Donus Roberts sold books in a main floor shop and other local artisans offered silk scarves, purses and jewelry in the emporium.

David Berry led downtown Watertown’s renaissance. The South Carolina attorney and then-husband of Watertown lawyer Nancy Turbak had toured the Goss in 2007 and bought it for $150,000. He initially envisioned a renovated theater that could be used as an entertainment venue, but there were challenges in bringing a 19th century building into compliance with 21st century standards. Berry bought the neighboring building to help address accessibility issues and built a commercial kitchen and meeting room. When the Second City Comedy Tour performed in October 2009, it was the first ticketed event held in the Goss in more than 70 years. The applause at the end of the night was as much for Berry’s vision as it was for the show.”At the time, Watertown was an epicenter for arts and culture in the state,” Berry said of the city in 1889, the year Charles Goss finished his grand building at the corner of Kemp and Maple.”That’s really what our vision is here: the renaissance of arts and culture in South Dakota.”

But completely renovating a building as historically significant and as large as the Goss is difficult for any group, and potentially impossible for an individual. After several years the burdens were growing too much, and in 2017 Berry reached out to Brad Johnson, a local businessman and real estate appraiser, for help. Johnson had worked with Berry on the Goss project almost from the beginning and began contacting local businesses and organizations to keep the Goss alive. Johnson and Doug Sharp, owner of Sharp Automotive, took over the restaurant and established a nonprofit organization called Friends of the Goss. As they worked to transfer ownership, structural engineers who had been hired to inspect the 128-year-old building brought bad news. Two major beams in the roof had broken and begun settling into the opera house’s superstructure, causing its walls to crack. The entire building was in danger of collapse.

Johnson, Sharp and the original Friends of the Goss board agreed with Berry on a purchase price of $300,000. The group secured $150,000 from the Watertown Area Community Foundation and approached the City of Watertown for a match. The council voted against it on April 17, 2018. The next day the Goss went dark, its future as murky as the black plastic that now shrouded its windows and doors.

The Goss’ lighter and brighter theater features a state-of-the-art sound system that allows bands to “plug in and play.”

“To him as much as to any other man is due Watertown’s present prosperity and financial strength,” the Watertown Public Opinion said about Charles Goss the year he ran for alderman. Goss was an Englishman, born in Buckinghamshire in 1833. He emigrated with his parents at age 11 and lived in New York and Wisconsin, where he farmed and spent time in various trades, including carpentry, barbering and the restaurant business.

Goss moved to Watertown in 1879, bringing lumber with him from Wisconsin to build a general store. The next year he constructed four additional buildings, one of which housed an opera hall on the second floor. But early one morning in April 1888, passers-by reported fire in the rooms above Goss’ main floor drugstore. By the time firefighters arrived, they could only work to save the adjoining structure. The Goss building was destroyed.

Goss almost immediately decided to rebuild. In June, he began laying the foundation for a building that included 65 feet of frontage on Kemp Avenue and 125 feet on Maple. The Public Opinion reported that it would likely include a public hall for entertainment, but its editor was not impressed.”He will certainly make a mistake in his whole scheme,” the paper said.”Watertown is already well supplied with facilities of this kind. There is a possibility of a hotel proving a paying investment, but another public hall would be a dead load.”

Charles Goss

True, the Grand Opera House stood directly across the street and there was another opera house just a block away, but Goss was insistent. As the bigger and better Goss Opera House slowly took shape, opinions began to change. Plans were mostly finalized by August. The building would include seven storerooms on the first level and an opera house on the second and third. Office spaces would be located along both the Kemp and Maple sides.”When completed it will be one of the handsomest among our many handsome blocks,” the Public Opinion said.

Goss held a grand opening in December 1889 with events prepared by the ladies of the Congregational Church. There was also a Merchant’s Carnival, which featured 60″banner girls,” local ladies dressed to represent Watertown businesses and paraded through the opera house. It proved so successful that it was staged again the following night.

And so the Goss Opera House began a several decade run as a focal point of downtown Watertown. Goss continued to run a drug and crockery store on the first level, as well as manage the rest of the building, until his death in January 1905.”He was of peculiar make up,” read the Public Opinion’s obituary.”He was firm and strong in his convictions, forceful, outspoken, cynical and absolutely independent. He cared but little for the opinion of his fellow man but suited his life to the conditions of the world according to the view which he obtained through his own eyes. There was nothing conventional about ‘Fodder Goss.'”

The years after World War II marked the beginning of a slow and steady decline. The public hall — once the site of plays, dances and other community events — gave way to roller skating and basketball. Eventually it became a favorite spot for youth to sneak into late at night. A drug store continued to operate on the main level, but no one really paid attention to the upper levels, where pigeons had found a cozy home and water slowly leaked through, compromising the building’s structural integrity.

There were those in Watertown who believed the Goss wasn’t worth saving, while others desperately wanted to preserve the old building but didn’t have the means to tackle such an enormous project. Then David Berry arrived in 2007. He shouldered the load for a decade, and by 2018 it was time for the community to take a page out of Charley Goss’ book and breathe new life into its opera house.

*****

As negotiations continued between David Berry and the Friends of the Goss, the nonprofit organization expanded its reach, bringing in representatives from Lake Area Technical College, the Watertown Area Community Foundation and Watertown Development Company, which contributed $150,000. Milt Carter, a Watertown native and the head of CSS Farms, joined the foundation as its president and began negotiating a new deal with Berry. The Friends also hosted community feedback sessions to learn what people wanted to see in the Goss. Chris Paulson, now the entertainment director at the Goss, launched Light Up the Goss, a fundraising campaign in which bricks were sold for $100. The effort quickly raised $20,000.”That began our community rally around the building,” Brad Johnson says.”People rallied to it, and then significant parts of the community and businesses invested, because they all understood a focal point of history in your downtown is a critical anchor, and they recognized the value of the Goss.” With Carter leading talks and making his own donation, the Friends of the Goss finally took ownership of the building on Dec. 31, 2018.

A fire damaged room on the third floor of the Goss was left untouched, a reminder of tragedy that struck in 1936.

Riding the public’s enthusiasm, the Friends announced a $3 million capital campaign to address the structural issues that engineers continued to discover. Seemingly all segments of the community got involved, contributing anywhere from $10 to $1 million.”It was almost shocking to those of us on the fundraising committee how vibrant the response was,” Johnson says.”We thought $3 million was very ambitious, and then we hit that relatively quickly, so we decided to fix the whole thing and get it done now, so we went for $5 million. Now there’s nothing major left to do.”

The Goss got a new roof, a new heating and cooling system and new windows, in part thanks to more than $250,000 worth of in-kind donations from local construction and manufacturing firms. Its lighter and brighter theater features a new chandelier, lighting and a state-of-the-art sound system that allows national touring artists to”plug in and play,” as Johnson says. Maverick’s Steak and Cocktails offers lunch and dinner on the main floor, and with a second commercial kitchen upstairs can cater special events in the theater or any of the meeting spaces. The Calvin Boardroom is named for local entrepreneur John Calvin, who died in 2019. His wife, Prudy, donated his granite boardroom table and leather chairs. Prairie Lakes Landing, the third floor gathering space, can accommodate 100 to 200 people.

While much of the Goss has a modern feel, some original elements have been preserved. Two murals on either side of the theatre stage date to 1889. Cracks in the paint are an indication of decades of the building settling and shifting, but the dents and divots may be from the days when celebratory gunfire indoors was common. Original wallpaper uncovered during Berry’s restoration is preserved in the balcony and was recreated and stenciled around the theater’s perimeter.

One room on the third floor was left untouched, as much to remember the extent of the building’s deterioration as to commemorate the sad story that unfolded inside. Maud Alexander was a waitress at the Lincoln Hotel and was living in the room in 1936 when her son Orval, in an alcoholic rage, doused her in medicinal alcohol while she slept and set her on fire. Neighbors heard Maud shouting,”I’m burning up! I’m burning up!” They wrapped her in blankets to douse the fire, but she suffered burns over nearly three-quarters of her body and died the next day. Orval was sentenced to 30 years in the penitentiary, although he was released in 1953 and died in Watertown 10 years later. Many believe Maud’s ghost and the spirits of others still roam the building.

Contractors worked swiftly throughout 2019, and the Goss was ready to reopen in early 2020. But in March the coronavirus pandemic brought the world to a standstill. Staff and the opera house’s board of directors navigated the early months of the pandemic and were able to stage a concert in July. A grand re-opening on September 25 marked the Goss’ formal return as a lynchpin in downtown Watertown.

*****

The resurrection of the Goss sent waves of energy throughout Watertown’s downtown.”Now the building is what it was originally envisioned to be: a community focal point,” Johnson says.”And because we did that, it sent a signal to the larger community that Watertown was serious about its downtown and preserving its history. Watertown’s decision to save the Goss spurred close to $30 million in downtown investment. It’s not just the renovation of the Goss, it’s the renovation of the entire downtown.”

Fargo developer Jesse Craig created a Watertown Downtown Plaza, which includes Parkside Place, a 36-apartment complex that also houses a quick care medical facility, pharmacy and butcher shop, and The Ruins, an apartment complex currently in design that could include 69 units on East Kemp. Between those complexes, the city of Watertown — in conjunction with a $500,000 grant from the Watertown Area Community Foundation — is building a plaza that will feature a playground, splash pad, green space and an amphitheater.

A coffee shop called Gather is part of downtown Watertown’s resurgence. Staff includes (from left) Darci Biswell, Angie Reppe, Amanda Miller and Mallissa Stockwell.

Craig has also built The Lofts, a $5.5 million building that includes 39 apartments and 8,000 feet of commercial space on North Broadway and is at work on a senior living facility on First Avenue Southwest called Generations on 1st, slated to open in March 2022.

Crestone Companies, a Watertown-based building and development firm, broke ground in November on a project that will include parking, commercial space and 62 apartments on the east end of Kemp Avenue. Eric Skott, Crestone’s CEO, says the downtown transformation has the feel of a domino effect.”The Goss had been in the works for 10 years and the Friends of the Goss finally took it over and funded it the way it needed to be funded. That was one big domino. The other was our Watertown Development Company and civic leaders providing TIFs (tax increment financing districts) and making it feasible for developers to come downtown. We were interested in downtown and loved the old buildings before all of that happened, but it really piqued the interest. There’s just a renewed energy downtown, and I think people are wanting to be a part of that energy, whether you really know why or not. I think it’s just starting to build.”

Angie Reppe became part of the downtown energy 10 years ago when she and her husband bought the old brick building that once housed the city’s Woolworth’s department store. Four years ago, they opened a coffee house called Gather in a portion of that building.”We lost our downtown coffee shop a few years ago, and everybody needs a place to hang out,” Reppe says.”It makes me happy to see people relaxing and having a good time.”

Local artist Dustin Sinner sells originals in a boutique connected to the Goss. His Glacial Lakes-themed paintings are especially popular. Havilah Holzwarth, who helps manage the store, also offers her custom-made shirts and greeting cards. Along Maple, Katie Voss operates Timberbloom, a home and lifestyle store that carries only American-made products.”We wanted American-made, because if you’re searching for American-made, you have to be very intentional, checking the back of everything,” Voss says.”We wanted to be a place where people could trust all of the products to be true to that vision.”

Inside the Goss, concerts, theater productions, meetings, receptions and other community events are packing the calendar.”We’ve been busier in the last year than I think anyone thought,” says Jamie Mack, the Goss’ executive director.”The community has wanted to use the building more than anyone anticipated, so we have people going in and out of here all the time. It’s been wonderful.”

Donus Roberts has watched the downtown spring back to life from his own shop, DDR Books, on Maple, just across the street from where he once sold books.”The mall opened here in 1976, and downtown appears to be the healthiest it’s been since that time,” Roberts says.”We have more stores, and they’ve changed what they’re selling. Lots of things are different now. I’ve been coming down here at night and you can’t park anywhere around here. There are cars everywhere. I have to go around the block and park and come in through my back door, and I’m absolutely exhilarated to do that.”

Downtown Watertown is once again abuzz with activity, and it seems people from throughout the Glacial Lakes and beyond are eager to experience it.

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

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Riding on Air

By John Andrews

Jesse Jurrens leads Legend Suspensions, a Sturgis business specializing in smooth rides.

You could say that Legend Suspensions got its start on the dirt bike trails of Codington County. Jesse Jurrens grew up outside of Watertown, riding and modifying bikes. He continued tinkering after he got his first Harley, but when it came to the suspension system, he looked far and wide for an air spring system similar to what was being used on hot rods.”When I couldn’t find it, I decided to make my own,” Jurrens says.”That sent me down the path of fabricating prototypes, thinking in the back of my mind that maybe there was a market for it.”

The ultimate result was an air suspension system that has become the bedrock product for Legend Suspensions. Made using state-of-the-art rubber, the system provides a smoother ride, increased load capacity and adjustability mid-ride. The systems are now in use around the world, but it took a lot of time, testing and patience.

Jurrens began in the basement of his parents’ house in Watertown in the mid-1990s. He soon met Dan Dolan, now a professor emeritus of mechanical engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, who specialized in vehicle dynamics.”I wasn’t a student but he was intrigued by what I was trying to accomplish,” Jurrens says.”He helped me to emulate a million miles of testing on that first product, which took quite a bit of time, but it was important to build that safety if I thought I was going to sell these in the future.”

The key came when the Gates Rubber Company agreed to share its Aramid fiber rubber air spring technology.”Aramid fiber is almost like a bulletproof vest,” he says.”When we run a lot of air pressure into these air springs, they can only grow about a millimeter at most, because it’s such a tight compact area underneath these bikes. The rubber has to stay its size and be able to handle extreme use. This is the only material that holds up. It makes our product work.”

Legend Suspensions now employs around 35 people at its headquarters in Sturgis. Parts are machined at a plant in Watertown and other components come from smaller companies in South Dakota and around the Midwest. In addition to air suspensions, they also produce high-end coil and front-end suspensions.”No matter what the customer is looking to do with that motorcycle, we’ve got an option,” Jurrens says.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 2021 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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Bridges to History

By John Andrews

John Timm as Governor Arthur Mellette.

No South Dakotan alive today shook the hand of our first governor, Arthur Mellette, or stood with Valentine McGillycuddy atop Black Elk Peak. But we can still gain insight into the men and women who helped shape our state through the people who study and portray them today as historical re-enactors.

About five years ago, I asked several re-enactors for their favorite stories about the characters they have come to know so well. Here are two anecdotes that have stayed with me since the story appeared in our January/February 2017 issue, mostly because of the implications they may have had on our state’s history.

John Timm began performing as Arthur Mellette in 2005 after a historian at the Mellette House in Watertown suggested his facial features closely resembled those of the former governor, who served from 1889 to 1893.

One day, Mellette received a letter from a young man who had just graduated from law school in Mellette’s home state of Indiana. The new lawyer was inquiring about business prospects in Dakota Territory. Mellette said he could do well here and invited him to stay at the Mellette home in Watertown.

That Fourth of July, Mellette was invited to give a speech in Clark, about 30 miles west. He was unable to attend, so he asked the young lawyer to go make a speech in his place.”There was a big demand for lawyers at the time with all the homesteading and claim jumping, so the people in Clark asked him to stay,” Timm told us.”One night a terrible storm came through, probably a tornado, and the town’s sewage got mixed with the fresh water supply, setting off this great plague of cholera. As they cleaned up the town, no one remembered seeing their new attorney for quite some time. They went to his law office and sure enough, there he was — and more dead than alive.

“They sent a telegram to Mellette in Watertown that it looked like he wasn’t going to survive. Mellette took the train to Clark and brought him back in a boxcar, and he notified the young man’s family in Indiana. His dad came out by train, and between him and Mellette they nursed him back to health until he was well enough to go back to Indiana to finish his recovery.

“After he recuperated, he came back to Clark to practice law. Eventually he sent for the girl who would become his wife. Of course, we know that Mellette later became South Dakota’s first governor, and the young man he helped to save, Sam Elrod, became South Dakota’s fifth governor.”

In Rapid City, Wayne Gilbert portrayed Valentine McGillycuddy for several years through a partnership with Historic Rapid City, a preservation organization currently restoring the McGillycuddy House. McGillycuddy was the physician who tended Crazy Horse’s mortal wounds at Fort Robinson in 1877. He was among the first white men to climb Black Elk Peak in 1875 (his ashes are interred atop the mountain), was president of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and later mayor of Rapid City.

McGillycuddy also served as Indian agent on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the 1880s, the decade before the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.”He quarreled frequently with Red Cloud because McGillycuddy was trying — for good or ill — to enforce the government’s policy that the Lakota needed to be turned into farmers,” Gilbert said.”But despite that, he really was quite sympathetic to, if not aligned with, Native practices, cultures and beliefs, and at the very least tolerant of them and not willing to discourage them.

“McGillycuddy was ultimately relieved of his duties, and his replacement was new to Native culture. So when the Ghost Dance movement began he was terrified, and asked that the Army be brought to Pine Ridge. McGillycuddy was strongly against that. He said, ‘When the Seventh Day Adventists put on ascension robes and went into the mountains to await the second coming of Jesus, we didn’t call out the Army. So we shouldn’t call out the Army because these Native people are putting on ghost shirts and practicing their religion.’

“He met with Red Cloud and others and they asked him to intervene, but he told them his words didn’t have the power they once did. He did what he could, but it wasn’t enough. And it was at that point that Red Cloud said, ‘You and I never got along, but I can see now that you may have been right. You are wasicu wakan,’ loosely translated as the Holy White Man.

“Later, state historian Doane Robinson said that had McGillycuddy been the agent, or had his advice been followed, the Wounded Knee Massacre would not have occurred.”

A different governor? No Wounded Knee? We’ll never know what South Dakota might look like had either of those scenarios played out, but thanks to the re-enactors who preserve stories like these we’ll always have food for historical thought.

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South Dakota’s Sledding Hills

Local youth take to their sleds at Yankton’s Morgen Park. Photo by Bernie Hunhoff.

By Bernie Hunhoff

South Dakota’s reputation for geographic diversity holds true when it comes to snow sledding. Some of our eastern cities are too flat, and the slopes in some of our mountain towns are too rugged, steep and rocky.

In Aberdeen, where the terrain has been described as”flat as a barn door,” city leaders manufactured a 25′ hill so kids could enjoy winter. However, we discovered that most communities have a natural hill that becomes a hot spot when it snows.

Pack your sleds as you travel this winter because there are plenty of hills to explore. Most of the snow hills are unsupervised, so adults should be ready to act if they see something dangerous — a heavy toboggan sled, for example, that could carom out of control and hurt someone, or a motorized vehicle on the slopes. Sledding has long been a favorite winter tradition, even for our flatland friends. Let’s keep it alive.

Here’s our list of city slopes. Tell us what we’re missing. We’d also like to know where to find the closest and richest hot chocolate after a day on the slopes.

ABERDEEN — God created most of South Dakota’s hills and mountains, but man assisted with the modest slope in Baird Park (1715 24th Avenue NE), the most popular sledding spot in the Hub City. City officials created the gentle 25-foot just for kids.

BELLE FOURCHE — Slopes behind the Tri-State Museum (415 5th Avenue) are a favorite, though they may be too fast for younger kids and there is a walking path at the foot of the hill so watch for pedestrians.

CUSTER — Pageant Hill has been touted as one of the finest family sledding spots in the Black Hills. It may be too steep and long for younger kids, but you don’t have to descend from the very top. The hill is the summit of beautiful Big Rock Park, which also includes hiking trails and a disc golf course. It rises above the city’s south side.

HOT SPRINGS — Southern Hills Golf Course (1130 Clubhouse Drive) is fun and scenic.

HURON — Toboggan Hill (6th Street & Lawnridge Avenue), aka Slide Hill, is a bluff above the Jim River valley on Huron’s east side.

LEMMON — The ever-resourceful people of Lemmon discovered years ago that it was less expensive to build a small hill for their new water storage rather than just build a taller tower. Then someone got the great idea or also making it into a sledding slope with a warming shack. Tank Hill is quite easy to spot on the city’s west side. Many years ago, when the water tower developed a leak during a cold spell, kids were able to slide on the ice flow all the way downtown.

PIERRE — The slopes above the soccer fields in Hilger’s Gulch are popular. The gulch is a scenic valley just north of the State Capitol building.

RAPID CITY — Meadowbrook School Hill (3125 W. Flormann Street) is a good spot, as well as the Civic Center hill that rises above the Holiday Inn Rushmore Plaza parking lot downtown.

SIOUX FALLS — Tuthill Park in southeast Sioux Falls is the site of weddings and parties in the summer months, but when the snow falls it becomes the domain of well-bundled children with sleds. Spellerberg Park (2299 W. 22nd Street), closer to the city center, also has a fair slope. Great Bear Ski Valley welcomes snow tubers, who get to ride the ski lifts.

SPEARFISH — Hills behind the Donald E. Young Center on the Black Hills State University campus are fast and fun.

STURGIS — Lions Club Park (off Lazelle Street) is a good place for younger kids, and Strong Field Hill on Ballpark Road is fun for older youth.

WATERTOWN — St. Ann’s Hill, a sledder’s delight, is so named because St. Ann’s was the original name of the nearby Prairie Lakes Hospital. Take Highway 20 to 10th Avenue and turn uphill.

WESSINGTON SPRINGS — It’s worth a drive to experience Ski Hill on the west edge of Wessington Springs. The natural setting in the Wessington Hills is idyllic, but the real attraction is an old, homemade invention with an electric motor that powers a 1,200-foot rope lift. Jokingly called the”Rube Goldberg ski lift,” the simple equipment has been lovingly cared for by handy volunteers, including Lloyd Marken, 85, who helped to build it in 1956.

YANKTON — Morgen Park (1200 Green Street) is the go-to sledding hill in town, however kids also like to slide down the earthen slope of Gavins Point Dam, where it rises above Pierson Ranch Recreation Area west of Yankton.

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Our Water Stories

By Katie Hunhoff

The Muskegon was once hailed as the handsomest boat on Big Stone Lake. It capsized in 1917 with nine passengers aboard.

For a state once considered a desert, South Dakota has a lot of water, thousands of feet of shoreline and a veritable treasure chest of lake and river adventure stories — some dating back a century and more.

The Kampeska Monster is among the wackiest. Boat-builders at Lake Kampeska were building a steamer in 1886 when they reported seeing a”20-foot long snake-like creature.” They were not taken seriously until several days later when four prominent Watertown area businessmen claimed they also saw it.

The foursome said it swam for quite a distance before disappearing into the depths. Perhaps worried about their reputations, they admitted it might have been an unusually large lake sturgeon. Big-city journalists came to see for themselves. Some poked fun at the very idea of a Loch Ness on the prairie, but one writer concluded that,”sturdy, virile Dakotans were not given to superstitious fears.”

Some of our water stories are fun, but others end in tragedy. At Big Stone Lake on July 10, 1917, nine people stepped aboard an excursion boat called The Muskegon. They never reached the other shore. Heavy rain fell and then, said a survivor, it seemed that two storms met in the middle of the lake, capsizing the 60-foot boat.

A heart-wrenching struggle ensued, as passengers and crew tried to save themselves and one another. In the end, the captain and six passengers drowned, including two young sisters. A poet memorialized the dead with a long piece that included these lines:

Those were the ties severed

In those seven peoples’ lives

Lost on this boat Muskegon

Sinking to rise no more.

But the Muskegon did rise; it was pulled from the water and restored 10 years later by a wealthy businessman who renamed it the Golden Bantam. Today it is docked at a museum just across the South Dakota border in Ortonville, Minnesota, along with memorabilia and news clippings.

Not many South Dakotans have prospered as professional fishermen, but there was a time when you could make a living by clamming on the James, Big Sioux and Vermillion rivers. Button-makers wanted the shells in the early 20th century. Clams were so abundant in the James that a particular spot called Tuscan in Hutchinson County was dubbed the”Mother of Pearl Capital of the World.”

The clam industry dwindled in the 1940s due to over-harvesting, environmental changes in the rivers and, of course, the invention of plastic buttons.

Despite the placidity of today’s tamed Missouri, adventures still occur on its waters. In 1992 a young Yankton couple saw a small object with a yellow flag on top being pulled upstream by a nylon rope. The object kept disappearing and surfacing around their boat, until the rope got tangled in the propeller and killed the engine.

They began to be pulled upstream, backwards, and to the husband’s horror the boat was slowly being pulled down into the water. They traveled about 300 yards, with their transom only inches above the water’s surface before he was able to cut the rope.

Their experience was witnessed by other fishermen and was soon published in the Yankton paper. The city was abuzz with news of the river monster. Writer Marilyn Kratz concluded that a sturgeon, which can grow to 1,000 pounds, could have been the culprit.”Their slender body and long snout, covered with bony plates, would be a terrifying sight at that size,” she wrote.”They certainly would be large and powerful enough to pull a boat about their same size.”

Huge fish were also reported by dam-builders when the reservoirs were built along the Missouri. Some divers saw fish 15 feet long floating at the bottom of the muddy river. Mysteries are still unfolding on land and in the waters of South Dakota.

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Goodbye to the King of the Clowns

By Bernie Hunhoff

Who knows why men paint their faces and dress funny to become clowns? Some do it for attention. Some probably like to entertain in anonymity. Others just like to help others have a fun time. And the latter describes longtime Watertown clown Don Crouse who died early Saturday morning in a house fire at age 91.

We had an opportunity to attend a couple of parades with Crouse and his clown family in 2002. In all our years of exploring the far corners of South Dakota, we’ve met lots of wonderful folks who go to great lengths to make their communities happier places. Don Crouse was a king among all of them; a king and a clown.

He and his wife Dorothy were running a small drug store in Willow Lake in 1957 when that town celebrated its 75th birthday. He rebuilt a Model T for the occasion. When townspeople heard what he was doing, they brought parts from their garages and backyards.

Yes, that was a simpler time when all clowns were wholesome and good and you could still find a Model T rim when you needed one.

“We wanted something that would make people laugh so we bolted a post on the back of the car with a saddle,” Don told us.”Then we had the wheels welded off center so it would bounce up and down as it went down the street.” A man dressed like a woman and rode on the saddle.

The car was a big hit so the Crouses drove it in other parades. They were invited to the National Legionnaires Parade in Denver in 1960. Men dressed like women were prohibited but the Willow Lake clowns did so anyway and no one objected.

Soon friends and family joined the Crouse clown act. With Don and Dorothy at the forefront, they entertained at parades in Kranzburg, Watertown and other towns in Glacial Lakes country.

You couldn’t watch them without wanting to paint a smile on your own face, don a funny shirt and jump aboard the Model T.

Helping people relax and laugh must rank among the highest of callings. Nobody did it better — or more selflessly — than Don Crouse. We can only imagine the smiles when he arrived at the Pearly Gates.