Tag: yankton county

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Hunting the Elusive Morel

By Rebecca Johnson

Morel mushrooms were a rare treat in my childhood. Dad searched for them along the Missouri and had the best luck near rotted cottonwood trunks. He showed me how to bathe the fungi in saltwater to remove sand and insects and then sautÈ them with butter and salt. At first I was wary of the morel’s brain-like appearance, but became hooked by its rich, meaty flavor.

Although I enjoyed my dad’s finds, I had never hunted myself until last spring. I did know that hunters are very secretive about their hunting techniques, so I turned to Tony Kellar, a Sioux Falls outdoors enthusiast and author of Camping & Cooking with the Bare Essentials, for advice.

“The best time to find morels is usually when the lilacs start to bloom,” says Kellar, whose tattooed, athletic build reflects an active lifestyle. The season varies throughout the state, but it’s normally late April and early May. The tasty morsels are found on moist forest floors, especially near rivers and lakes. Look for yellow or tan mushrooms with spongy caps, but beware the false morel. It can be poisonous. True morels are hollow throughout, while false morels are solid.

Kellar suggests following an experienced hunter. That may be difficult to arrange, as hunting spots are top secret. But you can be initiated. Kellar introduced his friend Jarett Bies to morel hunting during a kayaking excursion on the Missouri.

“Tony explained the shape and how, like a 3-D painting, once you found one you’d suddenly see more,” says Bies, a writer and avid kayaker from Vermillion. He and Kellar hunted on hands and knees along the edge of the beach, and soon calls of”got one” rose from the brush. Of course, Bies was warned not to reveal the location.”I doubt I could relate to anyone where we were, so the secret is safe,” he says. The morels were rinsed, buttered, and baked right on the sand.”The flavor of these wild treats makes all the subterfuge worth it,” Bies says.

Last May, my husband Jeremy and I went on our own excursion. We searched a shady area west of Yankton, the ground damp with rain. I used a stick to poke around the dead leaves for about an hour with no success. Thoughts of the time Jeremy dragged me along deer hunting popped into my head — a nice hike but nothing to show for our efforts.

“Let’s try this ravine,” Jeremy said, and gracefully descended to the bottom. I slipped on some loose dirt and traveled down on my back. After shaking the dirt and leaves from my hair, I took a few careful steps into the ravine and finally spotted the unmistakable tan fungi.”I found one!” I shouted.

“They’re everywhere!” Jeremy exclaimed.

We picked about 5 pounds of mushrooms that day. As we carried our bounty out of the forest, Jeremy stopped short at the sound of other hikers.

“Shh. Stay here,” he whispered while gesturing behind a tree.”I don’t want them to know about our hunting spot.”

Jeremy and I kept our harvest, but some hunters sell to gourmet or natural grocery stores. Molly Langley, owner of Coop Natural Foods in Sioux Falls, occasionally buys morels for resale. She learned about the culture of secrecy the first time she bought from a morel hunter.”I remember saying, ‘Where did you get them?'” says Langley.”The seller found another corner of the store to look at and wouldn’t tell me.” She purchased the mushrooms.”We packaged them up as we do our other local mushrooms,” says Langley.”They were gone in 12 hours.”

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2012 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

Citrus mushroom pasta

3 tablespoons unsalted butter (can substitute extra virgin olive oil)

3/4 lbs. morel mushrooms

1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

zest of one lemon

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

1/4 cup chicken broth

freshly grated Parmesan cheese

pepper to taste

8 ounces whole wheat spaghetti

Morels can be stored in the refrigerator in a brown paper bag, or in a colander at room temperature. The mushrooms begin drying slowly, but will rehydrate when cooked.

Prepare mushrooms by brushing away loose dirt. Then cut each in half lengthwise and soak in salt water for about 20 minutes to remove insects and tiny snails. After soaking, you may wish to rinse each mushroom separately to remove any remaining sand.

To make the sauce, begin melting butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and onions and cook for about one minute, stirring often. Then add mushrooms and sautÈ for a few minutes until tender.

Decrease heat to low and add salt, lemon juice and parsley. Once pasta is cooked al dente, turn the skillet back to medium heat. Add the pasta to the mushrooms and toss together. Next add chicken broth and pepper to taste. Serve sprinkled with freshly grated Parmesan cheese. (Makes about four servings)

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Lalla Rookh Reverie

By John Andrews

About 6 percent of people living in Yankton County trace their primary heritage to Ireland. Perhaps some of them can credit John Pope Hodnett with bringing their families here, even if his planned Irish community north of Yankton never materialized.

Hodnett was a native of Ireland who settled with his family in Chicago. By the late 1860s he had become a national spokesman for the Irish Republicans, an organization he helped create in July 1868.”Prior to the Civil War it was rarely one met an Irishman who was not a Democrat,” wrote George Kingsbury in his History of Dakota Territory.”They seemed to find a congenial political brotherhood in that party, and it was a general belief that this was largely due to the influence thrown around them in the city of New York upon their reaching this country from their native land.”

But here was Hodnett, actively stumping for presidential Ulysses S. Grant and other Republicans during the summer of 1868. At speeches in Illinois and Missouri he implored his fellow Irishmen that the Republican Party held the greatest hope for their future prosperity in America. His argument was often met with violence from Democratic Irishmen. A mob nearly destroyed the house where he was staying during a speech in Decatur, Ill., and he survived an assassination attempt in Chicago.

When Grant was elected president in November, he rewarded loyalty to his campaign and party through political appointments. John Pope Hodnett became the assessor of internal revenue for Dakota Territory. He came to Yankton in April 1869, and that summer he filed a claim on a piece of land about 7 miles north of town.

Hodnett’s arrival coincided with a push among Dakota Territorial leaders to recruit settlers, so Gov. Burbank appointed him to be an immigration official. He was aware that Irishmen were migrating west out of big eastern cities, so he devised a plan to bring them to Dakota and build a sprawling Irish colony.

He marketed his new homeland masterfully. Hodnett bragged about its beautiful groves, waving grain fields and brilliant gardens. He even had a little body of water he called Lake Lalla Rookh, taken from the title of a romantic poem written by Thomas Moore in 1817. He helped file claims around his homestead for at least eight wealthy businessmen from New York and Virginia.

But those would-be settlers soon lost interest in a new life in Dakota. Hodnett even lost his little lake to a summer drought. A handful of Irish families did settle in Yankton County and some traces of Irish life exist today, but it’s certainly not the hub John Pope Hodnett hoped it would someday become.

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Prairie Sanctuaries

By Christian Begeman

It is late afternoon in early spring. A lone car (me) is southbound on Highway 63 south of Midland. An early season thunderstorm had just rolled across the prairie and kept me entertained for half an hour. As the sun broke through retreating clouds, a steepled building atop a distant hill caught the light and gleamed against dark blue storm clouds beyond. St. Peter Lutheran in northeast Jackson County had always caught my eye on this stretch of road, but on this day it was glorious. Unfortunately this was before I began regularly shooting photos, so I was unprepared to capture the scene. That still bothers me.

Last July, a mean thunderstorm roared along the Missouri River valley. Drawn like a moth to a porch light, I caught up with it in Yankton County. The goal was to get some interesting weather photos. The problem, I soon learned, was that this storm was rife with lightning, the kind that illuminates the countryside like a million flash bulbs and then rattles your windows with an immediate thunderclap. After a handful of those I decided I might be a little too close to the heart of this beast so I retreated north and west. About the same time I noticed a rainbow forming in the evening light, I also saw the distant shape of Faith United Lutheran Church. By the time I got to the church, a double rainbow had formed. This time I had my camera.

Earlier this week the Northern Lights began to shine and shimmer. I remembered another local photographer (Zachary Wicks) had shot a stunning photo of Oslo Church in Brookings County silhouetted against early October Northern Lights, and I wanted to see if I could capture something similar. Oslo Church has not been used for some time and has no yard light — perfect for shooting against the night sky. I set up my camera on an approach about a quarter mile south of the church. Low clouds obscured much of the horizon, but then magic happened. As the moon rose and coyotes began to howl, a break in the clouds revealed those mysterious pillars of light rippling above the church.

These examples illustrate why I’m drawn to photographing country churches. I love the symbolism of all the things a church is supposed to stand for contrasted against the expanse of the surrounding country and open South Dakota skies. Lately I’ve realized that almost everywhere I go or whatever I’m planning to shoot, if I find a picturesque country church it’s usually my best shot of the day. That is why I’ve compiled my favorite shots of rural churches over the years on a Facebook page called Prairie Sanctuaries. I’ll add to the collection as I travel the state and region. You are invited to visit the page often and visit these places with me. I promise to always have my camera handy.

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midcontinent Communications he is often on the road photographing our prettiest spots around the state. Follow Begeman on his blog.

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A Booster and a Rogue

By John Andrews

February is Black History Month. Every Tuesday this month, we’ll introduce you to black pioneers and leaders who helped shape South Dakota. In our final installment, we feature Tom Douglas, a Yankton businessman and Dakota promoter.

Every August, Yankton’s Riverboat Days parade slowly progresses down Douglas Avenue, a main thoroughfare named for a man who so loved living here that he traveled throughout the Midwest encouraging others to come.

For years, many African-American families in South Dakota credited Tom Douglas with bringing them to a place where he claimed they would find”freedom like you’ve never seen anywhere.” Douglas was by all accounts intelligent, athletic and enthusiastic about South Dakota. He had been born into slavery and had two owners who had given him two names — Tom Douglas and Christopher Columbus Yancy — which he seems to have used interchangeably throughout his life. One of Douglas’s owners had been a lawyer who believed his slaves should know how to read and write. Those skills put Douglas on the path to become a successful businessman when he arrived in Yankton.

Douglas operated a restaurant downtown at the corner of Second and Douglas, though he dabbled in several enterprises that ran afoul of the law, including illegal drinking and gambling. In an attempt to skirt the law, he leased a portion of an island in the Missouri River in 1891, where he believed no taxing government held jurisdiction, and built a small restaurant, gymnasium and saloon. The federal government soon shuttered Douglas’s venture.

Sketchy though his business dealings may have been, they were profitable. Douglas used that money to help other African-Americans escape from the segregation of the South. He invested in several pieces of land around Yankton and built small cabins that he offered rent-free to blacks that he encountered during his recruiting tours, which started around 1904.”He traveled to speaking engagements in a spring wagon pulled by single long-suffering horse,” wrote Betti Van Epps Taylor in Forgotten Lives, her chronicle of South Dakota’s black history.”A charismatic speaker, he could wax eloquent about the endless wonders and opportunities of eastern South Dakota.”

Because of Douglas’s efforts, Yankton was soon home to the territory’s largest black population. It included the Blakey family, featured in this series two weeks ago. Brothers Isaac and Henry Blakey accepted Douglas’s offer of a cabin while they sought work around Yankton. They soon landed jobs on a farm owned by Emil and John Frick. The Blakeys later said they were unsure about South Dakota until they received their first paychecks and were astounded to see they were paid the same amount as the white laborers.

Douglas was also a skilled boxer and wrestler, providing lessons and training to young men in town. He also had an inventive streak. A patent filed in the U.S. Patent Office on Feb. 5, 1901 lists Christopher C. Yancy, of Yankton, as the inventor of a coin-controlled muscle-tester, similar to those found at carnivals.

His death notice, which appeared in South Dakota newspapers in May 1916, called him”probably the best known colored man in South Dakota,” though today very little information about him can be found, even in his beloved hometown along the Missouri River. But Yanktonians should remember the pioneer rogue every time they travel the busy street that bears his name.

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125th Birthday Kickoff

Yanktonians kicked off South Dakota’s 125th birthday year with a grand party Saturday night. Re-enactors portrayed historic characters in the downtown streets, and as the sun set the party moved indoors to the Riverfront Event Center where state officials joined 500 fellow South Dakotans in a memorable and festive evening. Photos by Bernie Hunhoff.

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Krumkake in Gayville

By Ruth Steil

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the Nov/Dec 2007 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.


For Ardys Olson of Gayville, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without krumkake (krum ka ka), or crooked cake. The thin, crisp Scandinavian cookie is a family tradition.

Ardys and her brothers, Duane and Jake, were raised on a farm near Irene during the Depression by their parents, Alfred and Alice Lee. The difficult times forced a frugality that touched all aspects of life, including the holidays.

When Ardys was very young, the Lees didn’t have a tree for the Christmas holiday.”Our first Christmas tree was one we were lucky enough to win in a drawing at school when I was in the seventh grade,” she says. Christmas gifts were pajamas sewn by her mother and toys carved with a pocketknife by her father. Ardys still treasures a set of doll furniture her father made.

On Christmas Eve, the family went to Bethlehem Lutheran Church near their home, where Ardys and her siblings sang and recited little verses in the Christmas program.”It wasn’t an elaborate pageant,” she says. Her mother recorded the following recitation in Ardys’ baby book:”I’m just a little girl and I haven’t much to say except to say I wish you Merry Christmas before I run away!” After the program, sacks of hard candy, nuts and an orange were handed out. That was the only orange the kids would eat all year.

There was something else the Lees had only once a year. Just before Christmas, Ardys’ mother baked krumkake using a special decorative two-sided iron similar to a waffle iron. She heated the iron on the top of a cook stove fired by cobs and wood. It must have been a real challenge but Ardys says,”My mother was an excellent baker and cook.” Since the krumkake were such a treat, they were hidden away until Christmas Day dinner.

As a child, Ardys didn’t have much interest in the kitchen. She taught herself to make krumkake as a young bride when she married Eugene”Swede” Olson. He’s really a Norwegian, but his childhood barber called him”a white-haired Swede” and the name stuck.

After his retirement, Swede became Ardys’ first assistant in her holiday krumkake baking. She still uses her mother’s 80-year-old iron baker, heating it over an old gas stove in the garage. Grates on newer ranges won’t heat the iron properly. Ardys also uses her mother’s recipe for the delicate cookie.”I’ve seen lots of other recipes,” she says,”but this one works, so I stick with it.”

After mixing the batter, Ardys pours a scant teaspoon on the preheated iron. The cookie is done on the first side in about 10 seconds. She turns the iron over to complete the baking on the other side. After another 10 seconds, Ardys flips the cookie off with a knife onto a flat tray. While still hot and flexible, Swede quickly rolls the cookie around a wooden peg. The Olsons make three batches of three dozen cookies and store them in gallon ice cream containers. And, just like Ardys’ mother, they must put the cookies in hiding for the holidays.

Ardys and Swede have three daughters and all of them covet their grandmother’s krumkake iron.”They’ll have to draw straws for it,” Ardys says. These days, electric irons are available with Teflon surfaces and timers. When the Olsons bought their daughter one of the new-fangled electric bakers, she told them,”The cookies just don’t taste like yours.”

Here is Alice Lee’s krumkake recipe. Without her special iron, the cookies may not taste just like hers, but it’s a good bet your family will love them just the same.

1 beaten egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup cream
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Heat iron until drops of water dance on the surface. Put 1 scant teaspoon of batter in middle of iron. Close the lid, press down tightly and bake for 10 seconds. Turn iron to other side and bake 10 seconds. Open lid. Flip cookie off with a knife to a flat pan. Quickly roll on wooden peg. Let set until next cookie is ready to come off iron.

Optional: dust with powdered sugar or fill cones with whipped cream or other filling.

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Tines of Thanks

By Laura Andrews

The pitchfork is sometimes used as a symbol of hard work, or perhaps as an indicator of an angry mob. At Jay & LeAnne Cutts’ farm near Mission Hill, it’s a sign of friendship. For the past 5 years, the Yankton County couple and their sons Frank, Robbie and George have hosted a pitchfork fondue party to show appreciation for friends, neighbors and acquaintances.”I invite people that have touched me or my family in some way, people I want to share with and say ‘Thank you for being my friend,'” LeAnne says.

The Cutts family provides the meat — this year, a case of pork loin and aged prime sirloin — and other fixings. Mission Hill residents Scott Olson and Keith Williams bring the setup, the fondueing know-how, and the clean pitchforks.”They’ve got it down to a science,” LeAnne says.

Williams also prepares”skinny potatoes,” shredded hash browns cooked in a Dutch oven with heavy whipping cream, cheese and two pounds of bacon. Raw vegetables, fruit and Dutch oven desserts fill out the menu.

Guests gather their lawn chairs around the fondue crew to watch them work. After the meal is served, there’s live music and dancing, outdoor films for the kids, and plenty of good conversation.

It’s hard for South Dakotans to come empty-handed, but Olson, Williams and the Cutts family provide everything needed for a pleasant summer evening.”People always say, ‘What can I bring? What can I bring?'” LeAnne says.”I tell them just to come and have a good time.”


Pitchfork Fondue Tips

  • Use a big pot. At the Cutts’ party, they use an old cast iron scalding pot, a relic of hog butchering days, which holds about 25 gallons of oil.”If you were using a smaller pot, it’d be tough to keep the temperature up where it needs to be,” says Jay.
  • Heat the oil to 325-350 degrees.
  • Cooking time varies by the size of the meat chunks.”The trick is to know when to pull the meat out,” says Jay.”It is so hot that it keeps cooking as you take it off the fork,” He recommends going by color.”The pork turns to a light tender brown and the beef is probably gray. You don’t want any brown to the beef.”
  • Season the meat with a bit of seasoned salt — no steak sauce or other condiments are needed.

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South Dakota Kayak Challenge

The last natural and wild stretch of the 2,300-mile Missouri River is a 75-mile corridor from Yankton to Sioux City but eagles and herons usually outnumber people along the river. That changes on a Saturday every May with the South Dakota Kayak Challenge. Started four years ago, the kayak (and canoe) race attracts more than a hundred adventurers to the scenic waterway. The challenge was held Saturday (May 25) despite overcast skies and a strong east wind. Photos by Bernie Hunhoff.

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Is This Jack McCall?

By John Andrews

When you hear the name Jack McCall, there’s probably one image that comes to mind: a black and white photo of a man with black hair, black mustache, black jacket and seated, facing the camera with his bent left arm resting on a table. We’ve come to accept that this is a photograph of McCall, but historians in Yankton, where was McCall was executed on this day in 1877 for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok, are skeptical.

I never gave the photo a second thought until our book, South Dakota Outlaws and Scofflaws, was released in August. I wrote a chapter on McCall, which features the image in question at the bottom of page 41. Not long after we finished the book, Yankton historian Bob Hanson visited our office and listed five or six reasons why he believes the man in the photo is not Jack McCall. The assassin’s age and various descriptions of his physical appearance don’t match, he said. McCall was called”Crooked Nose,” or”Broken Nose” Jack, and the nose on the photographed man doesn’t seem that crooked. Plus, McCall was no more than 25 years old when he died. The photographed man appears to be older.

A few months later I mentioned the controversy to Jim Lane, another Yankton historian who is married to our circulation director, Jana. He deepened the mystery by pointing out that no other image of McCall or his hanging has ever surfaced.

McCall’s trial and execution in Yankton were pivotal moments in Dakota history. His trial helped established the territorial court’s jurisdiction over Deadwood, and his execution — which was well reported attended by as many as 1,000 people — was Dakota Territory’s first. It seems astounding that no verified image (a photograph, sketch or woodcutting) has ever been seen, especially since Yankton was home to expertly trained photographer Stanley J. Morrow.

Morrow was an Ohio native who learned his trade as an apprentice to famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady. Around 1868 he moved to Yankton and started a photography studio. His passion was as a traveling photographer, and his summers were spent traveling to forts, towns and reservations along the Missouri River making portraits and landscape scenes.

In the summer of 1876, around the same time McCall shot Hickok at Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood, Morrow left for the Black Hills to photograph the gold rush. He also spent time with Gen. George Crook’s troops, who had battled Indian tribes in the Slim Buttes of far northwestern South Dakota.

He arrived at the Red Cloud Agency in Nebraska in October 1876 and spent a month there photographing Indian leaders like Red Cloud. It is believed that Morrow returned to Yankton in mid-December, just a week or two after McCall’s trial had concluded. McCall spent January and February of 1877 in jail downtown, but either Morrow never attempted to photograph him or McCall never granted permission.

Even if Morrow wasn’t in Yankton, his wife Isa had the expertise and opportunity to capture an image of McCall. After the Morrows moved to Yankton, Stanley taught Isa how to make photographs, and she ran the studio while her husband was gone on photographic tours of Dakota.

Morrow left Yankton in 1883. Many of his images were lost in a fire, but about 500 that we know of have survived. And maybe an image of his, or another traveling photographer, depicting McCall has survived tucked away in someone’s attic or basement. Pay attention the next time you’re rifling through old boxes. You might be holding a never-before-seen piece of Dakota history.