Deadwood, South Dakota

“ ON THE TRAIL WITH THREE THOUSAND HEAD OF TEXAS STEERS. RUMORS OF TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS AT DEADWOOD. THE ROPING CONTEST. I WIN THE NAME OF DEADWOOD DICK. THE SHOOTING MATCH. THE CUSTER MASSACRE. THE VIEW OF THE BATTLE FIELD. GOVERNMENT SCOUTS. AT HOME AGAIN.
In the spring of 1876 orders were received at the home ranch for three thousand head of three-year-old steers to be delivered near Deadwood, South Dakota. This being one of the largest orders we had ever received at one time, every man around the ranch was placed on his mettle to execute the order in record time. ”

“ It is almost marvelous to think that a country could pass from the extreme of an outlaw West to the highly modern civilization that Lead and Deadwood present today. No place on earth but the progressive pioneer western community with its fertile and indomitable brains could do it. ”

“ But the people all over the Hills, especially in the larger cities are fast awakening to the realization that good parks play a tremendous part in the development of their localities. Spearfish, Sturgis, Rapid City, and Deadwood were the first to realize the value of service to their visitors. They have doubtlessly reaped rich reward for their investment, judging from the number of people who use those camp sites night after night. ”

“ During this period the prospecting for gold was in the placers along the streams in the vicinity of Custer; although gold was found generally distributed in that region, these diggings never proved to be particularly rich. Late in the fall of 1875 John B. Pearson, of Yankton, made his way over into the Deadwood gulch in the northern Hills, and discovered rich placer diggings. The following winter was severe, with very deep snow, but many thousand miners assembled at Custer and in that vicinity. Custer city is said to have had eleven thousand population on the 1st of March. ”

“ After this the trail leads back to Spearfish and thence fifteen miles over into Wyoming. We could go on west to Devil’s Tower, but that would mean a long trip. So we just cross the State line and return. Here the fun begins for us. The rain has begun, slowly at first and has kept ever increasing. We have determined to make Pine Crest Park at Deadwood this evening, and accordingly break camp and set out. We have gone a few miles when the rain comes down in torrents. Fortunately the roads are good, but we have to drive with the windshield cleaner working constantly. ”

“ To avoid interference from the officers, the ghost dancers, as they were called, assembled in a large camp in the fastnesses of the Bad Lands. The agent at Pine Ridge became greatly alarmed, for many of the Indians about the agency had become very insolent and defied his authority. He asked that soldiers be sent to his assistance. The government therefore sent detachments of soldiers to Pine Ridge and Rosebud, and set up a cordon of military camps along the railroad between the reservation and the Black Hills, and from the vicinity of Buffalo Gap down the Cheyenne River to Fort Sully. ”

“ This frequently does not result in a well-balanced permanent population, and the real settlement of South Dakota dates from the succeeding period when its prairie lands were taken up by wheat growers from the States of the upper Mississippi Valley. The wheat industry in Wisconsin gradually died during the decade of 1870-80, and many who found the ground unprofitable there moved farther west, as did others with similar motives from western New York and the States of the old Northwest Territory.
South Dakota has a slightly higher percentage of old Americans than its sister to the north ”

“ With the opening of the Homestake, the conquest of the Black Hills was effectively 77 completed, and the region entered into a period of rapid development and expansion. Although the great mine at Lead was run solely as a business enterprise, devoid of glamour and excitement, the town of Deadwood, two miles away, enjoyed a decade of the lustiest history ever to be known by a bonanza town. During its years of activity and arrogance Deadwood contributed to our national folklore several great figures, among them Calamity Jane, Deadwood Dick, Wild Bill Hickok, and Preacher Smith. ”

“ James Hartigan and his beautiful bride, formerly Miss Boyd, of Cedar Mountain, have yielded to the call of Deadwood and decided to make their home in the mining capital of Dakota. They have taken the White Cottage on Southview Avenue (Muggins & Mawlins Real Estate Company) and will be at home Friday afternoon.
Dr. Hartigan was educated at Coulter College, Ontario, and won his spurs long ago as a pulpit orator. While devoting his life to the ministry, he is also a man of means and is likely to make important investments in Deadwood as favourable opportunities present themselves. ”

“ The leaders of that period believed that it would be a crime for them to sit idly by and permit the great territory to become one state, with but two members of the United States Senate, thus entailing to posterity forever a sort of political vassalage to the small states of the eastern seaboard. Besides this there was at that period an inherent difference between the people of South Dakota and those of the North. South Dakota was chiefly occupied by homesteaders, who brought with them the conservative notions of small farmers, about public and private economy, morality, and education. ”

“ After traveling part way to the James they stopped to fish at Scatterwood Lake, finally reaching the river at Armadale Grove, in Spink County. This grove was a famous camping place for the Indians and early travelers. Thence they passed up the James and across to Devils Lake, and thence back down the coteau to Lakes Traverse and Big Stone, whence they left the state, going down the Minnesota to St. Paul.
While at Fort Pierre Nicollet and Frémont went out to a Yankton camp not far from the post, where they were received with great ceremony. ”

“ The State is as a whole a treeless prairie country. Forests are found only in the Black Hills above an altitude of 4000 feet, where there is a good growth of pine. Here and there along the river valleys there are more or less extensive groves of cottonwood, ash, elm, and maple.
Geology. Although the geological structure of the State is nearly homogeneous over the greater part of its area, there is nevertheless found represented every age from the Archæan to the Pleistocene except the Devonian. There are two Archæan nuclei, one in the east and one in the west. ”

“ Almost in a day, population spread all over the broad land, towns were built, farms opened, schools established, churches erected, and in the briefest possible time the wilderness was converted into a thriving, prosperous, productive, well-settled American commonwealth, having all the conveniences and comforts and institutions of the older states. ”

“ Thousands of despondent men resolved at once to recover their fortunes in southern Dakota. The action of the military in preventing the entry of the miners into the Black Hills cooled the ardor of many of them, but that very obstacle made the people believe that the army was guarding a vast storehouse of wealth, and that fortunes were awaiting them. Some, hardy enough to pass the barrier, sent out reports of rich finds, and this increased the determination of very many to get into the Hills. ”

“ See Jewell Cave, gold discovery monument, rose quartz mounted in masonry and the big log cabin and the museum. Take S. D. 36 through Galena, the Game Lodge and Hermosa, to Rapid City. In Hermosa see the church Pres. Coolidge attended.
If the roads are bad take S. D. 79 from the East end of main street when leaving Rapid City, instead of S. D. 40 to the west. Thus you see Hermosa, and President Coolidge’s little church, the Game Lodge, Custer and Sylvan Lake in reverse order, and then double back over the same route when returning. ”

“ The town sites at Bon Homme, Yankton, and Vermilion were entered upon by adventurous men with large dreams of town building, but in the fertile bottom lands between the James and Vermilion rivers many farmers settled, who had no more ambitious plans than to build for themselves and their families permanent farm homes, and most of them with their children still occupy the homesteads they took upon that day, or sleep peacefully in the little churchyards near by. ”

“ Almost daily some miner would creep back from the Hills with exaggerated stories of the wealth of the diggings. Every one was sure that the treaty for the opening of the Black Hills would be made at once, when there would be wealth for everybody. ”

“ To the people of southern Dakota, after the long years of dreary struggle through Indian troubles, grasshoppers, and bad crops, the Black Hills gold excitement seemed a godsend. The settlements along the Missouri were thronged with determined strangers waiting for an opportunity to slip into the Hills. ”

“ It was a large placard tacked up in plain view of all passers-by who took the route north through Custer gulch in order to reach the infant city of the Northwest—Deadwood.
Deadwood! the scene of the most astonishing bustle and activity, this year (1877.) The place where men are literally made rich and poor in one day and night. Prior to 1877 the Black Hills have been for a greater part undeveloped, but now, what a change! In Deadwood districts every foot of available ground has been "claimed" and staked out; the population has increased from fifteen to more than twenty-five hundred souls. ”

“ De l'Isle's Map, made from Information supplied by Le Sueur
that Le Sueur was the first white man to enter the South Dakota country, but if he did not come here himself, it is quite certain that other white men in his employ did do so, at or before the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The first white man that we know certainly to have visited South Dakota was a young man named Verendrye, in the year 1743. Verendrye was employed, as had been his father before him, by the Canadian government, to explore the American continent westward to the Pacific Ocean. ”

“ It lays in southern South Dakota, and slopes back from the banks of the 'Big Muddy', stretching for many miles into the interior beyond. It is a prairie country. No trees, stumps, rocks or stones mar the progress of civilization. ”

“ All of our members who are speakers have left, and there is no one here from South Dakota except myself. I am not an orator, so I will not attempt to make a speech; but when I heard from other States I could not help feeling that I come from a State that has the richest resources in the world. Our greatest resources lie in our inexhaustible soil and its fertility. We have people from most of the States in the Union, and when I have asked our citizens from several of the eastern States, and other rich States like Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois, "Why are you here?" ”

“ In her wonderful prosperity she has been as jealous of the one as the other. In her Constitution and in her laws she has sought to make liberty secure, to foster and provide for the education of her children, to encourage the highest ideals of citizenship, to inspire a patriotism worthy of the opportunities of her people. Along all of these lines we feel South Dakota has met with a high degree of success. She stands almost the lowest in the percentage of illiteracy of her population. Pauperism is scarcely observable. Wealth and comfort are very generally diffused amongst her people. ”

“ On the other hand North Dakota was in the beginning chiefly settled by bonanza farmers, captains of industry, who came with large means, buying great areas of land and farming upon extensive lines. They and their camp followers were adventurous men whose traditions were entirely at variance with those of the homesteaders of the South, and the result was constant friction between the two elements. ”

“ The first settlement of considerable size in South Dakota was, as far as we can learn, made in 1860, between the James river and Gayville. Other settlers followed in the succeeding years, spreading out over the bottom and later up on the prairie to the north. Among those who came to the vicinity of Yankton in the decade of 1860-70 we would mention the following: Ole Odland, '62 ”

“ With the exception of an irregular salient angle in the southeast between the Missouri and Big Sioux Rivers, and a reëntering angle in the northeast formed by Lakes Bigstone and Traverse, the boundaries of the State are straight lines running along meridians and parallels, and forming a rectangle 200 miles wide and 380 miles long. The area is 77,650 square miles, of which 76,850 square miles, or 49,184,000 acres, are land surface. South Dakota ranks twelfth in size among the States. ”

“ During the period from 1862 until 1875 the white settlements in South Dakota made little progress. Population was increasing somewhat, but farmers had difficulty in learning the way of the soil, and got but small return for their labor. ”

“ The sun shone as it knows how in Dakota. The great pine-clad hills were purple in the lovely morning haze as the little party left Deadwood that day on the buffalo trail for Cedar Mountain. The doctor drove first in his buckboard, not without misgivings, for the good horse had had little rest since that forty-five mile drive. Next came the horseman on the gold-red horse that men turned to look after. Last, the prairie buckboard of the house of Collins with Aunt Anna driving and Belle at her side. ”

“ In 1745 De Lusigan, a courier in the employ of the Canadian government, visited Big Stone Lake and other points in western Minnesota to call in the Canadian coureurs de bois, or unlicensed traders who were living with the Indians. This fact is evidence that several white men were probably at this time in the Dakota country, but they left no record of their doings or of the localities they visited. ”