Spearfish and the Hills

 

 

“Thank you for volunteering!”  I was rather surprised to hear that statement from one of the locals when we first came back here in early May. (We haven’t heard it many other places.)  Since then I have heard it hundreds of times and I have to admit it makes me feel very good about what we do.  We just may have to keep this up for a while.

 

 

 

 

As we make all the preparations to hit the road once again – heading west and north for our next great adventure - I have to look back on this place called D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery and the Black Hills.  It is a rather interesting place.

 

The photo above is of Roughlock Falls, just north of Savoy.  The one to the left is Spearfish Falls.  We visited both of these on a regular basis while we were here and I even enjoyed them a bit on some of my bike rides in the area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Booth House to the left is one of the venues that Linda gave tours at while we were here and the pic above is of Ruby’s Garden, in honor of Mrs. Booth, where we have seen many weddings take place when the garden is in full bloom.

 

Below is a collage of the interior of the Booth House with its many artifacts and oddities.

 

As Linda would do her tours, she would have her visitors step back a bit in time with the old Victrola, formal china for tea, poster beds, wooden wagons, ice boxes and kitchen sideboards.  The daily life of a Superintendent's family in the early 1900s.  The life of the Booth family.  (Center pics are of Edward and Katharine Booth-children of D.C. and Ruby Booth.)  Which is now kind of stuck in our memories too. 

 

 

 

Step back just a bit further in time to the 1880s – the era of the fish cars.  Rail cars designed to transport fish for stocking and replenishing waters with fish all around the country. (Before trucks were invented.)  A new idea at the time and the fore runner to the modern truck/plane/FedEx stocking taking place today.

 

 

The interior of the Fish Car was quite nice with all wood paneling, brass hardware and even a few brass chandeliers.  You can think of it as a fore runner to the modern day RV as it was set up with beds (fold down type), bathroom (which emptied onto the tracks), kitchen (with a full time cook), and even entertainment in the form of card tables and windows.

This was the venue that I manned quite often as well as giving a few tours and eliciting a few giggles and exclamations of – oooooh! that's sick!  I did enjoy that!

 

 

To the left is the Von Bayer Museum of Fisheries – another venue that I manned during our stay here.  It is more of a quiet venue with self-guided tours and an occasional scavenger hunt for the young kids who visit.  (I gave hints when they got stumped.)

While we were here I found that Linda and I had been included (by picture) in a book published about the Hatchery from our volunteer stay in 2011.  We bought the book!

 

 

 

The interior of the museum is filled with artifacts of the past years of the Fisheries.  Dating from the 1870s the artifacts are housed in the original hatchery building built in 1899.  There is an archive building nearby with over 175,000 items in storage from the Fish and Wildlife Service.

 

We did enjoy our stay here but now it’s time to move on.

 

 

 

One afternoon after I had finished my bike ride on the Mickelson Trail,(see last Blog!) we stopped in to re-visit the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota.  The Mammoth Site came into being back in 1974 when a construction worker uncovered some unusual bones while he was bulldozing the area for a new subdivision.  His son recognized one of the finds as a mammoth tooth.  The construction stopped, the bone excavations began, and before to long the site was designated as a National Natural Landmark in 1980. 

This site is fairly unique in that it keeps most of its finds of Mammoth skeletons in place – like you see in the pic to the right.  The area that all these skeletons were found (60+) used to be a steep sided water hole that the young (and not too bright) Mammoths fell into and couldn’t, or found it very difficult, to get back out.  So here they stayed – forever!

 

 

In addition to the Mammoths, there were other animals that fell into this watering hole.  They did find a skeleton of an early, and very large, bear who probably thought that trapped Mammoth meat might be a good afternoon snack.  Don’t think he really thought that one through.

 

 

 

 

We have made quite a few trips to the little town of Deadwood while we were here.  It is an interesting place with (to me anyway) a fascinating history.

The pic below is from a display in the Days of ‘76 Museum in Deadwood – it is a mirror from the Windsor Hotel in Denver.

 

The history of Deadwood, South Dakota has filled hundreds of books through the years.  It is rather interesting that the so called facts in one book are called fiction in another.  Many of the “interesting people” like Wild Bill, Calamity Jane, Potato Creek Johnny, Seth Bullock, and Poker Alice were famous in their own right and that fame came with stories, both real and made up.  So rather than trying to sort out the “real” facts, I picked a few that at least I could believe.

Deadwood in the late 1870s had 200 men for every woman.  Which accounted for some of local “businesses” origins.

The prospectors could find $20 to $25 worth of gold a day in the early days of the gold rush.  But they would often lose it in the saloons and brothels in Deadwood.  If he managed to not lose it on the many vices available he would probably lose it buying food.

Seth Bullock became Deadwood’s first sheriff in 1877. He and Theodore Roosevelt were good friends.  Seth rode in Roosevelt’s 1905 Inaugural Parade, leading 50 cowboys.

Wyatt Earp spent the winter of 1876-77 in Deadwood.  He came late to Deadwood and found out that there were no claims left so he started a business hauling winter stove wood to the residents.  He left after a short stay.

The queen of female gamblers, “Poker Alice” Ivers, was known to make up to $6,000 a night at the height of her career.  She became a legend in the Black Hills and often sat in on big stakes games.

The Sundance Kid spent time in the Lawrence County jail in Deadwood in 1897 for a robbery of a bank in Belle Fourche, South Dakota.  After several weeks he escaped and became one of the west’s best known outlaws.

Potato Creek Johnny (Welshman, John Perret) stood only four foot three, but was the stereotype of a well-worn prospector.  His fame exploded when he found the largest gold nugget ever discovered in the Black Hills.  It weighed 7 ¾ troy ounces.  A replica of the nugget is on display in the Adams Museum in Deadwood.  The real one is in their safe.

And that is only a few of the “facts” that surround this little town called Deadwood.

 

Every time we come to the area we re-visit a couple of the iconic venues to refresh our memories.

 

Did you know:

On average, Mount Rushmore hosts nearly three million visitors a year. (Most were there on the day we visited!)

It took 14 years and 400 men to carve the mountain and during that time no one on the crews died.

The faces of Mount Rushmore are 60 feet high.  About the size as a six-story building.

Washington’s nose is approximately 21 feet long.  The rest of the faces have noses that measure about 20 feet.

Thomas Jefferson’s face on Mount Rushmore was originally started on the opposite side of George Washington, but 18 months into the carving, they realized the granite was too weak.  His face was dynamited off and carved on the other side.

Just a few things I thought you should know.

 

 

The Chief Crazy Horse Monument has been continually under construction in the Black Hills since 1948.  Don’t know when it will be completed.  The children and grandchildren are working on it now.

But once it is completed, the dimensions are expected to be 641 feet wide and 563 feet tall, which would make the Chief Crazy Horse Monument the world’s largest sculpture.  Much bigger than Mount Rushmore.

 

Over the spring and summer we have been able to meet with and visit quite a few of our relatives and friends, as well as meet new “friends”!  That always makes it a good year! 

Family and friendship is like peeing in your pants.  Everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warm feeling inside!

 

As we prepare to leave the area, there is a forest fire on nearby Crow Peak – it has been making our days rather smoky and giving us something to watch as the fire fighting planes and helicopters go back and forth.

Home is where we park it!

Lee & Linda

Crank’n the Mickelson (Up and over the Black Hills)

 

When we came to Spearfish, South Dakota earlier this summer, I had made up my mind that I was going to ride the entire length of the nearby George S. Mickelson Trail.  I thought I was biting off a big goal, but then I heard that my mountain biking mentor (Tim Davis) was embarking on a 5 week nonstop 1800 mile bike ride on the Pacific Divide Trail – I’m not worthy!  -- But I did my little ride anyway!

The George S. Mickelson Trail is a rail trail (something like a small gravel road) that goes up and over the Black Hills of South Dakota.  The main trail runs approximately 109 miles from Edgemont to Deadwood - or from Deadwood to Edgemont which is the direction I took.

Nearly all of the trail follows the route of an old abandoned railroad bed constructed by the Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1890-91.  The trail's route goes up over mountainous, forested, and very scenic land, most within the boundaries of the Black Hills National Forest.  It has four tunnels and more than 100 old railroad bridges.  There are fifteen trailheads spaced along the route, with the towns of Deadwood, Lead, Rochford, Hill City, Custer, Pringle, and Edgemont to make your way through.

 

 

Linda agreed to shuttle me from the Spearfish City Park we are staying at to my starting points and then pick me up at the end of the daily rides.  She occasionally drove to the meeting point and started riding back towards me – it was always good to see her smiling face on the trail peddling up to meet me.

 

 

 

  The first day of the ride I worked my way up through the town of Deadwood and all of its construction zones before I broke free of the populated areas.  It was a steady climb most of the way as the trail took me along one of the local streams and the remains of the old gold mining days.  The picture to the left has the remains of an old mining sluice from years gone by.

 

 The first town after Deadwood was the mining town of Lead. The little town was officially founded on July 10, 1876, after the discovery of gold. It was actually named for the leads or lodes of the gold deposits and other valuable ores.  It is the site of the Homestake Mine, (you can see the slag piles for miles) and was the largest, deepest (8,240 feet) and most productive gold mine in the Western Hemisphere before closing in January 2002.

 

 As I made my way south through the hills with 10 and 12 mile steady climbs and an occasional downhill, the real beauty of the Black Hills let itself be known to me.  The rock formations, Lodge Pole pine trees, creeks and streams, and the vistas up over the valleys with the vivid blue sky calmed me in a way that I had never felt before.  Maybe it was just the endorphins and dopamine that were pinging through my system after the climbs, but it sure felt good!

The next town that we came to was called Rochford.  Rochford was an old gold mining town in the Black Hills along Rapid Creek of South Dakota.  It was founded in 1877 and peaked at a population of around 1,000 by 1879.  It had several hundred homes, a business district, saloons, and schools.  But when the gold ran out, Rochford was virtually abandoned.  The town did continue with just a few people for a while but in 1902 there was an explosion in one of the mines that killed a few people – after that Rochford was a true ghost town.  But a few people do still live there to tell the stories and sell liquor! – (The stories are much more believable when liquor is involved.)

As I rode in the nearby areas you can tell that a few new claims have been set up with the belief that gold still remains in them thar hills.

I was working my way south enjoying a rather long downhill run when I ran into the little town of Mystic.   Mystic was originally called Sitting Bull but changed its name when the railroad came through in the late 1880s. The little town was also the site of a large gold mill, it was an experimental plant set up in 1904 at the cost of about a million dollars to extract gold by some new fangled process.  It failed!  Then its old foundations were used to support a sawmill – which is still operating today.  There’s wood in them thar hills!  The sawmill, a store, a school, a church, and a few homes are all that are left from Mystic’s more prosperous days.  

 

 Along the trail are some tunnels from the old railway along with lots of bridges.  One of the tunnels I went through even had a minor cave in that left a pile of large rocks right in the middle of it.  I just rode around it and did not stick around to see if it was going to happen again.

 

 

Our stopping point one day was Hill City.  This is a fun little tourist town with quite the history.  In 1874, Major General George Armstrong Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills, during which gold was discovered in French Creek, 13 miles south of the present day Hill City.  This discovery of gold opened the Black Hills - and the Hill City area - to mining and was know as Hillyo before it was renamed to Hill City.  This was the second (white man) settlement in the Black Hills.  The town of Custer was the first.  The Hill City almost became a ghost town when miners moved (as fast as they could) to the northern Black Hills (Deadwood) after the discovery of gold there.

Around 1883, tin was discovered near Hill City, and the population rebounded somewhat.  The Harney Peak Tin Mining, Milling, and Manufacturing Company made its headquarters on Main Street where the company (backed by English financiers) bought 1,100 prospecting sites around the area.  As the mining grew, the city became known for its wild living (like most towns in the area) and was once referred to as "a town with a church on each end and a mile of Hell in between."

 

 In 1957, the Black Hills Central Railroad, also known locally as the 1880 Train, opened a tourist passenger train on the Black Hills Central Line.  The Black Hills Central Railroad restores era-style locomotives and train cars.  It has been featured on television shows such as the Gunsmoke episode "Snow Train", General Hospital, and the TNT mini-series Into the West.  The railroad also made an appearance in the movie Orphan Train.

 

We have had the opportunity to ride the 1880s train and did enjoy it as we wound through the hills to the little town of Keystone.

 

Hill City is a tourist town now with all its shops, restaurants, and activities that you would expect or want.  Our favorite is the Bumping Buffalo on main street.

 Below are some interesting iron/tools/stuff sculptures in Hill City. 

 

 

 

 

As we made our way home from Hill City (by truck) we ran into a bit of a hail storm at one of the higher elevations.  We came by just after it and by the looks of it we were glad we were a bit late that day.

 

 

 

 

The next part of the ride brought us down to the southern part of the Black Hills and the scenery started to change a bit.  The trail separated from the main roads a little more and I found myself looking over my shoulders a bit more often – looking for that elusive mountain lion that might consider a ‘meal on wheels’ more attractive than hunting.

 

 

 

  I made my way down past Crazy Horse Memorial but the trail really didn’t give me the opportunity to stop and look.  So on I went and discovered a section of the trail that was quite breath taking with its up thrust boulders and sprawling meadows.  Next stop – Custer, the oldest town in the Black Hills.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

Custer is generally considered to be the oldest town established by Americans in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  Gold was found there during the 1874 Black Hills Expedition, conducted by the 7th Cavalry led by Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, a discovery which initiated the Black Hills Gold Rush and helped turn the local tribes against him which resulted in the Battle of Little Bighorn.

 

In 1875 trespassing gold-boomers named their settlement Stonewall (after the Confederate General, Stonewall Jackson), but it was renamed for Custer.  Almost abandoned in 1876 after word of the much larger gold strikes in Deadwood Gulch spread, Custer later became an established city.

 

 

 

 After a short break in Custer it was back on the trail heading south once again.

 

 

 The country side opened up a bit as I headed towards the little town of Pringle with more farms and cattle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pringle is an interesting little town with a bit of nearby issues.  It seems that the polygamist branch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints (Mormons) built a bit of a compound, complete with guard towers nearby.  Last February two of Warren Jeffs Brothers were arrested there for a rather complex food stamp fraud scheme.  Don’t know the outcome for that one – but it should be interesting. 

I guess they think it’s ok to break the law if you’re doing it in God’s name.

 

 

  

 

 Besides the Hitching Post Bar and Grill (lots of Harleys!) the most interesting thing in Pringle is the worlds largest bicycle sculpture.  I really couldn’t see the sculpture part (the sign told us that it was a sculpture) but it did look like a really big pile of trashed bikes.

 

 

 

 

After I left Pringle and did my last uphill for the trail I ran into a group of rather feisty Tom turkeys.  These guys were not small and they were looking for a fight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were about 10–12 of them and they were all Toms!  I had never seen that before in the wild.  The one to the left actually came after me and finally turned away when I stood on the bike pedals, stretched out my arms and yelled at him.  That was a new experience for me.

And here I was on the lookout for Mountain Lions!  Attack turkeys – go figure.

 

Minnekata once had a section house, school house, and gas station.  Water had to be trucked into this rail stop because the local water was way too hard (mineral content) for the steam engines to use.

 

A rail spur was added from here to Hot Springs in 1891 and shuffled tourists to the new warm water spas there.

 

 

 

Images and left overs of the Black Hills Lime Company south of Pringle.  With Railway access!

 

In the above photo (Sheep Canyon) there was a railway trestle called appropriately “Sheep Canyon Trestle” made of wood.  It was said that it was so rickety that the train engineer would stop the train and walk across the trestle.  Once the engineer was across, the other person in the engine of the train would put the locomotive in gear and jump off.  When the train got across the trestle the first engineer would hop back on and stop the train while he waited for the other person to walk across.  Then they would continue on their way.

 

 

As usual we run into a few critters as we ride.  Linda had met me on the trail and ridden up from Edgemont about 9 miles into Sheep Canyon where we joined up and rode back down.  This guy is known as a Bull Snake, not poisonous but a bit intimidating just by the size.  I stopped and took the pic then pulled on his tail a bit – don’t think he cared for that!

 

 

 When we got into Edgemont and finished the ride there was a cute story about the town from 1903. 

On April 23, 1903 Teddy Roosevelt, during a tour of the western states, visited Edgemont with friend, Seth Bullock, of Deadwood fame.  Hundreds of people were on hand to listen as Teddy spoke to the crowd of pioneers who had tamed the “shaggy” wilderness of the Black Hills.  The town’s society matrons and elders had planned a formal banquet to honor the president.  But the local cowboys had other plans and pulled their chuck wagon up to the bandstand and yelled for Teddy and Seth to come eat with them.  They both joined the cowboys and ate beans and bacon washing it down with a tin cup of coffee.  The cowboys brought them horses and the whole group ended up galloping through town firing their six shooters in the air and just whooping it up.  Teddy and Seth returned to the train when the whistle blew and never did dine with the society folks who were left to dine and listen to the band without them.

I do love those old western stories!

My ride was finished – for me it was quite the experience.  Now it is just maintenance type of rides to keep me in some sort of shape for my next goal.  To ride as much as I can of Denali National Park in Alaska.  We’ll see how that turns out.

 

I’ll get back to the normal blog next time, but we thought we should share this rather unique experience.  Until next time.

Home is where we park it!

Lee & Linda