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July/August 2025
Mitchell filmmaker Charlie Buhler (and her dog Delilah) scout movie scenes on her family's farm west of Delmont. Photo by Bernie Hunhoff
Yankton's Downtown Strip: A retail ...
Milkweed Champs
... It now sits in her office at the Froiland Science Center.
Matzner also grew up on a farm. His father is retired from decades of staving off milkweeds on the family fields near Stickney, southwest of Mitchell. “Dad keeps asking me why I study milkweeds,” says the professor. “He is a good Christian fellow, so I ask him, ‘Isn’t the milkweed one of God’s creations?’”
Yes, ...
Blazing Trails
... programs would have drawn plans for the roads we enjoy today. South Dakota’s mountain passages required a vision and a political savvy that probably can’t be captured in software.
Mike Vehle of Mitchell, who gained a reputation as an advocate of good roads during his years in the state legislature, believes the Black Hills’ historic roads warrant admiration. “I just got back from a trip to ...
Stopping the Green Glacier
... Environmental Protection Office, has begun holding meetings and oversaw a 30-acre prescribed burn after traveling to watch the MMRPBA in action. Rod Voss, a Rangeland Management Specialist for NRCS based out of Mitchell, has helped with two prescribed burns along the James River. “We’re at a stage here where it would be fairly easy to stop if we can just get our people educated,” Voss says. “A ...
When Autumn Meets Winter
October 30, 2024
Fall and winter met yesterday with the first snowfall of the season in the Black Hills. John Mitchell took these photos of winter’s white blending with autumn’s gold in Spearfish Canyon.
Forging Youth
... is getting lost.”
Other hands-on blacksmiths who help the youth include Nick Hix, Woody Hanson and Erich Orris of Rapid City, Steve Grosvenor of Beresford, and Clark Martinek, an iron artist in Mitchell.
K.J. Groven, a Sturgis woodworker and blacksmith, is another key volunteer. Groven was born in Skien, Norway and worked on a family farm until 1999 when he emigrated to study mechanical engineering ...
Turton’s Jelly Makers
... jelly-making when she’s not running the Turton post office. Other neighbors and relatives also assist during busy seasons, such as when they make and package hundreds of jars of corn cob jelly for Mitchell’s Corn Palace gift shop.
Many South Dakota food hobbyists have dreamed of starting a home-based business, and some have tried. Few of them sell like the Barries.
On a summer afternoon, Char agreed ...
Fast, Loud and Proud
... after races and win matching trophies with their heroes.
Tori Wendell has been racing since age 13.
The South Dakota Mud Racers hold eight weekend events every summer at tracks in Mitchell, Canova, Tripp, Canistota, Platte, Woonsocket and Fulton. The variety of classes — ATV, Street, Sportsman, Super Stock, Pro and Pro Modified — is part of the fun for the mudders and fans. ...
Mitchell’s Gingerbread Architect
... Johnson Andrews
Barb Feilmeier does some of her best dreaming in grocery store snack aisles, envisioning new ways to use cookies, crackers and other foods to decorate her intricate Christmas creations. The Mitchell woman has been building with gingerbread for 50 years, but these are not your ordinary cookie houses. Feilmeier has recreated everything from the Corn Palace to the South Dakota State Capitol.
Feilmeier ...
A Living Drink
... variety of fruit and herb combinations, such as blueberry lavender, orange licorice anise and rhubarb cinnamon. Find Songbird Kombucha on tap in Sioux Falls, Vermillion, Yankton, Hartford, Jefferson and Mitchell or visit the Fokkens’ storefront at 1712 S. Minnesota Avenue in Sioux Falls.
Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy ...
Finding Frank Ashford
... Stratford. Local attorneys Hugh Agor and Douglas Bantz became the executors of Ashford’s estate and struggled to sell the art. They bought several paintings themselves and donated others to the Alexander Mitchell Public Library (today the K.O. Lee Aberdeen Public Library) and the Dacotah Prairie Museum. Lamont ensured that the two Coolidge portraits made their way to Massachusetts. Others have simply disappeared.
Nearly ...
Travel Like It’s 1938
... team found a replica of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s house in Aberdeen; now there’s only a parking lot on the site. They were impressed by two old hackberries at Fourth & Rowley in Mitchell, but the trees are long gone. And a Wells Fargo bank now occupies the corner where an amazing meat market was located on Huron’s Dakota Avenue (the Lampe Market raised, butchered and retailed its ...
Rocky Road
By Paul Higbee
Photos by John Mitchell
In some places, the modern Spearfish Canyon Highway closely follows the route of the old Spearfish Canyon railroad, especially approaching Spearfish Mountain from the south.
THE ...
Bursts of Color
October 10, 2022
Fall color is at its peak in the Black Hills. Photo by John Mitchell
Larger Than Life
... Gann Valley Giant, including a ring he wore (a 50-cent piece, which measures nearly an inch in diameter, fits inside).
South Dakota has spawned other tall men who’ve achieved celebrity status. Mitchell native Mike Miller (6-foot-8) played NBA basketball for 17 years and is now an assistant coach at the University of Memphis. Mitchell Olson, a Vermillion farmer’s son, grew to 7 feet and parlayed ...
Tournament Time
March 16, 2022
... presence.
From my grade school days through college, basketball was first and foremost on my mind. As soon as I couldn’t play anymore, I started learning to take action photos. When I lived in Mitchell in the 2000s, I started a side hustle before side hustles were a thing, taking photos of high school athletics and providing images to parents who would rather enjoy the game than bother with pictures. ...
Serenity in the Pocket
February 14, 2022
... including vintage World War II wool storm coats and flight pants. Being 15, Wes had a learner’s permit that allowed him to drive from dawn to dark and no further than 50 miles from our hometown of Mitchell when not accompanied by an adult — limits that we constantly pushed, often leaving just as the sun set.
Our destination was his grandfather’s ranch in a little-known place called The Pocket, ...
West Friends
By Paul Higbee
Black Hills lawman Seth Bullock led the efforts to build Friendship Tower, a memorial to his friend Theodore Roosevelt near Deadwood. Photo by John Mitchell
The Mount Roosevelt Friendship Tower Trail, says Black Hills National Forest North Zone Archaeologist Michael Engelhart, can be thought of as an easy “tiptoe into the woods.” ...
It's Autumn in the Canyon
October 1, 2021
Fall colors are popping in Spearfish Canyon. Photo by John Mitchell.
Jazz on the Prairie
... improvised jazz and considered the dance songs “Mickey music,” short for Mickey Mouse. But it paid the bills.
Big-name bands could avoid the Mickey music and perform in concert, often at Mitchell’s Corn Palace. The Jimmy Dorsey Band played there in 1938, and his brother, Tommy, performed nine years later. Other Corn Palace entertainers included Paul Whiteman (“King of Jazz”), ...
