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First Signs of Spring
April 23, 2025
... Alexandria, so I drove a little further west and sure enough, about 20 diminutive blooms of South Dakota’s state flower had emerged in my favorite patch.
On April 5, I reserved a blind on the Fort Pierre National Grasslands for another early spring spectacle. This one happens to be both a feast for the eyes as well as the ears. Greater prairie chickens and sharp-tailed grouse gather from March through ...
Ramming Through the Mickelson Trail
... “divine intervention” after Mickelson’s death. Capable people would appear to tackle aspects of development at just the right times. Among them was Dave Snyder, an ag businessman from Pierre and a member of a national Rails to Trails organization. Snyder contributed significantly to the project when he learned that $1 million was needed to match state and federal money, and he devised a plan ...
The Elevator
... County town of Herrick, a 1907 elevator serves as a local bar and grill called Run of the Mill.
Jenna Carlson Dietmeier, interim director of South Dakota’s State Historic Preservation Office in Pierre, says grain elevators may not appear historically significant to people unaware of the heritage and unique construction. “They are not often seen as exemplary architecture. They are very utilitarian, ...
The Characters of Isabel
... sleet.” He’s learned to keep milk and other items in the pickup with him to keep them from freezing on winter trips.
“It’s 150 miles to bigger towns and the closest Walmart is Pierre or Bismarck, but still a store like this shouldn’t exist economically,” Maher says. “The big winner in having this store open is the city’s sales tax.” Along with being a ...
A Musical Bridge
... Bear and SDSO principal oboist Jeffrey Paul and (front, from left) Brent Spoonhunter, Hanna Gasdia and Ari Black Bear.
Fortunately, Barry LeBeau was intrigued. LeBeau was a veteran lobbyist in Pierre for United Sioux Tribes, but he also had a background in theater. “I think he had an understanding for what the arts could do in terms of helping to generate understanding across cultures,” ...
Dakota’s Bullwhackeress
... on a Poker Alice silver dollar.
Buckingham was among thousands of rough and tough-talking Black Hills bullwhackers who ate dust and beans on the grimy Sidney, Cheyenne, Bismarck, Chamberlain and Fort Pierre wagon trails, hauling tons of necessities into the busy Black Hills gold towns.
For a couple of decades before railroads nudged aside the massive animal-powered freight trains in the late 1880s, the ...
January/February 2025
Lawmakers gather in Pierre this January for our 100th legislative session. This issue includes stories from a century of lawmaking. Photo by Chad Coppess
The Yankton-to-Marty Trail: A loop of culture, ...
Cinnamon Rolls, 25 Cents
... little heaps of flour off the breadboard back into the flour bin for the next baking project.
When my mother was a teenager, she prepared meals using a natural gas range in her family’s house in Pierre. When she arrived as a young bride on the farm with its wood burning stove, she had to learn to bake all over again. In the first days of their married life, she presented my father with a plate of biscuits ...
Fast, Loud and Proud
... first to cross the finish line wins. However, there are subtleties, like the tire-smoking “burnout” that prepares tires for a quick launch down the drag strip.
Dale Garber, a drag racer from Pierre, has had success, but he says it comes and goes. “One year I couldn’t lose and the next I never went further than the first round of eliminations, but I love the adrenaline rush.” At ...
Ship in a Bottle
... Rathbun's farm near Nisland.
The war hit home for the Lungrens on a Sunday in December.
“I can remember the Sunday when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor,” says Don Lungren of Pierre, who grew up in a German-speaking home near Vale. “We went to church. We came home, and on Sunday, Dad always turned on the radio to hear what the markets were going to be on Monday morning in Sioux ...
March/April 2024
Silhouettes of Native Americans and bison greet travelers along Highway 34 southeast of Pierre. Created by Fred Urich and Kelly Hanson, they are an example of how we landscape in South Dakota. Photo by Chad Coppess
Landscape Like a South Dakotan: Our illustrated, how-to ...
A Historical Treasure Hunt
... a stone there. Though he believed he knew where the soldier was buried, a stone never came to fruition before his death in 2018. He was successful in Yankton, however, where the final resting place of Pierre Dorion, an early explorer and interpreter for Lewis and Clark, is memorialized with a large boulder at West Second Street and Riverside Drive.
We’ll never know how many letters Bob wrote, phone ...
Tending to White Owl
... Dakotans often think alike. “There are a lot of commonalities that create a community,” Jodene says. “And we have gotten to talk to the coolest people.” Guests have included Fort Pierre restaurateur Uriah Steber, photographer/videographer Wes Eisenhauer and linguist Dawn Wink.
The first two seasons include 16 episodes, each running around 45 minutes in length and available through ...
Catch, Move and Release
... die-off.
Fish inhabit about half of South Dakota’s 100,000 stock dams and small ponds, thanks in small part to longtime South Dakota promoter Steve Nelson and his grandson, Howie.
Nelson, who lives in Pierre, became a fan of stock dams nearly a half-century ago when he explored Roy Houck’s buffalo ranch, northwest of Fort Pierre in Stanley County. The Missouri River reservoirs hadn’t yet developed ...
Desert or Not?
... one of those hopeful homesteaders. She settled in Lyman County, and later wrote about the experience in her book, Land of the Burnt Thigh, in which she tells of a well-dressed land agent who came from Pierre to see if she was ready to sell her land. She offered him a drink of dirty well water from a can she kept in the shade of the shack, but the agent couldn’t stand to drink it.
He looked at the glazing ...
September/October 2023
Hiking Palmer Gulch in the Black Hills is an autumn tradition for Stephanie Palmer of Pierre. Photo by Chad Coppess
Beautiful Delusions of Autumn: Three pretty, quiet drives.
Guardians of the Stratobowl: Caring for a historic meadow.
Remaining Ranchland: Wildlife will ...
Travel Like It’s 1938
... photographers and journalists.
Part of the project involved a “See America First” program. Writers in each state were gathered to create a comprehensive travel guide. M. Lisle Reese, a young Pierre journalist, was offered $2,300 a year — a fine salary in a time when the average American earned $1,750 — to lead the South Dakota effort.
Reese’s first job was to recruit writers. ...
A 66-County Tree
... thoughts turned to Christmas at the Capitol. My wife Marietta and I rarely missed the annual festival in which dozens of colorful and brightly illuminated Christmas trees fill the halls of the Capitol in Pierre. I thought, “I wish I could decorate one of those trees.”
My boredom collided with inspiration. What if I made a collection of wooden Christmas ornaments, crafted out of wood gathered from ...
The Modern Storyteller
... traditional style he had learned there in favor of a more abstract method. His new paintings, marked by bright colors and pristine lines, helped push the boundaries of Native American art.
Howe taught at Pierre High School until 1957, when he was named artist in residence and professor of art at the University of South Dakota. He remained there until his retirement in 1980. In the early 1960s, he launched a ...
The Cowboy’s Artist
... laboring on a 3/4 life size sculpture of Spearfish native and four-time PRCA world saddle bronc riding champion Clint Johnson. When it was unveiled in August of 2019 at the Casey Tibbs Rodeo Center in Fort Pierre, it became the third and final piece added to the center’s sculpture garden, which is a tribute to South Dakota’s amazing history of exceptional saddle bronc riders.
Chytka has been on a ...
