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Remembering a Small-Town Boy
May 4, 2020
... organization, the idea of writing about the towns strung along Highway 14 emerged. “It has the capital, the state university, the state fair, the “most historic spot in South Dakota” (Fort Pierre), Wall Drug, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Harvey Dunn, Theodore Schultz (born, at least, in Arlington). It just seemed like a no-brainer,” he said.
More study and lengthier writing on Laura Ingalls Wilder ...
May/June 2020
... Journey: Photographer Stephen Gassman seeks solace in South Dakota following a family tragedy.
Tiny Towns: Kaylor is South Dakota's chislic capital.
Born an Orphan: Why Gerald Cutshaw of Pierre has a double appreciation for Mother's Day.
Standing Rock's 'Mother Oracle': Mary Collins clashed with Sitting Bull, but befriended his people.
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Our Suffrage Heroes
March 30, 2020
... Picklers, including a copy of the book History of Woman Suffrage, signed by their friend and houseguest Susan B. Anthony.
Other historic sites related to the suffrage movement include our state capitol in Pierre, the Evans Hotel in Hot Springs, the Hipple House in Pierre and the Homestake Opera House in Lead. The March/April issue of South Dakota Magazine has an extensive feature article on the places and heroes ...
The Ghost Forests of LaFramboise Island
March 4, 2020
By Michael Zimny
Wildlife abounds on LaFramboise Island near Pierre, but its cottonwood forests are in jeopardy.
LaFramboise Island in Pierre is a ghost forest. South Dakota is full of ghost towns — little towns that were on the cusp of middlin' until the ...
The Entertainers of Milbank
... the area has also been used on the FDR memorial in Washington, D.C., the Ford Foundation headquarters in New York and Toyota’s Tokyo offices. It also forms the first floor of the state capitol in Pierre.
— Rich Jensen
NOW AND THEN
Did you ever see a “sandwich board” store sign made from a baby crib? That’s just one of many novelties at Milbank’s Now and Then ...
Minnilusa Links Old and New
... their outrage because Rapid City sat illegally on land set aside for the Lakota people by federal treaty. By late summer most of the town's original pioneers had fled 200 miles east to Fort Pierre.
They returned in force in 1877 when the government assured them the treaty had been changed — an issue that remains in dispute more than 140 years later. Never dreaming future generations could ...
Backroad Tripping
July 10, 2019
... trip.
Other roads I’ve come to know and love include the Bixby Road in Perkins County, the JB Pass in Harding County, Jim River Road in Yankton County and the Bad River Road going southwest out of Fort Pierre. I recently drove by Hidden Timber Road in Todd County and nearly stopped just to see what lay yonder over the hill. Maybe next time. Maybe you have a favorite scenic byway that you love. If so, drop ...
The Dusty Trail
... of 1868. The army needed to protect gold seekers and the settlements quickly popping up around the Hills, and so Fort Meade grew near the convergence of heavily traveled trails leading from Bismarck, Pierre and Sidney, Nebraska.
The remains of the Seventh Cavalry reorganized at Fort Meade following its devastating defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. Over the years, the fort was also home ...
Pasqueflower Pursuit
April 10, 2019
... first pasques of 2010 and 2011.
April 1, 2017
Not an April fool’s joke, the first pasqueflower of 2017 was found on April 1 after a morning of photographing prairie chickens at Fort Pierre National Grasslands.
March 11, 2016
An unusually warm February and March saw tiny pasqueflowers emerging in the Slim Buttes on March 11, 2016. This is the earliest I’ve ever ...
Herbert Hoover, The Historian
... Berry was acquitted of murder charges but ended up suing NBC News for defamation for the story they ran about the shooting. When Hoover testified for NBC, he was accosted on the steps of the courthouse in Pierre by one of his university students who sympathized with Berry.
While at USD, Hoover also began writing for encyclopedias, and, with the aid of a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, he began ...
Some Things Never Change in S.D.
April 2, 2019
... blizzard that melted into a monster of a flood.” The January storm of ’52 especially hit the Rosebud region of south-central South Dakota. Mission, White River, Winner, Philip, Murdo, Gregory and Pierre were hammered the hardest but the storm swept over the entire state, delivering severe winds and snow from Rapid City to Watertown.
Snowmelt in the spring brought more disaster. High water along the ...
Who Lies in the Custer Graves?
... a history of the county and tried earnestly to uncover more information about the Custer soldiers, but could never identify them. She died in 1971, and her research is housed in the state archives in Pierre, waiting for someone else to build upon it.
Perhaps somewhere a family diary notes a son or brother who marched off with the Seventh and never returned. But for the citizens of Bon Homme County, the ...
The Wisdom of the Fool Soldiers
February 6, 2019
... Soldiers that White Lodge and his band were camped, with their captives, on the west side of the Missouri, they saw an opportunity to live their commitment to the vision.
They left their camp near Fort Pierre, traded horses and pelts for food they could offer as ransom, and set out for White Lodge's camp. As they crossed the river, people were said to implore them not to go. "They thought the 'boys' as they ...
Kicking Tires in Pierre
January 16, 2019
By Roger Holtzmann
Nobody thinks South Dakota is perfect, but most of us would agree it seems to get along pretty well from day to day. Which makes me wonder what our legislators do in Pierre. Each year, 105 of our best and brightest gather for the session. Most of them are conscientious sorts so they work at least 10 hours a day, if you count the after-hours schmoozing. That's 42,000 woman/man ...
Stories Beneath the Stones
... provides the stark white gravestones emblematic of national cemeteries. Photo by Ryan Clayton.
Public memorials have been constructed in many South Dakota towns, including the state capitol grounds in Pierre where life-size statues represent all branches of the military. Thousands of grateful people will visit those locations to remember fallen and surviving soldiers this Veterans Day, and many will also ...
Inspired by a Prairie Garden
September 11, 2018
... can watch below. If you live East River and would like to see Blue perform live, she is traveling this weekend to several venues with Spearfish musician Jami Lynn. Here’s the schedule:
Sept. 13: Pierre Music Store, Pierre, 4:30 p.m.
Sept. 14: Fernson on 8th, Sioux Falls, 7 p.m.
Sept. 15: AME Church, Yankton, 7 p.m.
Sept. 16: Good Roots Farm, Brookings, 6 p.m.
The Man Who Saved the Buffalo
... not have been any buffalo for Philip to save.
In a sense, I began this article years ago, when I first heard of Fred Dupree. I didn’t get far on my research until the funeral for Evie Nystrom, of Pierre, in 2003. Evie had originally come from Dupree’s country, the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. At lunch following the funeral, I was telling the folks sitting at my table how I had tried, without ...
Paddling the Cheyenne
August 8, 2018
By Michael Zimny
Floating down the Cheyenne River is like a meander through time.
Prickly pear and yucca tap the seams between multi-hued geologic age-layers, like fossil-rich black Pierre shale and the Spearfish Formation's red racetrack. Dinosaur bones and coiled ammonites sleep off their extinction in rock cocoons.
On a particular stretch, curious wild stallions may follow you ...
