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South Dakota's Sledding Hills
December 3, 2020
... Tank Hill is quite easy to spot on the city’s west side. Many years ago, when the water tower developed a leak during a cold spell, kids were able to slide on the ice flow all the way downtown.
PIERRE — The slopes above the soccer fields in Hilger’s Gulch are popular. The gulch is a scenic valley just north of the State Capitol building.
RAPID CITY — Meadowbrook School Hill (3125 ...
Sunday Driver
August 12, 2020
... wind and letting the miles roll away.
On Sunday, August 2 my only plan was to find a sunflower field in bloom. From past experience, I know there are usually sunflowers planted from the Miller area to Pierre and west. Along the way, I stopped at Lake Vermillion Recreation Area in rural McCook County, which is sort of on the way from Sioux Falls to Miller, provided you stay off the interstate. After checking ...
The Color of Summer
July 8, 2020
... also abundant and along one cow trail I even found these two uniquely beautiful plants side by side.
On my June trip to the southern Black Hills, I detoured along the Bad River Road southwest of Fort Pierre and witnessed the river hills full of newly blooming sweet clover. Quite the sight (and aroma) in the early evening light. Later I was treated to another spectacular sunset somewhere between Midland and ...
Traveling with a Classic Guidebook
June 24, 2020
... Dakota Historical Society Press published a new version in 2005.
Here are a few examples of entries as they appeared in the original guide, along with our present-day observations.
Memorial Hall, Pierre
1938: Memorial Hall is dedicated to South Dakota soldiers and sailors who lost their lives in the World War and houses the State Historical Society, Department of History and State Museum. Constructed ...
A Quiet Paddle
June 8, 2020
... series of nameless Forest Service two-tracks.
This route covers approximately 8 river miles and passes alternately through grassy knolls where the river gashes a squid ink-black path through exposed Pierre Shale, into the arid outer badlands. A beaver kept pace for a mile or so. A pair of nesting bald eagles screeched as if protecting eggs or eaglets. Mother mergansers and Canada geese escorted their fuzzy ...
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 ...
