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Summer Swirl
August 2, 2018
... state. B&G is limited to just the Sioux Falls area. Both are excellent destinations for cool, summer ice cream treats. Personally, I almost always get the sherbet of the day when visiting Zesto in Pierre and love a strawberry twist cone from B&G Milky Way.
The 25 other write-in locations shouldn’t be ignored. I am keeping them all in mind for my jaunts back and forth across the state. There ...
Major or Not?
July 10, 2018
... The folks in Hot Springs enclosed a picture postcard of Evans Plunge, and I knew for a fact that the postcard cost more than the postage stamp I sent them. But what truly amazed me was how someone in Pierre penned a little note at the bottom of a form letter, addressing me by name and wishing me the very best as I composed my theme. Incomprehensible! Someone in a government office in a state capital took ...
Naming Jett
A boy from Pierre is connected to his ancestry through a traditional Native American ceremony. Photo by Keith Hemmelman.
The Turtle on Snake Butte
May 2, 2018
The story behind this stone effigy near Pierre remains a mystery. Photo by John Mitchell.
Angels Along the River
... River Paddlers — has made a huge difference for water travelers and for South Dakotans willing to help them around a dam, or offer a place to sleep or a hot meal. Pat Wellner, a kayak racer from Pierre, thinks the uptick in paddlers doing the trip is noteworthy, but that the Facebook page, created by paddling enthusiast Norman Miller of Livingston, Mont., has made a big difference in spreading the word.
“The ...
Almost-Spring Journal
April 25, 2018
... April.
April 3
Lake Oahe’s ice near Mobridge was just coming off and many geese and other waterfowl were hanging out on or near the ice edge at sunset.
April 5
I booked a blind at Fort Pierre National Grasslands to observe and photograph the prairie chickens dancing in the early morning light.
There was still a little bit of snow as the meadowlarks sang and the chickens danced.
April ...
Bad Roads, Good Roads
... the early 20th century, section line roads became a travel grid. In 1905, 10 years before he became governor and a champion of road building, Peter Norbeck bought a new Cadillac and drove it from Fort Pierre to the Black Hills on dirt roads.
State Representative Joseph Parmley of Ipswich introduced a bill two years later to make road construction the duty of county commissioners. His proposal was ridiculed ...
Reminders of Our Outlaw Days
April 17, 2018
... famous Robin Hood of the Rosebud country. The shackles worn by Lame Johnny on his last stagecoach ride (vigilantes stopped the coach and hanged him) are now split between the State Historical Society in Pierre and the 1881 Custer Courthouse Museum. Potato Creek Johnny's 7.75 ounce gold nugget can be seen at the Adams Museum in Deadwood. And you can still sleep at Poker Alice's house in Sturgis.
Doane’s Favorite Places
By Paul Higbee
Doane Robinson began his career in law, but eventually he became a poet, writer, publisher and state historian.
It’s an eight-minute walk in Pierre from Doane Robinson’s former home on Wynoka Street to the state capitol building, where he once had an office. Eight minutes, that is, if you walk with a sense of purpose.
And it is impossible ...
Have Scoop Shovel, Will Travel
March 21, 2018
... work kicked into high gear. As soon as the commencement ceremony wrapped up, the trio hopped into a borrowed 1936 Chevy sedan and pointed it west on Highway 14. Around Huron the snow hit. East of Pierre, snow flew with such fury that drivers couldn’t discern the road’s edge. But a pedestrian could, so the boys and a stranded soldier they picked up took turns being pedestrians, running ...
Navigating the Wild Missouri
... eastward by the unyielding bluffs, the Missouri sweeps down the 7-mile-long Sandhill Reach, one of the longest relatively straight reaches on the river. (The longest is the 16-mile Steamboat Reach, near Pierre.) Here, at Mile 785R, the Far West tied up for the night. With some 32 miles to go and the most hazardous crossings yet to be traversed, caution dictated a stop while the day's experience was evaluated ...
My Day at the Track
... the day before I left to attend my first horse race. It wasn’t my money. It was simply to help immerse myself in South Dakota’s rich horse racing culture, which takes center stage in Fort Pierre and Aberdeen for just six weeks every spring. It shouldn’t have mattered if I lost every penny. Still, the thought of losing $100 (and I just knew I would lose it, because going to the racetrack ...
Pollock’s Stone Idols
February 7, 2018
... people have a long history in present day South Dakota. Archaeologist William Strong suggested that pottery fragments found at the Arzberger archaeological site — a fortified village near Pierre, occupied in the 13th and 14th centuries — showed "a general resemblance to historic and protohistoric Arikara wares." Surveys at the Vanderbilt site show that during that era indigenous earth ...
Judging a Junk Man
... be a fair recommendation for any candidate … ”
The eccentric junk man tallied 1,496 votes — a respectable showing but not enough to win a seat among the bland, suit-and-tie crowd in Pierre. Instead, he returned to his business of finding and selling used goods. Now somewhat of a local hero, he became even more popular in local parades. He put a new canvas on his covered wagon for the territorial ...
Resolutions of Adventure for 2018
January 25, 2018
... state I have never done, and I plan to do them all in a single day next fall: visit Burbank, eat at Whimps, and watch a football game in the Dakota Dome.
Lance Nixon
Freelance writer, Pierre
The one place my family and I are definitely making plans to visit in 2018 (again) is the Fort Pierre National Grassland as the spring courtship rituals of the greater prairie chicken and sharp-tailed ...
A Capitol Christmas
December 20, 2017
Christmas at the Capitol has been a holiday tradition in Pierre since 1981 when volunteers decorated 12 trees. This year, nearly 90 brilliantly-lighted and specially-themed trees fill the rotunda and hallways on three floors. Visitors can peruse the trees from ...
The Truck Stop-Titanic Connection
December 14, 2017
... stop analyzing blizzards, exaggerating about blizzards past and creating clever and often obscene blizzard metaphors. I've waited out winter storms not only in Kennebec, but also at Rapid City, Sturgis, Pierre and Murdo truck stops, sometimes for as long as 48 hours.
Mostly I'm quiet during truck stop blizzard conversations, because I admire these storms for their strength that transcends human affairs. Expressing ...
Timber Lake’s Holiday Tradition
... issue readers anticipate. “Each year we get calls from readers who didn’t receive the cookbook,” Kathy says. “Two years in a row we got a call from the Department of Revenue in Pierre the day after the holiday cookbook was mailed. Both times, I thought, ‘Oh now, did I mess up on my sales tax report?’ But both times it was the office staff letting us know that their newspaper ...
Old Highway 16
... along 237th Street, mostly past pastures and grasslands. You cross two creeks, one called the South Fork Bad River, which flows northward to the Bad River, which flows into the mighty Missouri at Fort Pierre.
Bridges on the creeks seem scary, but they hold a car.
Cottonwood to Wall
Pavement is gone from the road east of Wall.
The apocalyptic segment runs onto Hwy 14 just east of the ...
November/December 2017
... Summit.
Saintly Swindler: William Kroeger played doctor and preacher in Epiphany.
The Winter Deer Hunt: Initiating a new generation into a South Dakota tradition. [read more]
Goodnight, Mrs. Pierre: Ida McNeil's radio reports helped unite West River. [read more]
Manhattan Island: South Dakota's most populated island is welcoming a few newcomers.
2017 Gift Guide: Our annual ...
