Part 2

The young scientist was disappointed, however, with the fossils. Instead of finding well-preserved skeletons of different animals, he located only the imperfect remains of several turtles, a number of excellent teeth and jawbones, and several good skulls of animals.[29]

After rejoining his brother at Fort Pierre, young Culbertson proceeded up the river to Fort Union. On his trip he collected not only fossils but skulls, skins, and skeletons of buffalo, grizzly bear, white wolf, prairie wolf, and other animals. He also collected plants along the Missouri. Surprisingly, the fossil remains Culbertson collected were declared by Baird as “an exceedingly interesting series of Mammalian and Reptilian species including many that had never been described.”[30]

In poor health, young Culbertson died in late August 1850, soon after his return to Chambersburg.[31]

In 1853 two geologists, Dr. F.V. Hayden and F.B. Meek, visited the Badlands region. Both were to receive national recognition later as distinguished scientists. They spent several days at Sage Creek, noted by travellers for the purgative qualities of its water. Both men and their horses experienced a weakening effect after drinking from the stream.[32]

Brevet Brigadier-General William S. Harney’s expedition, in its punitive campaign against the Brule Sioux in 1855, crossed overland through a portion of the Badlands en route from Fort Laramie (old Ft. William) to Fort Pierre (old Fort Tecumseh) on the Missouri. Accompanying the expedition were Lt. G.K. Warren, U.S. topographical engineer, and Dr. Hayden who had visited the Badlands region two years earlier.[33]

Warren was authorized to map the trail over which the expedition passed. This route, which crosses the western edge of Badlands National Monument, had been used since at least the early 1830’s primarily by trappers and traders to transport furs and supplies between the two forts. Fort Pierre was abandoned as a military post in early 1857 soon after the route was mapped, and the trail fell into disuse as a major overland thoroughfare.[34] Remains of this historic route can still be seen.

Dr. Hayden and his party camped on Bear Creek, west of the present national monument, where Alexander Culbertson, Dr. Evans, and others had obtained their valuable collections in the 1840’s. Dr. Hayden wrote, “We spent five days at this locality, and with the mammalian remains already collected in other places, our carts were loaded to their utmost.”[35] Unlike his predecessors who had visited the region, Hayden was favorably impressed by the White River region. “Contrasted with most of the country on the upper Missouri, The White river valley is a paradise, and the Indians consider it one of the choice spots of earth.”[36]

Hayden revisited the White River Badlands in 1857 and in the 1860’s. His records may be found in government reports and in several scientific publications.[37]

Captain John B.S. Todd, a cousin of the wife of Abraham Lincoln and later governor of Dakota Territory, also accompanied the Harney Expedition of 1855 and was impressed by the scenic grandeur of the Badlands.[38] On October 12, the day the expedition broke camp at Ash Grove Spring (now known as Harney Spring) southeast of Sheep Mountain Table, he recorded in his journal:

After leaving camp, we continued to ascend the gentle slope upon which it had been pitched, for nearly a mile, and on reaching the crest, the most superbly grand and beautiful sight burst upon our view, that my eye ever rested upon. Down for a thousand feet and more, the road abruptly wound into the valley below; while far away, on all sides, spread this magnificent panorama of mountain precipice and vale—solitary, grand, chaotic, as it came from the hands of Him “who doeth all things well.” What a scene for the painter, what a wonderous field for the Naturalist![39]

Todd also described “the remains of turtle, petrified, of all sizes, shattered and perfect, some not larger than the crown of a hat, others of huge proportions....”[40]

Beginning in 1870 other organizations began making important collections. Among these were the United States Geological Survey, Yale University, Princeton University, American Museum of Natural History, University of Nebraska, Carnegie Museum, University of South Dakota, and the South Dakota State School of Mines and Technology.[41]

In 1874 the Badlands were visited by the distinguished paleontologist Dr. O.C. Marsh of Yale University and his party. At that time the Indians in the region were in a very ugly temper as a result of the discovery of gold in the Black Hills by the Custer Expedition. Guaranteed much of present northwestern Nebraska and all of South Dakota west of the Missouri by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, they regarded white visitors to the western Dakota region as intruders. Accompanied by an army escort, Dr. Marsh and his party slipped into the reservation through the Red Cloud Agency (located along the banks of the White River near the present town of Crawford, Nebraska) at night without arousing the Indian sentinels and reached the fossil region. Hurriedly gathering and packing its specimens, the party returned to the agency less than 24 hours before a war party scoured the region for “the Big Bone Chief.” At the agency, Chief Red Cloud informed Dr. Marsh of the manner in which the Indian Bureau was fleecing the Indians in their rations. Dr. Marsh carried this information to Washington, which resulted in a Congressional investigation of the agency.[42]

Mr. John Bell Hatcher did much of the collecting for Dr. Marsh, under the auspices of the United States Geological Survey, and is considered to be one of the most successful and original of all collectors who have worked in the Badlands.[43] He is responsible for beginning the practice of collecting and preserving complete skeletons of fossilized animals.[44]

While considerable collecting of fossils in the Badlands has been done by various organizations since 1870, it was conducted in a somewhat random manner at first. Since 1899 the South Dakota State School of Mines and Technology has sent students into the Badlands for brief field studies.[45] However, it was not until 1924 that a systematic means of collecting fossils in the Badlands was begun by a Princeton University professor, Glenn L. Jepsen, who was studying at the South Dakota State School of Mines and Technology. He organized the first School of Mines Badlands Expedition, which met with immediate success and laid the foundation for the present extensive paleontological collections of that school (See Figure 5).[46]

For many years large herds of bison roamed the Badlands during the summer months. About 1861, the year that the Dakota Territory was established, a drought began and continued for three years. The buffalo which used the region as their summer range left during that period. After the passing of the drought years, the herds, which had been driven far to the west by hunters, returned only in small bands. For a time great herds of mountain sheep, elk, antelope, whitetail and mule deer continued to roam the area in large numbers. The elk wintered in the southern Black Hills and went down into the Badlands in early spring. In 1877 residents of the Rapid City area and market hunters from the gold camps in the northern Black Hills killed large numbers, which ended the elk migration to the Badlands. Antelope as well as whitetail and mule deer were killed by market hunters and settlers. The mountain sheep was the last of the big game animals to disappear.[47]

Predatory animals such as coyotes, wolves, and black and grizzly bears were likewise common. Bears were exterminated early. It was during the second decade of this century that coyotes and wolves disappeared from the Badlands, largely as a result of the work of the Biological Survey in its predatory-animal extermination program.[49]

The region which comprises western Dakota was a part of the Great Sioux Reservation recognized as such by the Fort Laramie treaties of 1851 and 1868. In the late nineteenth century the tide of white settlement had been steadily pushing westward. By an agreement on September 26, 1876, later formalized by U.S. Statute, the Black Hills region was opened to white settlement. An Act of Congress approved on March 2, 1889 (the same year South Dakota became a state), and proclaimed by President Harrison on February 10, 1890, restored to public domain the area between the White and Cheyenne Rivers. This included the present area of Badlands National Monument.[51]

On December 24, 1890, after escaping from military surveillance at Camp Cheyenne on the Cheyenne River, Chief Big Foot and his band of Miniconjous Sioux fled through what is now Big Foot Pass in Badlands National Monument to the White River where they camped. When the Indians reached Pine Creek on December 28, they were intercepted by the army. In attempting to disarm them the next day, the military precipitated the infamous “Wounded Knee Massacre” of December 29, 1890, when more than 150 Indians and 39 whites were killed. This was the last major clash between Indians and the United States Army.[52]

The famous western artist Frederic Remington was attached to a scouting party which went into the Badlands in search of Big Foot and his band. The first camp Remington made with the soldiers was on Christmas night with the thermometer well below zero. In an article written for Harper’s Weekly, January 21, 1891, he described his trip into the region:

It was twelve miles through the defiles of the Bad Lands to the blue ridge of the high mesa where the hostiles had lived. The trail was strewn with dead cattle, some of them having never been touched with a knife. Here and there a dead pony, ridden to a stand-still and left nerveless on the trail. No words of mine can describe these Bad Lands. They are somewhat as Dore pictured hell. One set of buttes, with cones and minarets, gives place in the next mile to natural freaks of a different variety, never dreamed of by mortal man. It is the action of water on clay; there are ashes or what looks like them. The painter’s whole palette is in one bluff.[53]

THE SETTLERS COME

White settlement of the Badlands region was slow. Suited for grazing, the region in the 1890’s was primarily the domain of cattlemen and sheepmen. At that time the region was surveyed by the Government.[54]

Bruce Siberts, a Dakota cowboy, was in the Badlands several times during the early 1890’s. He stated:

The big pasture west of the Missouri that the Sioux had turned over to Uncle Sam had few ranchers in it when I went there in 1890, but within another year or so there were all kinds of livestock roaming over it.[56]

Siberts’ acquaintance with the Badlands was the result of his experience with cattle thieves who “holed up” there. The outlaws, after stealing Siberts’ cattle, drove them to the Badlands.

Siberts started out in pursuit. During a week’s stay in the Badlands, he saw thousands of head of stock, many of which were unbranded. Unable to recover his stolen cattle, he returned to his home on Plum Creek, a tributary of the Cheyenne River. He obtained a companion and went back to the Badlands. There the two men built several horse traps, captured a number of unbranded horses, branded them, and later sold the horses for $600.[57] Siberts returned alone to the region the following year to obtain more unbranded horses, but lost his horses to outlaws. As a result he was left afoot many miles from home. Siberts succeeded in taking the horse of Bill Newsom, head of a group of cattle rustlers, and made his way to a railroad town in Nebraska. He returned to South Dakota by rail.[58]

Isolated from natural transportation routes, few settlers moved into the region until the coming of railroads. In 1907 the Chicago and North Western Railway Company built its line from Pierre through Philip and Wall to Rapid City. During the same year, the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad Company (now known as the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company or, simply, the Milwaukee Road) completed its line from Chamberlain to Rapid City along the White River through Kadoka and Interior.[59]

There was considerable homestead activity in 1906 under the original homestead law of 1862, despite the fact that the 160-acre farm unit was inadequate in the region. Leonel Jensen, a long-time resident in the vicinity of the Badlands, stated that when his father came to the region in May 1906 there were few homestead buildings. In the fall of that year there was a homestead shack on practically every quarter-section of land, because many settlers had anticipated the coming of the railroads.[60] In 1912 the period to “prove up” on the lands was liberalized by changing the time of residence from five to three years. The Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 was applied to South Dakota by Congress in 1915, enabling settlers to acquire 320 acres instead of 160.[61]

The homestead laws were liberalized again in 1916 by the enactment of the Stock-Raising Homestead Act. This provided for 640-acre homesteads on lands officially designated as nonirrigable grazing lands.[63]

From 1900 to 1905 the population in western South Dakota increased from 43,782 to 57,575; by 1910 it was 137,687.[64] From 1910 to 1930 it continued to increase, but at a slower pace. In the decade following 1910 the population of Pennington County increased slightly from 12,453 to 12,720; by 1930 it was 20,079. In Jackson County, which contained no urban centers, the increase was much smaller. From 1920 to 1930 (no figures are available for 1910 to 1920) the population went from 2,472 to 2,636.[65] For a comparison with recent trends, the populations of Jackson and Pennington counties in 1960 were 1,985 and 58,195 respectively.[66] (The western or 87 percent of the present Badlands National Monument is located in Pennington County; the eastern section is in Jackson County.)

Between 1910 and 1920, increasing amounts of land in western South Dakota passed out of the public domain and into private ownership. Encouraged by the high prices for farm and ranch products resulting from World War I, many farmers and ranchers took advantage of the liberalized homestead acts. By 1922 less than half of the land which was later included in Badlands National Monument was publicly owned.[67]

LEGISLATION FOR PARK ESTABLISHMENT

Stimulated in part by various individuals and groups, the South Dakota Legislature in 1909 petitioned the federal government to establish a township of Badlands as a national park. As read before both houses of Congress on March 16, 1909, the petition stated in part:

Whereas there is a small section of country about the headwaters of the White River in South Dakota where nature has carved the surface of the earth into most unique and interesting forms, and has exposed to an extent perhaps not elsewhere found; and

Whereas this formation is so unique, picturesque, and valuable for the purpose of study that a portion of it should be retained in its native state....[69]

However, no legislation was introduced on the proposal until more than a decade later.

A 1919 report by the U.S. Forest Service recommended that the Badlands area be set aside as a national park. The report also recorded considerable tourist travel to the Badlands. “The travel this year was several hundred times greater than in any former year....” Many visitors came over state route 40 (the Washington Highway) which connects the towns of Interior and Scenic with Rapid City. This road was under construction in 1919 and followed, more or less, the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad. Visitors also came on passenger trains.[70]

However, accessibility to the scenic sections of the Badlands Wall from the Washington Highway were already being closed in 1919 by the construction of fences, except for a few low passes in the wall where side roads had been constructed. The Washington Highway and the railroad are both located two to six miles from the most picturesque Badlands features. The same report recommended that a road be built “along the course of the scenic points of interest” and that campgrounds should be constructed “at well chosen camp sites.”[71] (Such a road was completed 16 years later by the State of South Dakota; see page 43).

While other individuals and organizations played an important part in the establishment of Badlands National Monument, Senator Peter Norbeck deserves more credit than any other legislator. Norbeck was born on a farm in Clay County in southeastern South Dakota, August 27, 1870, and was the son of a member of the 1871 Dakota Territorial Legislature. His public career began when he was elected to the state senate in 1908 and he served there until 1915. In 1914 Norbeck was voted lieutenant-governor of the state, and was elected governor in 1916 and 1918. His achievements as governor were many, including the founding of a state-enterprise program designed to help farmers. Another of his great accomplishments was the establishment of Custer State Park.

In 1920 Norbeck was elected to the United States Senate where he served continuously until his death in 1936. Although his chief interest was in farm-relief legislation, he was instrumental in passing the Migratory Bird Act of 1929 and in securing federal funds for the carving of Mount Rushmore National Memorial.[72]

South Dakota’s congressmen, William Williamson from Oacoma and Charles A. Christopherson from Sioux Falls, assisted Norbeck by their work in the U.S. House of Representatives. Christopherson’s services in the House began in 1919, Williamson’s in 1921.[73]

On May 2, 1922, during the second session of the 67th Congress, Senator Norbeck introduced the first bill (S. 3541) for making the Badlands area a national park. Entitled “A bill to establish the Wonderland National Park in the State of South Dakota,” it proposed to set aside and withdraw from entry “all public lands lying and being within townships two and three south, ranges fifteen and sixteen east of the Black Hills meridian, and township three south, ranges seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen east of the Black Hills meridian.”[74] The proposal provided that the Secretary of the Interior might add to the park from time to time any lands which may be donated to the United States for such purposes. It also stated that the Secretary of the Interior may authorize exchange of non-federal lands in the park for certain public lands of equal value outside the park. Finally, the bill provided that a sum not exceeding $5,000 annually be appropriated by Congress for the maintenance and improvement of the park, if the State of South Dakota made an equal contribution. After the bill was read, it was referred to the Committee of Public Lands and Surveys.[75]

On the same day, Congressman Williamson introduced a bill (H.R. 11514) in the House of Representatives, identical to the first one submitted by Norbeck in the Senate. This bill was referred to the Committee on the Public Lands and ordered to be printed.[76] No further action was taken on either the Norbeck or Williamson bills in the 67th Congress.

However, in October 1922 President Harding issued an executive order temporarily withdrawing all public lands in the seven townships to be included in the proposed park for the purpose of classifying them “pending enactment of appropriate legislation.”[77] The total area within the seven townships was about 161,000 acres, of which 35,410 were classified as vacant.[78]

On March 3, 1923, Congressmen Christopherson and Williamson presented memorials from “the Legislature of the State of South Dakota urging Congress to set aside the Bad Lands as a national park....”[79]

In December 1923, in the 68th Congress, Williamson again introduced a bill (H.R. 2810) to establish Wonderland National Park. This proposal was identical to the one he and Norbeck introduced in the preceding Congress.[80] Like the earlier bill it, too, died in committee.

If the Norbeck papers, now at the University of South Dakota, are any indication of the public support the Senator received for his park proposal, only a few people in the early 1920’s shared his views. Attorney General Byron S. Payne of South Dakota, Professor W.C. Toepelman of the University of South Dakota Geology Department, and W.H. Tompkins of the U.S. Land Office in Rapid City, all endorsed the Wonderland National Park proposal.[81] However, at that time the highways were relatively undeveloped. The automobile industry and tourism were both in their infancies. It was to take nearly another decade to gain the support of local and state chambers of commerce and other promotional groups for national parks and monuments.

It appears that the National Park Service did not give Norbeck encouragement for his idea of a national park in the Badlands. In a letter to a constituent in May 1924, the Senator wrote: