CHAPTER XIV

Hill City and Keystone

We put up for the night in one of the Hill City cabins. These are not in some ways as nice as some of the others, but are very comfortable nevertheless. We must try the cabins by all means while in the Hills. Most of them cost a dollar a night. In them, generally are a bed or two, a cook stove, table and cooking utensils, with possibly other conveniences including stove wood.

Hill City is in the heart of the Black Hills. It has excellent connections with various cities, fishing grounds and places of scenic interest. Sylvan Lake is nine miles distant, Rapid City 20, Deadwood 40, Custer 15 and the Game Lodge 27. Hill City is only a small place, but it is an “up and coming” progressive little town. They believe in advertising, and a few of its citizens are rather farsighted in their attitude toward visitors. The tourist park is not like some of the rest, but it affords shelter and many conveniences. In a few years it will be coming to the front.

We have not been in Hill City long before the “filling station information bureau” tell us that no trip to the Hills is complete without a visit to the Keystone mines and Rushmore Mountain. So, for them we start. Keystone is about ten miles from Hill City. We leave town at the north end, over the railroad tracks, headed due east. The road is very, very winding. It follows the valley of Battle Creek, going up and down over small hills, tributary springs and streams, and around rocks. It crosses the railroad no less than sixteen times in the ten miles, two times under the track.

Covering the entire road and surface of the hills is a layer of powdered mica. One must pinch himself to see if he is actually living and awake and not riding along over the streets of gold in the hereafter. Maybe some of us had better take a good look, for our streets in the next life may be of coal dust or cinders.

We stop along the road to collect a few specimens of the rocks of this vicinity. We hope that we may pick up some rose colored quartz, the rock that is most popular for decorative purposes in the “Hills.” Here an unexpected pleasure awaits us. A young fawn is standing across the ravine watching us innocently. When we discover it we cannot help turning to stare, rapt in wonder. Soon a doe, then another, and behind them two bucks and more emerge from a thicket. One of the bucks raises his front foot and points his muzzle toward us. The whole herd turn and bound gracefully out of sight. It is a scene that will long remain in our memories.

Trout fishing is good in Battle Creek and Slate Creek on the other side of Hill City.

Just before reaching Keystone we turn up a side road to the right. We come to two very impressive log houses. These, we decide, are just the type we would like to build for ourselves. We drive in and ask the man in the yard what a house like that would cost. Imagine our chagrin when he tells us the houses belong to the millionaire owner of the Etta Lithia Mine, one of the larger mines of the Hills. The large house is the house in which the owner lives for two weeks each summer.

It cost $6,000, we are told. On the inside we find all sorts of fishing and other sporting equipment. There is a beautiful hardwood floor in the house, running spring water, soft rain water from a cistern, a fireplace in each room, rustic furniture with bark still on, and even twin beds.

The other cabin is only slightly less in finish and equipment, it being the residence of the manager of the mine. The owner lives in New Jersey. The sight of these is highly inspirational to those who appreciate this sort of life.

Upon invitation of the manager we go up into the hills to the mine. The road is well improved; it must be to carry the great truck loads of ore in all kinds of weather. After a little driving we round a bend in the road and gaze upon a great ridge of white quartz, probably nearly a hundred feet high. As one gazes at it he ponders upon the enormous potential wealth of this heap, if it could be put to use. Rumor tells us that a glass factory for the Black Hills is not out of reason and will probably soon be a reality.

At present this quartz is an undesirable stuff which must be separated from the mineral and piled into great scrap heaps. We climb the slope to the top of the ridge where a tunnel leads to the open cut spodumene mine.

But before going to the top we might look into the opening of the old underground mine.

A narrow gauge railroad runs into the tunnel. A warning is posted against the entrance. A gaze into the tunnel however, makes one think the walls are lined with gold. But on closer examination the gold turns out to be mica in very fine flakes.

On the top of the quartz pile, just outside the top tunnel or the one from the open cut another narrow gauge railroad takes the quartz to the end of the dump pile in small ore cars. Following the short tunnel through a hill we come to the mine proper. It is just a huge hole in the ground, not now worked, from which the ore was taken with dynamite, picks, shovels and derricks. The useful ore, valued at about fifty dollars a ton, stands in the layers of quartz and granite at a tipsy angle, like huge tree trunks of pure white. The sight is really worth seeing. Spodumene is a substance resembling grained rock embedded in quartz and mica but soft enough to be crushed in the hand. It is raised from the cut, emptied into cars and carried through the tunnel where it is dumped into a long chute. When the chute gets filled up, trucks back under the gate at the lower end, fill up with the mineral and take it to the railroad cars at Keystone. From here it is shipped east, where lithium oxide is made of it for storage batteries.

Going from the Etta Mine up, over the next rise, we come to the Juga Feldspar Mine. This, too, is an open cut mine in the top of a mountain.

The feldspar, used for enamel in lining bathtubs and making dishes, is found, mined, loaded and shipped much as is the lithia. Valuable by-products of the mine, mica, tourmaline and lepidolite and others are found in small quantities.

Back through the valley we go and up the opposite slope to a mica mine. This, too, is an open cut, the men working in the shade of a large tarpaulin awning. Slabs of mica varying from small scraps to large sheets are all loaded in the chute, hauled to Keystone and shipped east.

We go down from the mines and take a winding road up to Rushmore Mountain. On the way we try fishing. Here one of the most exasperating experiences of the trip takes place. I peered into the clear stream and spied a beautiful speckled beauty of somewhat larger than average proportion. Carefully I sent a fly up to him, but he was not interested. I tried every fly I had with the same result. Then I sent him a nice, fresh, green grasshopper, then a yellow one. Mr. Trout never batted an eye. I then offered him a frog leg. He only wagged his tail as though amused. The last resort was a nice juicy worm. I trailed it down the stream until it bumped him on the nose. That dumb trout was too lazy to even open his mouth. Possibly I misjudge him. He may have just had lunch, but at any rate he should have shown some interest in an extra bite. Well, I decided that if he was going to have his laugh on me, I’d get even with him.

I took my fishing rod and gave him a real poke in the ribs. I had the satisfaction of seeing him wake up rather hurriedly and disappear upstream.

On the way up to Rushmore we see a large leaning rock with a tree growing out of the top of it. This is only one of the phenomena of the “Hills” that fires the curiosity of the visitor.

The road up to Rushmore is on a mountain facing the one being carved. It is steep and winding. Cars go up several miles, but it is quite a climb. At the top is a long cable over which supplies are transported to the top of Rushmore. The carving is just begun. It has been discontinued for lack of funds, much to the regret of the people of the “Hills” and of South Dakota. If the work is finished it will be a monument of no mean calibre and a shrine for tourists. We did not take the footpath to the top, though such can be done. By climbing the steep precipitous crags facing it one gets a remarkable view of the grand and majestic bald peak.

From Rushmore we go on to Keystone. On the road we see abandoned gold mines and some still running. Within the town we come to the Keystone Consolidated Mines. At present they operate three gold mines with the main mill, the Columbia, the Keystone and the Holy Terror. Two stories are told of the naming of the last. One is that its inaccessibility clear up in the mountain top is responsible. The other is that the discoverer’s wife insisted that he name the mine after her. The miner went to take out his claim and when he returned he answered, to his wife’s insistent queries, “yes, he had named the mine after her,” and he showed her the papers.

Going on through Keystone we stop at a miner’s house, and he shows us many kinds of ore including tin, tourmaline, spodumene, copper, topaz, several kinds of quartz, gold, ruby studded rocks and so on. We cross the creek then and pick up our own specimens of rubies.

Now we go back to Hill City and from there up a long gradual incline into the most noted scenic spot of the Black Hills.