CHAPTER XVI

Custer

We go off to the left a few miles to the State Game Lodge. This is the famous Summer White House of President Coolidge. Before we reach it we see a fine group of elk along the road and another of deer. The latter bound gracefully into a thicket when we stop to watch them. Along this road are several tourist camps. Galena and the Game Lodge are the larger ones.

We will leave the game lodge and zoo, however, and take them in our return from Hot Springs. Accordingly we take trail 36 back to Custer, about twenty miles. A few miles before we come to Custer we find a tall stone shaft rising beside the road. A bronze plate attached to it tells us that this is a monument erected to the memory of Mrs. Anna D. Tallent, the first white woman in the Hills. To the right, down a lane a few rods is a reconstructed replica of the old Gordon Stockade. The saplings are driven into the ground, spiked on top, just as the old fort had been. Within the inclosure are a couple of buildings, one where the Tallents lived and one where other folks of the party had lived. French Creek flows just south of the stockade.

Just when gold was discovered in the Hills is a question. Probably it was before 1850, or shortly thereafter. One tale runs that a party of sixteen left the California Trail at Fort Laramie in 1852 because friendly Indians reported gold in the Black Hills.

The men journeyed north, trying several places to mine for gold. They got small quantities until they finally ended up near Deadwood. There the quantity became greater, and the men were elated. Three of the men started back to tell the people at Salt Lake City of their good fortune. The remainder kept on prospecting. One day one of those remaining went out to shoot a deer for meat. Upon his return the camp was in flames and the scalps of his comrades dangled at the ends of poles carried by the Indians. The man made sure that none of the party remained but himself, and he started out for the trail to the south. After terrible hardships, out of matches, with no ammunition left, living off berries and roots, he arrived at the trail too late for the last train of the season. His boots were soleless and his clothing in tatters. He hobbled on, and finally came almost at death’s door to a Mormon hunting party. They brought him slowly back to life and strength and he told them his story.

The story of Ezra Kind is probably true. His Sandstone Carved with a jack-knife was found hidden among some rocks on Lookout Mountain. Indian traditions bear out the story. Much gold was taken by the Indians when the men were killed.

The Gordon Stockade party, however, was the party that started the rush to the Hills. One of General Custer’s mining engineers Horatio N. Ross found gold along French Creek near the present city of Custer, on July 27, 1874. William T. McKay shares honors with Ross. As soon as Custer’s report came out the government issued orders that no white people would be permitted to enter the Black Hills until a treaty could be made with the Indians, for this was guaranteed a hunting ground for them when the eastern land was wrested from them.

The Gordon party like many others decided to try to break through the troops and start mining gold. The party consisted of twenty-six men, one woman, and her son. They left Sioux City in October of 1874. They suffered many hardships in the trip, crossing the Badlands, swimming the Cheyenne River, and overcoming innumerable difficulties. They kept ever on, confident that they would all become millionaires as a result of the expedition. They met Indians to whom they had to give much of their food. They finally struck the Hills near Sturgis and from there took General Custer’s trail south to Custer City. They arrived on French Creek December 23, built the stockade, and began panning for gold. They found paying quantities. In the meantime the government troops were trying in vain to follow the complicated trail that the party had purposely planned to lead them astray. A blizzard set in, finally, obliterating the trail. The party got together enough gold and on February 6, 1875 Gordon and one of the other men started for Sioux City with it on horseback. Sioux City went wild upon the arrival of the men with the bag of gold tied on a saddle horn. They immediately sent another expedition to the Hills. This party, however, was taken by government troops and their property was confiscated.

The Indians reported to the military authorities the presence of the white people in the Hills, and on April 4, 1875, the troops found the settlers, and gave them 24 hours to get ready to leave as prisoners for Fort Laramie, Wyoming.

Three times parts of the expedition tried to escape and go back to the stockade, but each time they were rearrested and brought back. The third time, however, they escaped while being brought back and succeeded in reaching the stockade. Mrs. Tallent, herself, finally, the next year succeeded in returning to Custer, later going to Deadwood and Rapid City. There she became County Superintendent of Schools.

Miners found their way into Custer from all directions in 1875 in spite of the government troops. Mining in the Black Hills had come to stay.

Thus runs the story of the Gordon Stockade and Tallent monument, and their significance in the early life in the Hills. Their principals started Black Hills History.

We proceed to the municipal camp upon the hill past the town, and there pitch our tent. A storm is brewing. We hurry along, getting dinner over early. Then we go into the fine community building to get acquainted. There we meet a young man who has just graduated from the School of Mines and has accepted a position in the deserts of California where he is to develop certain mineral deposits owned by a large corporation of Oakland.

This young man shows us a case containing 205 minerals. They include practically all of the world’s minerals except some of the valuable ones such as diamonds and radium. He proceeds to tell us the story of the formation of the Hills. He tells us that in eons past there was a terrific granite upheaval. The layers were higher than they now are. Gradually they eroded and mineral bearing ores washed down between the crevices of granite. This left the great sloping layers of granite and minerals that we now find.

After an interesting evening we retire, just before the storm breaks. It rains, while we sleep on.

The next morning having heard that log summer cabins could be built upon land leased from the government, we proceeded to the offices of the Harney National Forest Service Supervisor to learn the details. He tells us that the United States has surveyed sites along several streams, and South Dakota has done the same in the State Park. These sites are in the more desirable parts of the Hills, readily accessible from main roads. The government surveys the land and stakes out a group of plots in a line. These are leased to those desiring summer home sites at ten dollars a year, or fifteen if the site is to be sublet. The forest service marks certain trees which may be cut and used for making log cabins. These trees, used for building are sold to the lessee at 2½ to 3 cents per lineal foot, depending upon the size. Thus a cabin amounts to a comparatively few dollars, and the annual fee is but few more.

The supervisor shows us maps which are made of the sites surveyed. Several fine sites are available on Rapid Creek, Spring Creek, French Creek, Battle Creek, Sunday Gulch, Sunday Creek, Chinaman’s Gulch, St. Elmo, and Balser Gulch. They are close to Custer, Hill City, Rapid City, the Game Lodge, and Sylvan Lake. Other sites, he informs us, are available at Spearfish through the Black Hills National Forest Service’s office.

Cabins have been built on many such sites. They are made of logs interlocked at the corners and chinked with oakum or filled with concrete, reinforced with barbed wire. One cannot help “falling for” them with their rustic construction, beautiful stone fireplaces, and attractive sites. We cannot help determining to come back to build a cabin for summer and for hunting season. Rustic furniture may be built for equipment and other features to suit the fancy of the occupant.

We leave the office filled with inspiration and wend our way toward the old museum cabin. On the way we pass a cabin built of Black Hills stone mounted in concrete with a beautiful fireplace of rose quartz, crystals, petrified wood, petrified moss, mica and tourmaline extending clear to the ceiling. The effect is really one of splendor. Within the house are souvenirs of all kinds made of Black Hills stones, set in concrete. The place is one that should not be passed up. The Rose Quartz Soda Fountain is another rare sight. The whole town is filled with these beautiful mounted stones, even to the bridge lamp posts.

We reach the little cabin for which we have started and see the date 1875 on its gable.

Outside the door is a sluice box or pan used in the early days to pan gold. This is quite a curio. The gold, after going through a screen made of copper filled with nail holes, was supposed to stick on the sloping canvas bottom and let the water on through.

Within the house is a great collection of early weapons, seats, pictures, an old wooden tombstone, saddles, implements, an ox yoke, rocks, horns, stuffed birds and beasts of that region and on the wall newspaper clippings of the early days. These relics are worth much time and thought. The newspaper clippings are colorful accounts of early shootings, hangings, holdups and gold discoveries. Interesting? Say, just start on them and try to tear yourself away.

One placard reads in part as follows: “This cabin, the oldest in the Black Hills, was built by the U. S. troops under General Crook in 1875. Visitors to the Black Hills were not welcomed here in those days. The Indians, who then owned the land, did their best to discourage them from coming and removed the scalps of such of them as fell into their hands to mark their disapproval of their presence here. The U. S. Army, when they caught any gold seekers attempting to enter the Hills, burned their wagons and outfits and escorted them to Fort Laramie as prisoners.

“In spite of all efforts to keep miners from entering the Hills, many, in less than a year from the time that the discovery of gold on French Creek had been made by General Custer’s expedition, had reached Custer city and were busy prospecting the country in all directions.

“Then came General Crook with troops and ordered all the miners who were in the Hills to vacate the country by August 10, 1875. While the troops were here they built this cabin, etc., etc., etc.”

We leave the cabin and saunter over to the gold discovery monument just west of it. This is a beautiful thing of Black Hills rocks and cement, with a bronze plate upon it denoting its significance.

North of Main Street is the huge log community house, probably the largest in the Black Hills. It is a gigantic thing and very impressive. We strike camp at noon and leave town by the west road. We are taking 85 to Minnekahta and U. S. 18 from there on to Edgemont. Possibly this is an ill-advised trip, but we make it nevertheless, hoping to see the petrified forest. In this we are not altogether successful.

We pass the state tuberculosis sanitarium composed of many pure white buildings. The place is very impressive, but we do not stop.

Our next point of interest is the large sawmill beside the road. The huge blower and sawdust pile seen in the picture give us some idea of its size. The main rip saws are in gangs of three cutting boards one and two inches in thickness. Cross cut blades cut boards into the longest possible sizes. The bark and refuse slabs are fed into the fire to make steam to run the plant. We do not see any fine work or finishing here.

We pass on through Pringle. A short distance from here we find some interesting specimens which look like petrified acorns or small nuts embedded in limestone. But the next is the most peculiar specimen of all. As we cross the railroad well on the way from Pringle to Minnekahta, there stands, west of the track, in a pasture, a peculiar beast. It is made up of a log, with four prongs (branches) resembling legs. Another log is attached for a head and two root systems attached for horns. The result, with the addition of a little paint resembles very much a grotesque elk.

In Edgemont we see huge specimens from the petrified forest, one tree of solid rock weight 14,370 pounds. The specimens are remarkable, but we are not destined to see the petrified forest itself. In Hot Springs later we are to find all the petrified wood we care to carry home, however. We will speed back to Minnekahta and thence over U. S. 18 to Hot Springs.