CHAPTER VIII

Belle Fourche

We retire early on the night of the third and are on the road early the next morning, headed for Belle Fourche over U. S. 16. At Whitewood we go over another gigantic ridge of hills which taxes our heavily loaded car. At Spearfish we take U. S. 85 and gradually leave the mountains for the more level northern plains.

We arrive in a very busy Belle Fourche. The streets are lined with people, refreshment stands, side shows and various other gala sights. Parking room is scarce. The whole town reflects the western spirit. The predominating costume is that of the cowboy dressed up. Broad rimmed, high crowned hats and bright silk neckerchiefs are everywhere.

Probably a Scotch visitor would not exactly appreciate the reception. The Roundup is a gala affair. The people come there to spend money. Those running the various amusements and refreshment stands seem to understand this perfectly and render all possible assistance. In the West the celebrations are not marked with the conservatism of the East.

We enjoy the day after we get our bearings. We have lunch after a couple of hours of “seeing Belle” and then go out to the Roundup. The road is packed; we have started none too soon. True to the training of school teachers, we try to conserve on costs as much as possible. We have paid a dollar apiece for general admission and now we decide a fifty cent seat will be nearly as good as one for a dollar or more.

We get excellent bleacher seats, but somehow they get surprisingly hard during the three hours and over that we sit there. The sun is uncomfortably hot and the folks climbing up and down are none too careful at whose expenses they get the dust brushed from their shoes. We can not see the events very plainly in some cases, but we are not cheated out of very much of the performance at that.

The clown car opens the day. Of course it is a Ford. But the clown has done his duty and the affair brings forth more than forced smiles. The Rapid City Bugle Corps, the Cavalry Band (mounted) from Fort Meade, and the C. & N. W. Band from Chicago are outstanding attractions.

The cow pony race comes next, then roping and the cowboy relay. Those cowboys can certainly change saddles from one pony to another in a hurry and also ride. Following this comes exhibitions in horseback hurdling by cavalrymen. Then comes a contest of cowboys riding steers. The man who stays with his steer longest wins. Some of those fellows get pretty hard spills. The broncho riding contest is just as lively. The horses try hard enough to unseat their riders and many of them succeed. The clown, in enormous red “Shaps,” rides a bucking steer upon which he is mounted backward.

The cowgirl race is a close one, the winner almost having to win by the proverbial sticking out of the horse’s tongue.

After this comes stunt riding and trick riding. The men, and women, too, ride at a gallop doing head stands on the saddle, standing upright, at right angles to the horse, clinging beneath the horse’s neck, seated backward and in various other ways. They do gymnastics on the horses in full gallop. One juggles balls in the air while riding, standing on the saddle at full gallop. One lies on his back whirling a rope while the horse beneath him runs. The clown rides a bucking Missouri mule.

For deviation, songs are sung amplified so that the crowd can hear them. One is “Black Hills Rosebud.” Governor Bulow gives a short talk, too.

Bulldogging steers, or riding up beside them, grasping them by the horns, at full run, dismounting and throwing them upon their backs seems to be the most popular sport. The record time is under nine seconds.

The cowgirl relay is another exciting event. A cowgirl then puts on a highly applauded solo dance. After this comes the calf roping contest. This calls for real action. Riders, mounted on two horses, one foot on each, furnished the next race. One girl is entered.

Mabel Strickland, famous woman rider, puts on a steer roping exhibition and the bucking mule riding contest follows. Then comes the wild horse race. During the whole performance Clyde Ice of the Rapid Transit Co. is hovering over the fairgrounds with his tri-motored Ford passenger plane.

The last event is an exhibition by one of the girls riding a bucking horse. The horse throws the young lady before leaving the corral shute. Accidents occasionally occur in this rough play, though they are rarely fatal. All in all, the performance is very good.

After the program there are twenty thousand people trying to leave the grounds at once and soon after the roads from Belle Fourche receive a goodly share of these people. We follow the southbound stream as far as the tourist camp, a mile or two out.

Belle Fourche has a modern camp, although it is just in the process of construction and not yet as complete as some of the others. They have an outdoor dance floor, which is very popular on the night of the Fourth.

The morning of the fifth we drive back through Belle Fourche and east over U. S. Highway 212 to the “U. and I.” sugar plant. This is another of the Black Hills industries. We are given a pamphlet telling us that: the plant covers eight acres; the main building is five stories high; the length of the factory and warehouse is 587 feet; the capacity is fifteen hundred tons of beets each twenty-four hours, and the output 3600 hundred pound bags of sugar every day. Three hundred men are employed during refining season.

A guide takes us through. We first see six 400 horsepower boilers and two 1200 horsepower generators. These are enormous affairs. They develop the power for the plant. We proceed to the place where the beets are unloaded and conveyed through an open flume, through a trash catcher to the washer.

From here the beets are taken by an elevator to the top of the plant. There knives cut them into small strings less than a half inch in diameter. These chips or “spaghetti” are run into diffusion tanks. They first go to a liming station, then through sulfur stoves, a bleaching process and on into evaporating tanks. Here the solution is concentrated from 12 per cent sugar to 65 per cent pure. Then the sugar is put through a centrifugal crystalizer and through a hot air blast dryer. It takes just twenty-four hours from beets to sugar. All machinery is electric.

The factory produced 183,000 bags of sugar last year or over eighteen million pounds. About one-fourth of this is in the warehouse when we visit it. The beets were grown on 11,000 acres in 1927 and the total crop was 35,000 tons of beets.

We go further east on the highway 212 to the byroad leading north to Orman Dam. The dam is a gigantic affair, holding back a tremendous amount of water for use in irrigating land for sugar beets and other crops. The water is so clear that we can see the fish swimming beneath its surface.

The Belle Fourche Reclamation Project is one of the wonders of the western part of South Dakota. It is not in the “Hills” proper, but is well worth going to see. We drive on to Nisland, observing the effects of irrigation as we go.