The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

Reporter's note: During the second week of September 43 travelers from along the H-line enjoyed a week's bus tour to the Black Hills in South Dakota. The travelers represented 27 different communities in Montana and one couple from Georgia. It was the second year for a motor coach trip organized by my wife, Sherry, and me and promoted through the senior centers along the Hi-line. This year we had three intergenerational pairs on the trip, that's a senior parent traveling with an adult child. That worked well and we hope to see more intergenerational travelers on future trips.

By 9 a.m. on Sunday, September 9, we were headed for our first stop, lunch in Billings, and then an overnight stay in Sheridan, Wyoming. On Monday afternoon we arrived in Deadwood, South Dakota where we spent four days and nights visiting the attractions that were part of our packaged tour. We traveled with Diamond Tours, a Florida-based company that specializes in tours for senior travelers.

It's difficult to summarize such a trip. Of course the main goal was to visit Mount Rushmore and see the national monument of the four presidents who represent the birth of the nation (Washington), the expansion of the nation (Jefferson), the preservation of the nation (Lincoln) and the development of the nation (Teddy Roosevelt). No matter how many times one visits Mount Rushmore, it's still an awesome experience.

On any trip travelers have their favorite places they visited. Without diminishing any attraction we saw, here are my favorites and some general observations about Deadwood and the Black Hills.

Deadwood, South Dakota: an entire town designated a National Historic Landmark since 1961.

Deadwood is an excellent central location from which to visit the points of interest in the Black Hills. Originally founded as a mining camp in the late 1800's over the years Deadwood suffered a number of wildfires and reductions of mining activity resulting in a town with many ramshackle areas and limited prospects. In 1989 the town implemented the "Deadwood Experiment," an attempt to revitalize the city by legalizing gambling in the town of less than 2000 residents at the time. Locals approved the proposal partly because of arguments that "taxes would go down."

A couple of local residents we visited with agreed the taxes did go down. "But," one added, "property values also went up because land values soared as casinos looked for space." He went on to explain that a study of the workforce in Deadwood showed that less than five percent of the people working in Deadwood lived there. The price of renting or purchasing living space is beyond the means of most workers in Deadwood.

The sales director at the hotel where we stayed told, "About 15 years ago gambling was attracting fewer visitors. That's about the time a lot of new retail stores came to town and that has resulted in a positive bump in the local economy." As an example of how popular Deadwood has become as a tourist stop, the hotel official said, "Diamond Tours (the company we were with) has brought 28 bus tours to Deadwood just this season." There were three other Diamond tours at the hotel while we were there.

Deadwood has a lot of pioneer history and was home to several famous western characters, including Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. A local theatrical group presents "shootouts in the streets" based on stories from Deadwood's early history and reenacts the shooting of Wild Bill Hickok in Saloon No. 10. Visitors can enjoy many casinos, eating places and interesting shops plus the local history that is well presented with street side historical markers and several options for local tours.

The Homestake Mine in nearby Lead: Once the largest gold mine in the western hemisphere.

Lead (pronounced like "lead a horse"), about 10 minutes southwest of Deadwood, is also a mining town and was home for 126 years to the Homestake Mine. During its history the mine yielded 41 million ounces of gold and nine million ounces of silver. The mine closed in 2005. The Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center, in Lead, presents the history of the mine and explains the current uses of the underground portion of the mine as a research center for very specialized scientific experiments.

The rear of the visitors' center overlooks the remaining 1250 foot open cut. The last active mine workings were more than 8,000 feet below ground level. Exhibits in the center show how the mining was conducted and mining memorabilia from various eras is on display. There's even a simulated ride in the elevator that transported miners to and from the 8,000 Level in the hard rock mine.

When mining ended and the equipment was removed as required by environmental laws, 370 miles of underground tunnels and shafts were left. Many of those areas have been modified to house research at or below the 4850 Level, where the effects of cosmic rays from the sun do not affect the physics experiments underway.

The D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery in Spearfish.

This historic hatchery was one of those surprises, to me, that makes travel so interesting. The hatchery, no longer hatching and providing stock fish, was built near Spearfish (a 20 minute drive northwest of Deadwood) in 1896. At that time wildlife officials in the U.S. recognized the potential to exhaust fresh water fish stocks without some action. A system of hatcheries was built, with the Spearfish facility responsible to provide trout in the Black Hills and parts of Wyoming. The trout eggs were harvested in Yellowstone then transported to Spearfish where they were hatched and raised. The facility is well preserved and with lots of trees, original buildings, waterways and pleasant walkways, a visit is a nice break from the normal hubbub of some of the other area tourist stops.

Since refrigerated trucking were not yet available ten "fish cars" were specially built to haul fish from the system of hatcheries to lakes and streams. A replica of Car No 3, looking much like a Pullman sleeper from the outside, included a series of tanks, a steam powered aerator-system, a kitchen/dining room and living quarters for a cook, two attendants and a captain. By 1920 the series of fish cars had carried over 72 billion fish across two million miles of railroad track. Because passenger trains serviced much of the country in that era (1873-1947), the fish cars were simply attached to passenger trains to reach their destinations.

Like many attractions in the area, the guides and people who manned the hatchery were volunteers who live full time in their recreational vehicles. From places as diverse as North Dakota to Maine, the volunteers greet guests at the hatchery until the tourist season ends, then they head south to warmer and new climes for other volunteer and short term jobs.

Crazy Horse Memorial: more than just a stone sculpture.

Korczak Ziolkowski, a Polish-American sculptor, was approached by Henry Standing Bear, an Oglala Lakota Chief, in the late 1940's to create a mountain sculpture of Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse was chosen because of his fight against removal to a reservation of the Oglala Sioux in the Black Hills. Standing Bear's request to the sculptor was "to show we too have heroes." Interestingly, no photo of Crazy Horse, who was born in the Black Hills in 1877, has every been verified.

The sculpture was begun in 1948 and no expected completion date is mentioned. Ziolkowski's children are still involved in the project and are carrying out their father's request "not to worry about how long the monument takes but to do it right." In addition to the monument of Crazy Horse, the sculptor and supporters (they've never taken any tax money for the project) also pledged to build an Indian museum to house Indian art and cultural artifacts and create a functioning college to help educate native young people.

The museum is well underway in a spacious building with a commanding view of the monument and a varied collection of native art already in place. Per the website for Crazy Horse Monument, since the inception of the Indian University of North America in 2010, 189 students from 32 Native American communities have successfully completed the summer program at the institution. Students earn credits that they transfer to other accredited colleges and universities. Plans ultimately call for a medical college to be a part of the Indian University.

Guides at the Crazy Horse Visitors' Center say blasting on the 563 foot high monument is completed. Work from this point forward is described as "major fine detail work." A crew of 11-12 works year round, "except when the snow gets too deep," on the monument. The work is far enough along that visitors can take a special tour and stand just beneath the head after work hours in the summer.

Fort Hays: Chuck wagon Supper and Music Variety Show.

The historical Fort Hays was a post-civil war Army fort in Kansas. The Fort Hays our tour group visited is located an hour southeast of Deadwood and only ten minutes south of Rapid City. The rebuilt pioneer village at Fort Hays was part of the movie set for "Dances with Wolves," the 1990 movie about a Civil War soldier who decides to join a Lakota tribe. Kevin Costner starred in the movie.

The village, complete with a boardwalk connecting the buildings, is open for visitors to walk through and learn about pioneer life. Various buildings have craftsmen demonstrating how pioneers made rope, tools and other items necessary for life on the prairie and in the Black Hills. At an appointed time the dinner bell rang and everyone headed to a large building with long tables and benches and a floor sloping toward a stage at one end. A cowboy explained how 400 of us would go through the chow line to get our food. The menu was barbequed beef or chicken, a baked potato, baked beans and applesauce all served on a handmade tin plate (the applesauce, served cold, was to cool off part of the tin plate so you could carry it without burning your hand).

This was obviously not the Fort Hays crews' first barbeque. The staff handled the six or eight tour buses plus individual families on vacation and in short order got us all through the chow line, fed, tables bussed and guests ready for the variety show that followed supper. The variety show was very well done, a true variety show with all styles of music, jokes and monologues presented with a lot of energy. There was even an Elvis impersonator who really got into the role. Fort Hays was patently touristy and seasonal, but it was a lot of fun.

Great travelers, attractions and weather.

This view is looking east down through old section of Main Street in Deadwood, South Dakota. In 1961 the entire town was designated a National Historic Landmark because of its history as a mining camp and pioneer village. In 1989 Deadwood legalized gambling which likely saved the town but also put additional pressure to save historic places in the old mining town.

It was a busy week for our travelers in the Black Hills. Along the way we drove the Wildlife Loop Road in Custer State Park, home to a 1300 head buffalo herd. In Sheridan we visited the Trail End Historic Site, the magnificent summer home of former Wyoming governor and U.S. Senator John B. Kendrick. The mansion was another one of those surprises in a town where we'd stayed three previous times on other trips as well as the current one.

As is tradition when multiple Diamond Tour groups are in one area, we had a joint dinner in Rapid City with three other bus loads of seniors-from Atlanta, Florida and South Carolina. We were entertained by Allen and Jill, a couple of western singers who won the "Cowboy Idol" competition a few years ago-who knew cowboy musicians had their own competition? And on the way home we did a short side trip to Devil's Tower in Wyoming, a western icon featured in many tours and travelogues.

In sum, it was a busy and fun week in the Black Hills with near perfect weather. Many travelers saw things they'd never seen before. Others saw things they'd seen before but in a new way or enjoyed seeing the same things but with different travelers. And as always, no matter how much you enjoy a trip, it's always great to be home.