A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles, part 12

To buy A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles: Black Hills Tourism, 1880-1941 so that you can read the whole thing in its hardcover beauty, click on this link.

Giving up hopes for a resolution, Albert Michaud assigned his interest in the claims to his brother Frank and moved to Canada about 1910. Frank Michaud and his family continued to ask for reimbursement from the government, and the Forest Service debated the matter internally. If Michaud’s claims were valid, he could have obtained patent to the property and the government might have been obligated to purchase the land. On the other hand, if investigation showed that the Michauds had tried to acquire Jewel Cave for development as a tourist attraction through the use of a mineral entry, the claims would be fraudulent. In that case, Michaud would lose any rights to the property and the government would owe him nothing. Apparently, Frank Michaud never applied for a patent to the land, and as a result the Forest Service did not formally investigate the claims, leaving their status in question.

The Forest Service did not consider mining activity under Michaud’s mining claims to be in contradiction with the government’s interests in the monument and continued to allow the family access to the cave so that they could perform annual assessment work necessary to maintain the claims. Thus, the agency avoided interference with legitimate mining activity that might have become a factor in the controversy. The Forest Service was unwilling to extend those rights, however. According to Frank Michaud’s son, the agency refused to enter into a lease that would have allowed the family to operate the cave as an attraction. Although the cave was open to visitors for periods of time, the confusion over the claims, the proximity of Wind Cave as a similar attraction, and the agency’s emphasis on timber and land management discouraged the Forest Service from further developing Jewel Cave or tourists’ services there.

Similar to the circumstances surrounding the establishment of Wind Cave National Park, part of the impetus for the creation of Jewel Cave National Monument was its potential attraction for tourists. The Michauds, trying to expand that potential, lost control of the cave. The Forest Service, frustrated by the legal issues and less interested in providing public access to the lands under its jurisdiction than in managing its resources, did little to promote the site. Under federal control, Jewel Cave received even less attention than Wind Cave. While Wind Cave superintendents struggled to maintain the national park and the United States Forest Service protected but did not promote the national monument, state lawmakers created a new game reserve in Custer County that would eventually become one of the country’s largest state parks and would play a more significant role in the development of Black Hills tourism than did any of the federally designated areas.

South Dakota’s first state park was the outgrowth of a state game reserve created largely through the efforts of Peter Norbeck, one of South Dakota’s best-known politicians. In 1905, Norbeck and two friends were the first people to drive an automobile across western South Dakota to the Black Hills. Norbeck’s visit there inspired him to promote the creation of a game preserve in the southern Black Hills and, in larger terms, to open the beauties of the Hills to motorists. In the process of pursuing that goal, he acquired beliefs and attitudes about park design and services for tourists that had a strong impact on the growth of tourism in the region.

Peter Norbeck was born in Clay County, Dakota Territory, in 1870 to Scandinavian immigrant parents. Although his father was a lay minister, the family’s farm was the primary source of income, and the Norbecks depended on their oldest son to help with the work. Consequently, Peter Norbeck received little formal education, attending rural school for a few months each year and then three terms at the new University of Dakota. He was intellectually curious, however, and always a voracious reader. In 1894, he and a cousin began an artesian well-drilling business that eventually made Norbeck a wealthy man and a well-known one in the new states of North and South Dakota.

Norbeck entered state politics during the Progressive period, an era from about 1890 to the 1920s. Although he was a successful self-made businessman, both his personal background and business interests were bound to agriculture, and he supported Progressive laws that restrained the power of corporations and railroads and favored farmers. In 1908, he ran for the office of state senator from Spink County on the Republican ticket. The primary election was marked by a division between Progressives and Stalwarts that constituted a deep rift in the Republican party. Although he was unpolished and largely unschooled, Norbeck’s energy, work ethic, and political instincts served him well. He won the election in 1908 and was reelected in 1910 and 1912. In 1914, he successfully ran for lieutenant governor, and in 1916, he was elected governor by a wide margin.

In addition to agricultural issues, Norbeck was also vitally interested in conservation and wild-game protection. In 1910, the state took title to lands in the southern Black Hills in lieu of state school sections located within the national forest. This agreement between the state and federal governments gave South Dakota jurisdiction over a rugged, heavily timbered area in Custer County that the state legislature designated a state forest. In 1913, with Norbeck’s prompting, John Parks, state senator from Custer County, introduced legislation creating a state game preserve on the land. The legislation passed the senate, but failed in the house until Norbeck suggested that some supporters of the preserve vote for a pending temperance law in exchange for votes in favor of the game-preserve measure.

Authors in the media

Suzanne Julin, author of A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles: Black Hills Tourism, 1880-1941, was on South Dakota Public Radio yesterday. Click on this link to listen to her interview. The interview covers the last 10 minutes of the show.

And David Wolff’s book on Seth Bullock was the subject of a feature story in South Dakota Magazine. Click on this link to read the story.

A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles, part 11

We continue our serialization of A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles: Black Hills Tourism, 1880-1941 by Suzanne Julin this morning. This teasing tantalizer does not have long left so enjoy these last few chunks, and then you’ll have to buy the book to read the rest!

The presence of the national forests in the Black Hills offered residents and tourists opportunities to enjoy the scenery and to camp, fish, and hunt. Some people built cabins under the leasing law of 1915, which allowed the public to lease lots for recreational structures as well as for hotels, stores, and other services that catered to tourists. The Forest Service made little effort to promote the establishment of such services, however, emphasizing timber and land management, not public access. The Antiquities Act of 1906 allowed the president to establish national monuments to protect natural and built features of historic, prehistoric, and scientific value located on public lands and gave various federal agencies, including the Forest Service, responsibility for monuments created on lands under their control. This charge did not necessarily extend to supervision or development, and often the only protection accorded monuments were signs posted at the sites to warn the public against collecting and vandalism. The presence of vast tracts of public lands meant most of the earliest designated monuments were in the West, and as automobile tourism increased, the existence of the monuments helped pull motorists in that direction.

To the United States Forest Service, then, fell the supervision of Jewel Cave in the southern Black Hills. The development of this cave, located about twelve miles west of Custer, South Dakota, had repeated the pattern started at Wind Cave of conflicts between early developers and local citizens concerned with degradation of resources. At the turn of the century, Frank and Albert Michaud, two brothers who had recently settled in the Custer area, discovered a cave entrance so small that neither of them could enter it. They enlarged the opening, explored the cavern, and decided the crystals within had no value as minerals but could be a lure for tourists and a source of revenue as specimens. The Michauds took on a partner, Charles Busche, and filed a mining claim on the property, calling it Jewel Lode, in September 1900. The Michauds subsequently filed other mineral claims in the same area, and another partner, Bertha Cain, acquired an interest in these properties.

Over the next several years, Busche and the Michauds explored the cave, established passages in it, built a wagon road to the site, and constructed a two-story log building there. The building, probably designed as a hotel and dining room for tourists, featured a rustic but imposing two-story front porch with round arches and decorative detail suggestive of the Stick-style architecture popular in the late 1800s. The men promoted the structure as the site of the “Jewel Cave Dancing Club” in 1902. Despite these efforts, as well as some local advertising, the cave failed to draw enough people to make the enterprise worthwhile. The site was difficult to reach, and Wind Cave was better known and more easily accessible. Subsequently, Busche sold his interest in the cave to Frank Michaud in 1905, and at some point, the brothers apparently devised a new scheme to increase the attractions of the site: the development of a game preserve.

The Michaud brothers garnered some political support for the idea, proposing the withdrawal of an area of sixty square miles from the Black Hills National Forest, including over sixteen thousand acres of timber. Local residents, however, were not enthusiastic about such a withdrawal, suggesting that opportunities for general development in that area of the Black Hills were better served if timber sales and grazing continued. A report produced at the time of the proposal stated that the cave was not scientifically significant because the same variety of specimens were available in Yellowstone National Park. It further concluded that the proposed area was not large enough for a viable game refuge and recommended that the area be designated a national monument instead. Unfortunately for the Michauds, the interest generated by the game-preserve proposal, which threatened the interests of other local residents, undermined their attempts to develop a profitable tourist attraction. As a national monument, the cave and its environs would remain under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service, and its grazing and timber resources would still be available to the larger public. President Theodore Roosevelt signed a proclamation citing Jewel Cave’s “scientific interest” and designating it a national monument on 8 February 1908.

Immediately, the Michaud brothers and a partner Bertha Cain began asking for compensation for the loss of their claims as well as for the improvements they had made to the property. The Forest Service questioned the legality of the claims, citing a decision in the Wind Cave litigation that held that land claimed because of the presence of a cave and which yielded minerals which could be sold only as “curiosities” did not meet the definition of mineral land in mining law. Although the Antiquities Act said monuments created under the law were subject to valid claims, the validity of the Michaud claims could be questioned because of the family’s use of the property.

A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles, part 10

This is part 10 of the serialization of the first chapter of A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles: Black Hills Tourism, 1880-1941 by Suzanne Julin and published by the South Dakota State Historical Society Press.

Ownership issues that plagued the early development of Wind Cave and helped lead to its establishment as a national park also affected other areas destined to become tourist attractions. The presence of national forest lands and the administration of the United States Forest Service were crucially important to the development of the tourism industry in the Black Hills. President Grover Cleveland created the Black Hills Forest Reserve in 1897 by the authority of the Forest Reserve Act of 1891. This reserve was unusual because it was established in proximity to significant settlement, compared to most forest reserves that were located in remote, unpopulated areas. The designation effectively removed from public use all timber and land not legally claimed in the reserve’s 967,680 acres, representing most of the timbered lands in the Black Hills region.

Black Hills residents were not pleased. They expected that the forest reserve would block individual access to the region’s resources and retard development. Shortly after the establishment of the reserve became public knowledge, thousands of local citizens gathered in Deadwood and protested. Such opposition in South Dakota and in other areas of the West led to modifications in the laws governing forest reserves. South Dakota Senator Richard F. Pettigrew, for instance, successfully sponsored legislation that placed restrictions on further forest reserve designations, allowed the filing of mining claims on forest lands, and permitted prospecting and cutting of timber for mining-related purposes. By requiring active management of forest reserves and opening them to managed use, including sale of timber, these laws revised the earlier policy of simply protecting the areas. Subsequent Interior Department administrative policies allowed grazing, farming, and road and irrigation development under controlled conditions. In 1905, jurisdiction over the forest reserves was transferred to the Forest Service. Subsequently, the term identifying all the reserves was changed to “national forest.” In 1910, President William Taft divided the Black Hills National Forest into a northern section, carrying the original name, with headquarters in Deadwood, and a southern section, designated the Harney National Forest, with offices in Custer.

The United States Forest Service, by the terms of its organic act of 1897, had the authority to manage the national forest lands for mixed uses, including recreation. Under Gifford Pinchot, who headed the agency until 1910, the Forest Service concentrated on the management and control of its resources, rather than making national forests accessible to the public or preserving scenic lands. Although Forest Service officials and foresters under Pinchot and his successor, Henry S. Graves, recognized the validity of the recreational use of the forests, they continued to see that use as a low priority. In 1915, Congress authorized leasing lands in the forests for summer homes and businesses to serve visitors, and in 1917, the Forest Service engaged Frank A. Waugh, a landscape architect, to investigate the recreational promise of the nation’s forests. The public’s utilization of the scenic and recreational resources of the national forests, however, remained relatively insignificant in terms of forest management until automobile travel brought more people to the areas.

That increase created a demand for services and amenities. In 1916, the Forest Service estimated that three million people had come to the national forests during the year; in 1925, visitation reached fifteen million. By then, fifteen hundred designated public campgrounds existed in the forests, about one-third of them enhanced by sanitary facilities, water supplies, and fireplaces. Many of these improvements, however, had been made by private or civic organizations. Although the Forest Service recognized and acted upon the needs of the increasing numbers of visitors, expansion of resources to serve them remained less important than other priorities and even controversial within the agency. Partially as a reaction to the creation of the National Park Service and its programs, the Forest Service’s attention to recreational use focused increasingly on wilderness management, including limited development in wilderness areas. Such policies served different purposes than the Park Service’s programs and therefore did not compete directly with that agency’s goals.

SDLA and MLA Roundup

Librarians have always been important contacts for the South Dakota State Historical Society Press. These professionals know what their patrons like, and they can be valuable promoters of our books. In order to keep in touch with librarians we have met before and meet new ones, in October SDSHS Press staff attended both the South Dakota Library Association conference in Aberdeen and, for the first time, the Minnesota Library Association conference in Saint Cloud. Many South Dakota librarians stopped by our booth to say how much they and their patrons enjoy our books and how they look forward to new releases. In Saint Cloud, the Press received a warm welcome. Many Minnesota librarians picked up our catalog and placed orders for titles to add to their collections. Both conferences were worthwhile, and the Press will continue working with these important constituents.

A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles, part 9

Here is the ninth installment of the SDSHS Press serialization of A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles: Black Hills Tourism, 1880-1941 by Suzanne Julin.

In 1905, a visitor complained to the secretary of the interior that his party had arrived at Wind Cave in the morning, but Rankin would not allow them to enter the cave until afternoon. To delay entry, Rankin had cited regulations, but the tourist suspected he was trying to coerce them into buying his wife’s lunches. Seth Bullock, chief forester of the Black Hills National Forest with jurisdiction over the park, told the secretary he believed the disagreement was instigated by a Hot Springs “hack driver” who was disgruntled by the disruption of his former monopoly. In 1908, the Interior Department’s acting secretary reassured Congressman Martin that the department intended “to improve this reservation so as to make it a pleasuring ground for the people and carry out the spirit of the act establishing it.” In 1914, however, Acting Superintendent Frederick M. Dille informed the secretary that despite the intention of the law, the park had not been operated in a manner that served the public well. He reported that unqualified guides were collecting exorbitant fees, that the numbers of visitors had been inflated, and that, despite the fact that most of the visitors were women, “the ladies room has been a joke.” The national park was not fulfilling its promise as a tourist attraction.

In addition to lack of money, inconsistent administration and staffing contributed to the problems. Between 1903 and 1919, Wind Cave National Park had seven superintendents. The men were area residents, and most of the appointments were politically motivated. As an example, Rufus Pilcher served as superintendent from March 1910 to May 1911. He succeeded his father, who died while holding the post. Rufus Pilcher later wrote that he resigned after one of the senators succeeded in taking the patronage for the superintendency away from Congressman Martin. The use of the position as a source of political patronage contributed to the rapid turnover and retarded long-term planning. Politics and resulting policy governed the administration of Wind Cave National Park.

The establishment of the National Park Service in 1916 did not appreciably improve conditions at Wind Cave. By mid-1918, Superintendent Thomas Brazell was the only regular employee at the park. Two or three rangers were hired on a seasonal basis, mainly to guide tourists through the cave. The buildings consisted of the superintendent’s residence, a small administration building, the structure over the cave entrance, a barn, auto shelter, camp pavilion, and blacksmith shop; all except the auto shelter needed repair. Most of those who came to the cave were from South Dakota or nearby states. Nine thousand people reportedly visited Wind Cave in 1916, but two years later the superintendent noted a decline in visitors, which he attributed to wet conditions, bad roads, and war activities. At the end of World War I, the park remained ill-equipped and sparsely staffed.

A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles, part 8

Today we continue to serialize A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles: Black Hills Tourism, 1880-1941 by Suzanne Julin and published by the South Dakota State Historical Society Press.

The conflict over the ownership of Wind Cave may have given impetus to its becoming a national park. In 1896, the Hot Springs Star noted that as long as the McDonald family continued to operate the cave, it could not reach its potential of drawing tourists. S. E. Wilson, a Hot Springs attorney, and Eben W. Martin, a congressman from Deadwood who owned property in Hot Springs, exerted political pressure on the federal government to take the cave out of private hands. At one point, Martin suggested that the area be incorporated into the newly designated national forest. Later, Martin supported the establishment of a national park and complimented the secretary of the interior’s office for saving the property from the “individuals and companies” who were trying to gain title to it.

In January 1900, the secretary of the interior authorized the temporary withdrawal of Wind Cave-area lands from settlement, pending a decision to make the site a national park. Additional withdrawals were made over the following two years. Early in 1902, Senator Robert Gamble of South Dakota and Representative John F. Lacey of Iowa introduced bills to establish Wind Cave National Park, making it one of the earliest national parks. Gamble’s bill passed the Senate and the House with little discussion, and Theodore Roosevelt signed the law early in 1903. Perceived scientific values of the cave strengthened arguments for creating a national park, but its importance as a tourist attraction also played a role. The legislation authorized the secretary of the interior to lease the cave and surface areas of land for development of tourist amenities, with the funds from such leases supporting park maintenance and improvements.

Those improvements were slow in coming to Wind Cave National Park. Congress, the Department of the Interior, and the National Park Service took few steps to further the development of the site during its first quarter century of existence. Congressional appropriations were small, although in 1912 that body provided funds for the establishment of a game reserve at Wind Cave, to be administered by the newly created United States Biological Survey. The park’s first superintendent, William Rankin, reported that Wind Cave’s facilities included a log house at the entrance to the cave, a ramshackle hotel, and a few outbuildings for livestock. Poor roads and four unsafe bridges completed the park’s infrastructure. Perhaps to supplement his salary, Rankin gave his wife a permit to sell lunches to tourists, and she used the otherwise abandoned hotel as a dining room and shelter. Rankin directed some further exploration of the cave, erected fences, made minor repairs, and, in 1905, constructed a superintendent’s residence. The dearth of financial support precluded more than these minimal improvements, and local controversies about services and facilities at the cave continued to simmer.

A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles, part 7

Here’s some more in the serialization of the new SDSHS Press book, A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles: Black Hills Tourism, 1880-1941.

The development of Wind Cave in the southern Black Hills provides an illuminating and complex example of one of those parks. Although Hot Springs did not fulfill its promoters’ hopes, its success as a nineteenth-century resort helped to promote Wind Cave. Located about thirteen miles north of Hot Springs, the cave became popularized after nearby settlers Tom and Jesse Bingham noticed wind coming from the ground while on a hunting trip in 1881 and spread word of the phenomenon. For the next several years, area residents casually explored the cave for recreation, and by 1886, Hot Springs businessmen were promoting Wind Cave to visitors as an interesting and exciting day trip. In 1890, the South Dakota Mining Company, owned by the R. B. Moss family, bought three mining claims at the cave site and installed Jesse D. McDonald as manager of the property. Two of McDonald’s sons, Elmer and Alvin, became avid explorers of Wind Cave and developed maps of many of its subterranean passages.

In about 1892, John Stabler of Hot Springs also became involved in the operations, and the Stabler and McDonald families institutionalized touring at Wind Cave. They opened three routes through the cave, using explosives to widen the passages in some places. Their improvements allowed tourists to tour portions of the site with relative ease, even enabling women to enter the cave without donning overalls. In 1893, John Stabler, Jesse McDonald, and three other men formed the Wonderful Wind Cave Improvement Company and built a hotel near the cavern. Stabler also advertised the cave tours at Hot Springs hotels, and a stage brought passengers to the site. The operators devised colorful promotions to attract visitors’ attention. One of the most unusual occurred in 1893, when a “mind reader” named Paul Johnstone spent seventy hours searching for a pin that had been hidden in the cave. He fell into a coma after finding the pin but fortuitously recovered the next day. Newspaper publicity about the event helped to promote Wind Cave, making it a popular attraction.

The success of Wind Cave stimulated a contentious and bitter rivalry over its ownership. Jesse McDonald filed a homestead claim shortly after the vicinity was surveyed in 1892, apparently at the request of the members of the South Dakota Mining Company, who had purchased and filed mining claims in the area and were trying to strengthen their legal ownership. However, McDonald did not contract to convey the land to the company and appears to have believed his claim gave him full right to the property. After he sold part interest in the cave to John Stabler, the Stabler family filed additional homestead claims in the area.

In 1893, R. B. Moss of the South Dakota Mining Company sued the Wonderful Wind Cave Improvement Company, asking the court to restore the property to his company and to compensate him for specimens taken from the cave. At about the same time, another party, Peter Folsom, filed liens against the Moss claims due to nonpayment for assay work he had performed. Eventually, Folsom bought the insolvent South Dakota Mining Company’s property at auction. In the meantime, dissension arose between the McDonalds and the Stablers, and the latter family joined forces with Folsom. The next several years saw ongoing litigation punctuated by confrontations and threats of violence between the two factions. The suits were particularly complicated because no one had used the land for the primary purposes for which they had claimed it; Wind Cave had never been a mine, and it had never been a farm. From the beginning, it was a tourist attraction.

New Review of Seth Bullock: Black Hills Lawman

Below is a new review of Seth Bullock: Black Hills Lawman by David A. Wolff, the 3rd volume in the South Dakota Biography Series from the South Dakota State Historical Society Press.

I admit I do a lot of reading on the Wild West. I’m distressed that a number of recently published books that cross my desk are poorly written commercial non-fiction or dry academic yawners. There are exceptions, of course. Scott Zesch’s wonderful The Captured and James D. McLaird’s excellent Calamity Jane: The Woman And The Legend are two of my favorites.

McLaird, who spoke at the NOLA convention in Rapid City in 2007, has followed up his earlier Calamity Jane biography with a second volume in the South Dakota Biography Series, put out by the South Dakota State Historical Society Press, Wild Bill & Calamity Jane: Deadwood Legends.

The third volume in this biographical series of important South Dakota pioneers is David A. Wolff’s Seth Bullock: Black Hills Lawman. Wolff, an associate professor of history at Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota, has produced a readable, well researched, and interesting biography of this significant pioneer. Bullock, of course, is remembered as a popular lawman and pioneer. The Seth Bullock character in the memorable HBO series “Deadwood” only hinted at the larger role the real Bullock achieved. David Wolff explores Bullock’s actual career as a pioneer, entrepreneur, lawman, businessman, promoter, rancher, soldier, and friend of Teddy Roosevelt.

I thought I knew something about Bullock, but I was surprised to learn from Wolff’s book that Seth Bullock’s role in the establishment of Yellowstone National Park was not as great as I had imagined. I also learned that Bullock arrived in Deadwood the day after Wild Bill Hickok was killed. Of Bullock’s later life I knew little, but Wolff’s readable narrative fascinated me all the way to the end. Without hesitation, I would recommend this book be on the bookshelf of anyone interested not only in South Dakota’s history, but the history of the Wild West.
–Dennis McCown

This review appears in the Wild West History Association Journal, Vol. 2, No. 5, Oct. 2009

SDSHS Press at the NGPHC!

SDSHS Press staff renewed old acquaintances and made new contacts at the forty-fourth annual Northern Great Plains History Conference held in Saint Cloud, Minnesota, October 14–17. For many years, the conference has provided a venue for manuscript acquisition for the quarterly journal South Dakota History. This year’s gathering was no exception, with some especially good papers given on topics in Lakota/Dakota Indian history that may work their way onto the pages of future issues of the journal. Our new and improved display was a great attention-getter. Besides showcasing SDSHS Press books, it served as our “home base” where researchers with South Dakota-related questions could easily seek us out. Stop by and see us at next year’s Northern Great Plains History Conference in Grand Forks, North Dakota, October 13–16 2010. It’s a great opportunity for graduate students and established scholars alike to present their work to knowledgeable colleagues in a friendly atmosphere.