Beautiful Countrysides

First Site of Sturgis Motorcycle Rally

Clarence Hoel and Wife Carved in Wood

Sturgis Lush Green Hillside

Heritage Center Exhibit

Sandy, Kent and Mark at the Heritage Center

Performer Joyce Jefferson at the Heritage Center

Statuary at the Heritage Center

Deadwood Storefronts

Mark and Sandy in Deadwood

After breakfast in the lodge, we boarded a motorcoach to the High Plains Western Heritage Center in Spearfish. S. D. Along the way we drove through Sturgis which hosts an annual motorbike rally. Attendance at these events can reach nearly 700,000 people over 10 days and generates some $800 million in annual revenue. Typically, Sturgis only has a population of about 7,000 residents. The first rally was held by Indian Brand Motorcycle riders in 1938. The founder was Clarence Hoel who purchased an Indian motorcycle in 1936. All sorts of entertainers are known to perform at the rally and it’s not unheard of to hear about naked women in body paint, prostitution, drunken fights, stolen motorbikes and many accidents and even fatalities.

The Heritage Center is a five-state regional museum to honor the Old West pioneers of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska. The 20,000 square foot museum included exhibits on the stagecoach, a turn of the century kitchen, saddle shop and blacksmith shop, forestry, mining, ranching and rodeo displays along with a furnished log cabin, rural schoolhouse and antique farming equipment. In the center’s theater we saw a one-woman performance by Joyce Jefferson, on three of South Dakota’s early pioneer black women: Sarah Campbell, Lucretia Marchbanks and Mary Kercherval. These black women were the first to file a gold claim in the Black Hills, to own a local hotel and property.

At the Heritage Center, a buffet chuckwagon lunch was catered by a local restaurant. The lunch included a green salad, pasta with a beef ragu, vegetable medley and dessert.

After lunch we visited the historic town of Deadwood where our guide taught us about Deadwood. Named after its dead trees found in the gulch this city had its heyday from 1876 to 1879 after gold deposits were discovered there. At its height, the town had a population of about 25,000, attracting the likes of Wyatt Earp, Calamity Jane, Seth Bullock and Wild Bill Hickok. Deadwood was known for its lawlessness, murders and brothels as prostitution was in high demand.

The town is a National Historic Landmark District today for its well-preserved Gold Rush era architecture. The town includes five unique history museums and a population of 1,350 or so residents.

After visiting the town of Deadwood, we headed a short distance to the town of Lead, pronounced “Leed.” Lead was founded in 1876 after the discovery of gold and named Lead for the leads or lodes of the deposits of valuable ores. It is the site of the Homestake Mine, the largest, deepest (8,240 feet) and the most productive mine in the Western Hemisphere before closing in January of 2002. By 1910, it was the second largest town in South Dakota with 8,382 residents.

Since the mine closed it has been used as a laboratory 4,850 feet underground. We were joined by staff of the Education and Outreach Program for the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) who presented information on the history of the mine, its significance and how an historic mine has become one of the leading state-of-the-art scientific neutrino labs in the world. A neutrino is a subatomic particle that has very little mass and no electrical charge. It plays a significant role in nuclear reactions within stars and contribute to the formation of elements. Researchers from around the world come to this lab to work on a variety of experiments and conduct research.

We enjoyed a salad bar dinner at the lodge with chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

After dinner we were joined by a local expert for a look into the management and health of the forests of the Black Hills. He discussed historical photos of the forests compared to the forests of today. He spoke about the pine beetles and the extensive damage they have done to the forest.