Black Hawk, SD, to Sioux Falls, SD (I-90 to Sioux Falls)
There’s no getting around driving across the Great Plains if you’re heading east from the Rocky Mountains. Running from the north in Canada to the south in Texas, the Great Plains are the relatively flat remains of a large prehistoric sea. The key word here is “flat”, though at times a “rolling flat.” Mostly treeless except for the rare streambed lined with cottonwoods, the landscape is a study in shades of brown as I-90 speeds across South Dakota. West of the Missouri River the land has more texture and less agriculture (raising cattle is the name of the game here), east of the river corn is king as the land flattens and the soil is more fertile. Especially if you’re going somewhere on a timeline, it’s a long, boring drive with minimal interruption. Unless, of course, you’re a retired guy who has the time to wander off the beaten track and discover the hidden treasures of South Dakota. Trust me, it’s an eclectic group, but they’re out there! Leaving Rapid City, the plains unfold to the east.
Anyone who has travelled in the area can’t help but recall the seemingly innumerable billboards advertising Wall Drug in Wall, SD. A quick hour passes before we arrive in Wall and stop for this must-see experience.
Wall Drug
Wall was a railroad stop, named after the nearby Badlands that appear as a “wall” to the south. Wall Drug is a marvel of modern marketing. Even though there are only about 750 people In the town, the restaurants at Wall Drug seat over 800. It’s a scheduled stop on many tours headed for the Black Hills. Ted Hustead started Wall Drug as the local drug store in 1931 but in an effort to pump up business started advertising on billboards that free ice water was available to thirsty tourists trekking west across South Dakota. The promotion caught on, and there are Wall Drug billboards all over the world, all advertising free ice water and stating how many miles the billboard is away from Wall. Most are along I-90 between Minnesota and Billings, MT, and the business spends over $400,000 a year on billboards! Main Street in Wall is one block long and Wall Drug takes up the entire east side of the block. The west side contains small businesses that also cater to the tourist trade.
While it looks like a group of different businesses, Wall Drug is all one business that’s kind of like a mall with all the stores interconnected with a central hall running front to back.
Out front is a place to tie up your horse and sit down to rest awhile…
All in all, one of those truly unique American experiences! Back on I-90 heading east, twenty miles down the road is an entirely different experience, the Prairie Homestead.
Prairie Homestead
In 1862 the Homestead Act was passed by Congress in an effort to settle the west. A person who was at least 21 years old could claim 160 acres as their own provided that they built some kind of a house, grew crops on a portion of the land, and lived on the property for five years. At the end of the five years they received legal ownership of the property. Thousands flocked to the plains to take advantage of this opportunity. In 1909 a Mr. and Mrs. Ed Brown claimed 160 acres of land about 20 miles east of Wall and just north of the Badlands. The 160 acres stretch to the west of the homestead, you can see the Badlands in the distance.
They proved the property and later sold it to a Mr. George Carver, who lived on the property until 1949. Today the homestead is on the National Register of Historic Places as one of, if not the only, remaining sod house homestead. Primarily due to the dry climate it is remarkably preserved. The homestead is built into the side of a slight rise and consists of two rooms.
The room on the left is the original sod house and was the kitchen with a tarp wall closing off the back for a sleeping area. The room on the right, a later addition that was salvaged from a neighboring homesteader who gave up and left, was the parlor.
The original sod bricks that make up the wall and roof are in amazing condition, only the area around the window(slightly lighter in color) has been restored.
The fact that the Browns survived on their 160 acres is testimony to their hard work. Modern agriculturists have determined that 160 acres is enough forage to sustain only 8 head of cattle. Most homesteaders did not make it. Out back is the outhouse and the root cellar. Note that the outhouse was a “two-seater” (it was lonely on the prairie, guess you had to socialize when you could!) and the walls of the root cellar (used to keep food cool and for shelter during tornadoes) are “plastered” with mud.
The slope below the house is now home to a colony of rather unique prairie dogs. I have never seen white prairie dogs before!
At the base of the slope is the well, crucial to the sustenance of life on the homestead. The well was dug 30 feet down by hand and over the years gradually became less productive. In later years it only produced a couple of buckets of water a day.
A shed used as a workshop and garage in later years sits guardian over rusting farm machinery. The intricately designed urn is actually a “boiling kettle”, used, amongst other things, to render hogs, scald chickens and wash clothes.
Just south of the Prairie Homestead is Badlands National Park.
Badlands National Park
Badlands National Park consists of three main units. The north unit is essentially that which is referred to as “The Wall”, a long, relatively narrow stretch of highly eroded land that appears to rise from the surrounding prairie like a wall.
The other two units are within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and are not easily accessible by motorhome. The national park not only includes the eroded features but also some of the last original grassland prairie in the United States. Primarily due to a combination of the dry conditions, poor soil and presence of the Sioux, homesteaders generally stayed north of “The Wall”, even before the south lands were included in the reservation. The highway winds its way up and around the wall, affording spectacular views of the formations. Enjoy the tour!
The formations, left after millions of years of erosion of the former sea floor, are easily accessible at various points along the way. Here are a couple of different places where people were climbing, shows the relative size of the smaller landscape next to the highway.
However, most of the views are from a distance. Throughout the park you can see the colored bands of different eras of erosion as they progress in muted tones of grey, rose and beige.
As the road approaches the west exit of the park, I have a chance to take a picture to the west. Here, nearly 80 miles away, you can see the faint outline of the Black Hills rising from the prairie. No wonder that people have marveled at the vision of the mountains rising from the seemingly endless beige of the prairies…
Back on I-90 heading east, the endless prairie stretches into eternity. And the road rolls on…
Suddenly a cleft in the plain as the Missouri River cuts diagonally from northwest to southeast through South Dakota. This is Lewis and Clark country and the interstate crosses the river near one of their campsites. Atop the eastern bluffs a South Dakota rest area gives a chance to take in the view looking back west across the river.
For various reasons, the geography is about to change dramatically. West of the river, South Dakota is the forbidding land I’ve been driving through. East of the river I am going to be driving through the South Dakota that is part of the agricultural paradise that is the Mid-West. Corn is king here, and there is no greater place to see that than the town of Mitchell, South Dakota.
Mitchell, SD
Mitchell was founded in 1883 as a railroad stop and an effort to lure settlers to the area. Conditions proved to perfect for the growing of corn and it continues to dominate the local economy. Today a town of about 15,000 people, the compact central area stretches north from the old train depot. Many of the buildings date before 1900 but this is not a historical district preserved for tourists. This is a working town…
While this is interesting, downtown is NOT the reason to stop in Mitchell. Mitchell is all about the Corn Palace.
The original Corn Palace was built in 1892 as part of an effort to showcase the agricultural bounty of the area and lure settlers to homestead here. Several versions were constructed over the years with the current building, including the Moorish towers and onion domes, completed in 1937. I have not been this way in quite some time and a renovation of the building has been recently completed. The stylish new metal onion domes are designed to be more effective in minimizing the impact of the strong winds which regularly blow across the prairie. They replaced the original metal domes which often needed repair after a strong wind, one of which decorates a local parking lot.
The exterior is covered with corn and other grain products and a new design is created every year (costing about $130,000 per year). The 2015 version (featuring a tribute to Willie Nelson) was being worked on the day I visited and is close to completion. Look closely at the pictures and you can see the various uses of real corn and grains. It really is quite a feat of construction.
The Corn Palace is actually a function events center for the area, featuring a combined sports court/auditorium. I just happened to be there on the annual flu shot day and it was bustling. The lobby area is festooned with pillars designed as ceramic ears of corn. The interior walls of the arena are entirely covered with more of the corn designs.
After a nice break in Mitchell, it’s time to hit the endless road again, continuing the trek east across the somewhat monotomous landscape. Suddenly a rather bizarre sight looms in the distance.
Porter Sculpture Park
Wayne Porter is a vegetarian sheep rancher who found a rather unique way to fill his spare time (not lots of distractions out here in the middle of nowhere!). He makes “art” by welding sculptures out of scrap metal. There’s not much else to say, it speaks for itself! The place was closed for the season (one of the few drawbacks when travelling late in the fall), so I leaned over the fence to a picture. The interstate is out of sight just beyond the 60 feet tall bull’s head.
If you just have to drive across South Dakota without having time to explore off the interstate it’s a long, boring drive with a “sameness” that gets old. But, if you’ve got the time to get off the freeway and explore, there’s an eclectic collection of things to explore. Thank God for retirement!
Next up: “Meh-zurr-ahh” (Missouri for those not into the local lingo!)
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