Time

7:C0AM

Open Continental Breakfast/Questions?
 

7:30AM

Bus leaves from Custer City, South Dakota

Core Curriculum K-4 Standards
Core Curriculum K-5-12 Standards
Core Curriculum Historical Thinking K-5-12
Utah Core Curriculum K3-6 (New Core Curriculum)
Utah Core Curriculum K 7-12

History of Custer City, South Dakota:

"Although there were French fur trappers and traders in the Custer area by 1796, there was no town of Custer until August 10, 1875. On that date General George Cook persuaded the miners illegally in the area to leave until the Black Hills became opened to white settlement. Cook allowed the assembled miners to lay out and name a town and allowed seven men to remain in the area to protect their mining claims.

Thomas Hooper laid out the town one mile square with a picket rope and a pocket compass. Lots were numbered and the miners present drew for the lot they could claim when the area would be opened for settlement.

When it came to naming the town, veterans of the Civil War who had served in the Union Army suggested the name of Custer to honor the general who had made a reputation for himself. Veterans of the Confederate Army suggested the town to be named Stonewall in honor of their Civil War hero, Stonewall Jackson. A vote was taken to decide the matter. There being more Union veterans than Confederate veterans--although the number was close to half and half--the name of Custer won.

The exodus of miners in August of 1875 was short-lived. Many of them returned to the area before it was officially opened to settlement by the government. They had been lured to the area by reports from the 1874 expedition to the Black Hills and Custer's report of the finding of gold on French Creek. Custer was followed within four months by the Collins-Witcher-Gordon party of pioneers who settled near Custer's former "permanent" camp. The Gordon Stockade was built by that party and it was the magnet that drew the miners to the area in 1875. The Gordon party was evicted from their stockade in April of 1875.

Rows of ramshackle cabins mostly made from green lumber soon appeared in Custer valley at the site of the present City of Custer. The city was thriving with an estimated 10,000 population by May of 1876, when a gold strike in Deadwood Gulch caused the miners to flock to that location, there were only fourteen people left in Custer--Sam Shankland, Mr. and Mrs. H.A. Albien, Mrs. S.M. Booth, General Scott, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Wright, Mrs. Charles Hayward, Frank Peterson, William Kraus, A.B. Hughes, Abram Yerkes, Joseph Reynolds and Bob Pugh. By the end of 1876, the town's population had increased to 123 people.

Merchandise was freighted to Custer from 1876 until 1890 when the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad reached the town. Ox teams pulling covered freight wagons--the reason for Custer's 100-foot wide streets designed so that teams could make U-turns--gave way to the railroad which gave way to truckers in the 1940s. Early businesses by December of 1876 included the Western Stage Line (Sidney, Nebraska to Deadwood, fares $10 to $20); a hotel, the Custer House; Lee, Turner & Company, grocers; Joseph T. Bliss, general second hand store; S.M. Booth, wholesale and retail commission merchant; Harlow & Co., clothiers, hardware, grain, feed, liquors and cigars; Dr. D.W. Flick and Dr. J.W.C White, physician and surgeon.

The first baby born in Custer was a girl born May 11, 1876 to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Sasse. They moved to Deadwood and the child died in November. Sasse freighted liquor to the Black Hills. The Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage began regular runs to Custer in July of 1876. Custer's first school was taught in the summer of 1876 by Miss Carrie Scott, daughter of C.A. Scott who made the first coffin in Custer. The Scotts moved to Spearfish. The Rev. Henry Weston Smith gave the first sermon in Custer--in a saloon. He was killed that summer while on his way from Deadwood to Crook City to deliver a sermon.

By 1915 W.R. Woods had completed a telephone line in Custer, connecting eventually with the Deadwood line. Up to that time communcition was by telegraph, pony express, or horse and buggy.

Electricity was generated by the Dakota Power Company in the 1920s.

Sanitary Sewer plants replaced the gutters into which refuse, solid and liquid, was thrown into the streets prior to about 1920. Septic tanks were used by individual households. The city water mains were first of routed out logs joined with fitted ends, later with metal pipes that rusted and now with plastic pipes. Water comes from deep wells.

The city police force progressed from a lone constable to a force of four or five men until it was combined with county law enforcement in the 1970s.

Dirt was replaced by gravel on city streets by the 1915s when main street was levelled and boardwalks gave way to concrete sidewalks. Paving began in the 1940s. An airport was built in the 1940s and has steadily increased in services and facilities.

Two city parks evolved from a need for a place for farmers to have picnics when they brought produce to town in the 1930s, the removal of a feed and grain store that was falling to ruins, rerouting of French Creek, and a donation of land for the present Harbach park.

Since the 1880s Custer has had a volunteer fire department, first with hose cart and runners, then with wagon and teams and finally with hose trucks, smoke estractors, etc. For years, Leo Harbach as fire chief, guided the destiny of the department which included constant training and upgrading of methods and equipment.

Custer's early Commercial Club was replaced by the Custer County Chamber of Commerce, now the Custer Area Chamber of Commerce which promotes tourism in the city. Custer is the county seat of Custer County. Its 1881 courthouse has housed many famous trials and incidents over the past 92 years. Twenty seven years ago a new courthouse was constructed at the south side of Way Park, a legacy of a Custer County official and former miner.

Custer's population is of about 1,800. The town is a friendly place to do business in the midst of spectacular Black Hills scenery."

Author: Custer City Website
Source: Custer City Website
Educational Material/Non Commercial
 

History of Deadwood, South Dakota:
"Deadwood started off illegally, as its location was, at the beginning of its history, part of Native American territory. The Treaty of Laramie of 1868 had guaranteed ownership of the Black Hills to the Lakota people. However, in 1874, Colonel George Armstrong Custer led an expedition into the Hills and announced the discovery of gold on French Creek near present-day Custer, South Dakota. Custer's announcement triggered the Black Hills Gold Rush and gave rise to the lawless town of Deadwood, which quickly reached a population of around 5,000.

In early 1876, frontiersman Charlie Utter and his brother Steve led a wagon train to Deadwood containing what were deemed to be needed commodities to bolster business, including gamblers and prostitutes, which proved to be a profitable venture. Demand for women was high, and the business of prostitution proved to be a good market. Madam Dora DuFran would eventually become the most profitable brothel owner in Deadwood, closely followed by Madam Mollie Johnson. Businessman Tom Miller opened the Bella Union Saloon in September of that year.

Another saloon was the Gem Variety Theater opened April 7th, 1877 by Al Swearengen who also controlled the opium trade in the town. After the saloon was destroyed by a fire and rebuilt in 1879, it burned down again in 1899, causing Swearengen to leave the town.

The town attained notoriety for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok, and remains the final resting place of Hickok and Calamity Jane, as well as slightly less famous figures such as Seth Bullock. It became known for its wild and almost lawless reputation, during which time murder was common, and punishment for murders not always fair and impartial. The prosecution of the murderer of Hickok, Jack McCall, had to be sent to retrial because of a ruling that his first trial, which resulted in an acquittal, was invalid because Deadwood was an illegal town. This moved the trial to a Lakota court, where he was found guilty and then hanged.

As the economy changed from gold rush to steady mining, Deadwood lost its rough and rowdy character and settled down into a prosperous town. In 1876 a smallpox epidemic swept through the camp, with so many falling sick that tents had to be set up to quarantine them. Also in that year, General George Crook pursued the Sioux Indians from the Battle of Little Big Horn on an expedition that ended in Deadwood, and that came to be known as the Horsemeat March.

A fire on September 26, 1879, devastated the town, destroying over 300 buildings and consuming everything belonging to many inhabitants. Without the opportunities of rich untapped veins of ore that characterized the town's early days, many of the newly impoverished left town to try their luck elsewhere.

A narrow gauge railroad, the Deadwood Central Railroad, was founded by Deadwood resident J.K.P. Miller and his associates in 1888, in order to serve their mining interests in the Black Hills. The railroad was purchased by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1893. A portion of the road between Deadwood and Lead was electrified in 1902 for operation as an interurban passenger system, which operated until 1924. Apart from a portion from Kirk to Fantail Junction, which was converted to standard gauge, the railroad was abandoned in 1930. The remaining section was abandoned by the successor Burlington Northern Railroad in 1984.

Some of the other early town residents and frequent visitors included Al Swearengen and his employees Dan Doherty and Johnny Burns, E. B. Farnum, Charlie Utter, Sol Star, Martha Bullock, A. W. Merrick, Samuel Fields, Harris Franklin, Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy, the Reverend Henry Weston Smith, Buffalo Bill, First Federal Judge Bennett, General Dawson, and Madame Canutson (woman bull-whacker)

The entire town was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1961. The pressure of development may have an effect on the historical integrity of the landmark district."

Author: City Website and others
Source: City Website and others
Educational Material/Non Commercial
 

History of Lead, South Dakota:
"The Black Hills were long overlooked by prospectors and explorers moving west due to hostile Indians and a government treaty with the Indians that kept out gold seekers. Once gold was discovered in the Deadwood area in 1876, the government ignored the treaties and moved the Indians out of the Black Hills. The result was a frenzied influx of treasure seekers and the Black Hills Gold Rush was on.

Lead was founded at the site of gold discoveries that eventually became the Homestake mine. The original claims were bought out by George Hearst, who developed them into the Homestake, the single greatest producing gold mine in America. The Homestake Mine closed in 2001 and today Lead relies on tourism as its primary industry."

Author: Western Mining History Website
Source: Western Mining History Website
Educational Material/Non Commercial
 

Indian Reservations and Federal Lands in Wyoming
Map 

Indian Reservations and Federal Lands in Wyoming
Map 

Yes