Although my mom and I had been to the Black Hills of South Dakota several times together, neither one of my brothers had ever been there. So in May of 2005, we all took the Nostalgia Tour in order for Mom to be able to show her sons where she had grown up. We all believe that we are very fortunate that she grew up someplace so very interesting with beautiful scenery, wildlife and a fascinating history.
We flew from Minneapolis and picked up a rental for the five of us (Scott’s wife was with us) at the airport. Driving into Rapid City, we stopped off at the Alex Johnson Hotel. Mom’s dad’s sister, Teena, had a dress shop in the hotel from shortly after it was built in 1929 to the late 1930s. Where Aunt Teena’s dress shop used to be, the gift shop is now. The lobby is much as it was when the hotel was built so it didn’t take much to envision Mom standing in the lobby with her father back in 1936 watching President Franklin D Roosevelt arrive for the unveiling of the face of Thomas Jefferson (the second face to be completed) on Mount Rushmore. She was nine at the time.
Back when Gutzon Borglum first began carving Mount Rushmore, the money came from the local business people, who included my grandfather and his sister, Teena. So they were guests at the unveiling. Grandpa and Mom were at the hotel because Aunt Teena lived there in addition to having her dress shop there.
After lunch at the hotel, we went to Mount Rushmore. Mom pointed out the area where they stood during the unveiling, which was near the pile of rubble down at the base of the monument. The President gave a speech and then the flag draped across Jefferson’s face was removed. The last time Mom and I had been there, the great trails that are there now weren’t yet in existence. We enjoyed exploring the trails and getting photos from different perspectives. Scott and I both had video cameras with us and filmed Mom reminiscing.
At the gift shop they had picture books of what different parts of the Hills looked like back in the ‘30s. It was Mom’s birthday, so we bought her some of those books. She teared up. Before we left, we all had ice cream.
From Mount Rushmore we took the Iron Mountain Road with its pigtail bridges, switchbacks, spirals and single lane tunnels. During a prior visit the rental car that Mom and I had did not have a working horn. When approaching a tunnel, it is necessary to honk the horn in order to let anybody coming from the other direction know that you are there. Because the horn wasn’t working, I rolled down the window and yelled, “Honk!” as loud as I could. The people on the other side were still laughing as we went by.
We had tried the horn on this vehicle prior to leaving the airport, so we knew that nobody would need to yell this time. Along the route, we saw some prong horn antelope and several wild turkeys before we got to Custer State Park. We rented two cabins at the State Game Lodge (which had been President Coolidge’s Summer White House) – a single room for Scott & Anita next door to a two room with kitchen for me, Mom and Dean. While we were unloading the van in the back, a large, male bison was roaming in the front.
On the way to Hot Springs the next day, Scott had taken a short detour to a scenic overlook that was quite nice. Then he veered off to Mount Coolidge Lookout. This was a single track dirt road up a mountain. No railings and no place to pull over should you meet someone on the way. At the very top was a single-car-width dirt road with sheer drops on both sides to get to the actual lookout. I was riding shotgun and was absolutely terrified. I told Scott that I had my eyes closed across the last bit. He joked that he did too. We decided that anything that said “overlook” was fine, but anything that said “lookout” meant “LOOKOUT!” We did have some great views from up there, though, including a frontal view of Crazy Horse.
The rest of the way to Hot Springs was on pretty flat terrain. We encountered several bison, pronghorn antelope, deer, prairie dogs, and a coyote. Our last stop before the town was Wind Cave. It was created as a national park by Theodore Roosevelt in 1903 and is known for its boxwork formations (kind of like a honeycomb). 95% of the known boxwork formations in the world are found in Wind Cave. Despite the fact that Dean isn’t a fan of tight spaces (especially underground) he still joined me and Scott on a tour. Both brothers are well over 6’ in height, so they had some very tight spaces to deal with maneuvering around in there.
The Lakota Native Americans consider Wind Cave to be a sacred place. It was considered to be the location from which their people emerged from the underworld. The cave breathes. Wind goes in and out of several holes at the surface, which is how it got its name.
When we got to Hot Springs (which was where Mom lived as a child) our first stop was the Evans Plunge. Mom had many happy memories of swimming there. The water to feed the pools and slides comes from the hot springs that gives the town its name.
Next we went by Grandpa’s garage (he had a Chevy dealership and garage from about 1927 to 1938). Through the years his business had continued to exist under various other owners. On a previous visit, Mom and I had talked with the owner then who was very interested in the history of the place and was quite pleased to be able to find out quite a bit from Mom. This time, however, the garage and dealership were boarded up and about to be torn down. The roof had fallen in during some big storm. It had one of those old, tin ceilings.
Up the road was Mom’s childhood home. It was in a great state of repair and appeared to be very well taken care of. The library where she used to check out books about faraway places was still there too. Her school is now a museum and was open. So we all went in and explored. It kind of reminded me of those antique stores where everything is kind of piled in with different areas having different themes. Mom pointed out which classrooms had been hers. She also pointed out the principal’s office and other important parts of the building, including the fire escape.
They have a chute that was entered by a door on each floor above ground floor. Everyone slid down the chute and out at the bottom. Mom got in trouble for not wanting to go down the chute for a fire drill when she was in about the 5th grade. She confided in her mother that it was because the boys would go first and then wait for the girls to come down so they could see their underpants.
Because the school had been turned into a museum several years ago, it had never been modernized at all, so the structure had not changed from when she had been there. Some of the playground equipment that had been there in her day was still there as well.
What had not been there when Mom lived there was the Mammoth Site Exhibit. The bones had been there for thousands of years, but weren’t discovered until the 1970s. We visited that too before heading to Bluebell Lodge for dinner.
On the way back to Custer State Park, we saw several more bison, deer, antelope and prairie dogs. We broke into a chorus of “Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam; where the deer and the antelope play…” Anita groaned.
The building containing the dining room at Bluebell Lodge is a very large log cabin, both inside and out. The food is decidedly western. After dinner, we stopped off at the general store there. The store is walking distance from the cabin that Grandpa and his sister, Teena, jointly owned and was where Grandma, Mom and Mom’s sister, Barbara, used to go to get any groceries they needed while staying at the cabin.
We back-tracked to the Wildlife Loop and took it back to the State Game Lodge so we could see more bison, antelope, and deer, plus some wild turkeys and burros. A little later, one of my brothers decided to walk over to the lodge for a nightcap. We got a call asking us to come and rescue him with the van. About three bison were hanging out between the lodge and the cabins. One was on the cabin side of the footbridge across the creek separating the lodge from the cabins. Another was sauntering along the sidewalk next to the road leading from the lodge to the cabins. The third was just biding his time out on the lawn in between the other two. Bison are about two tons with horns, so you don’t want to take chances.
We had a couple more days in the Black Hills in which we visited Mom’s family’s cabin, went on a Buffalo Jeep Safari, and took a road trip to Deadwood. More on these adventures next time.
