BLACK HILLS TRAIL

BLACK HILLS TRAIL

"Early Settlers in Lyman County"

Published 1974

From the time the railroad came to

Chamberlain and maybe before, a trail

meandered from Chamberlain to the Black

Hills. It found the best possible route be­

tween the heads of draws leading to White

River to the south and a range of low hills to

the north known as the Earling Hills or The

Divide.

Trails branched off leading to the various

ranches on the White River. It has been re­

ported that soldiers used this route to the

Black Hills and perhaps to Wounded Knee.

During the years from 1885 to 1905, when the

railroad was built west, there is little record­

ed history. The buffalo were gone and the

Indians were being subdued enough to make

it safe for white families. The land west of

the river lay here, vast and waiting, so set­

tlers began to look at Lyman County, which

included Jones at that time. The most ad­

venturous came and settled or squatted along

the streams, built their cabins of logs they

found, and ran a few cattle among the herds

of the cattle companies who operated all over

the western country from the Missouri to

Montana and Wyoming.

The land could not be homesteaded till it

was surveyed, which was done in 1891-92. In

the 15 years or thereabouts before the rail­

road came, the early ranchers prospered. It

was an ideal setup for that purpose-plenty

of free range for the herds of cattle and

horses, with good ranch sites along the river.

Good frame houses replaced the log cabins

and they lived a very good life. Old ladies

have told of ordering fancy dress costumes

from Chicago for masquerade dances and of

trips back to Germany, and so on.

But changes come fast and when the long

talked of railroad to the Hills was started, it

spelled the doom of this life. Carl Lintvedt

told that Mrs. Moore, who had a store and

post office on Medicine Creek where the

Coble-Williams ranch now is, refused to be­lieve

the railroad was coming. She said,

"I've been hearing railroad talk for twenty

years and it will have to whistle, and whistle

good and loud, before I believe it."

But coming it was and this is where we

came in. Marion Harlan had come out from

Iowa in 1903 and filed o a homestead, just

over the line in what is now Jones County.

His claim was crossed by the old trail, which

was no accident, as he said that he wanted

to be near the road. It was the only sign of

civtilization anywhere.

In the game the homesteaders played with

the U. S. Government to get possession of

this western land, the rules were being

changed all the time. Maybe the rules were

the same, only the referee didn't see fit to

call them until the land began to be sought

after--when the railroad really began to be

more than a dream.

However that may be, the rule was that

six months after filing, a shack was to be

built as evidence that someone was coming.

Then you could go back home for another

six months. There were hundreds of these

shacks scattered over the prairie and there

must have been a rich harvest for the Cham­

berlain lumber companies. The range cattle

used" them for rubbing posts.

In September of 1904 when Mr. Harlan

came back, the shack had disappeared, which

was customary by that time. It was much

easier to move a shack to another claim than

to build one yourself. One might wonder

what drew him to . this country after that

trip. He told of the hot wind and drouth and

that the country was bare of grass from

Hilmoe to his place, a distance of 10 miles.

It was plain by then that to hold the land

any longer the famiiy would have to move on

it. At any rate he came out in April, 1905,

and built another shack, 9 x 14 this time.

This was the spring of the "May blizzard"

that destroyed so much stock, but in June

when Mrs. Harlan and the two children, a

daughter Pearl and son Theron (now living

in Chinook, Mont.), came to Chamberlain the

snow was gone, the prairie green, with flow­

ers everywhere. Mr. Harlan had stayed be­

hind to earn a little money, so a 14 year old

boy, Roy Andrews, met the family in Cham­

berlain with a wagon. Floor boards were

gotten for the shack, windows, screen wire,

lathe, tar paper, a laundry stove with one of

those ovens that fit in the stove pipe. There

were probably other items but you can get

the picture, nothing unnecessary.

Mrs. Pearl Hullinger remembers crossing

the pontoon bridge and how crooked it was,

how the railing was broken in places and how

it buckled up in front and behind as they

crossed, "but if our boy driver was worried or

our mother frightened, I didn't know it, so I

wasn't either. We got over to Oacoma, five

miles, and the day was spent. This was slow

motion, remember?

"Bright and early the next morning we

started out and there, sure enough in the flat

west of Oacoma, were the mule teams and

scrapers starting out to build the railroad.

"I can see that old trail unfold ahead of us. 

'Road houses' had been established about
every 15 miles along the way. We made a
good drive and got to Dunnings that night,
near Red Butte which is south of Lyman.


There were two before this, Petersons and
Chases. There was nothing formal about
them. Just homesteaders with foresight, a
little money, or both, who built a little better
house and could let the women, at least, sleep
under shelter. The men slept where they
could, in the wagons, or haystacks, or what­
ever. Meals were served and I have wondered
how they did it when the rush was on later
that summer. I can only remember Creeds
store, about south of Presho, where we ate a
late dinner after a rain storm which caught
us. Then the next was Hilmoe, a store and
postoffice and a road house named Stoops
where we spent the next night, seven miles
east of our claim. Andrews had a road house
just across the trail from our house, and
there a 17 year old girl, later Mrs. Albert
Anderson, and two little sisters, and their
father cared for the streams of travelers all
that summer.

"So we were just in time to watch the
world go by. There were all kinds of people
in all kinds of ways. I remember a man on a
bicycle and one lone car.

"Everyone was young and life was one big
joke. There was lots of rain, and mud, and
mosquitoes, and they laughed about that.
The old ranchers were understandably bitter,
and made dire predictions, but no one else
seemed to have any doubts.

“The trail forked two or three miles west
of us, one going to Westover and the other
to the Hills and we kids got very glib in 

di­ recting people. First they would want to
know the numbers of our land, and I can
still say very fast, “The southwest quarter of
section one, township 3, south, Range 31, east.
B. H. M.” Then they would want to know the
way to White Clay Buttes and we would say
'Go west to the lone tree and take the right
hand trail.' I never did go west for many
years and it was quite a thrill to finally see
White Clay Buttes just north of Murdo.

"The railroad got through to Presho that
fall. There was a flurry of excitement very
early one morning when Dr. Newman came
by and stopped at Andrews to get warm and
rest his team. He had been in Presho only a
few days when he was called to Nick Hursts
near Westover. When there, he found one
child dead with diphtheria, and another 

dy­ing. He had antitoxin and was able to save
the rest. So civilization had its benefits,
though at that time we kids grudged every
fence and bit of plowing that was done. We
liked it the way it was and I still do like the
sense of freedom and space when I climb a
hill and see it as it was in my mind.

"The old trail had had its day. It was a
beautiful winding road in the summer but a
bitter one for horses. It wasn't so bad for the
horses that were owned by their drivers, but
the homeseekers, many of them city people
who knew nothing of the care of a horse, and
had no idea of the distance they must travel,
hired livery horses. As they were hired by the
day, the faster they went, the more money
was saved. I remember lying in bed at night,
listening through the thin walls of the shack
to horses being beaten, as they came into the
road house late at night. I remember a beau­tiful
gray horse that was too exhausted to get
up next morning and was left. We kids car­ried 

feed and water, or helped, as it lay there.
I don't remember the end of the story but it
must have recovered.

"When one thinks of the heat of summer,
and the bitter cold of winter, it is plain that
most of the romance of the old trail is
imaginary. It was mostly a long, hard road.

It seemed as permanent as 1-90 does now, but
traffic stopped that fall, never to be resumed.
Section lines were fenced and now there is
nothing left to show where a broad, black
highway ran except for a few dim ruts in
some pastures.

"We were among the families who stayed
after homestead days. A sister, Irene, now
Mrs. John Hulce, was born in 1906. My
hus­band, John Hullinger, came with his family
in 1909 at the age of 16. It is his generation
that have taken it from there and developed
the homesteads into homes.

"Our father died in 1927 but our mother,
Minnie Harlan, still living and active at the
age of 98, this year of 1968, has been
privi­leged to live to see many of the
dreams come true."

Published by

Lyman County Historical Society

1974

Written by Pearl Harlan Hullinger