Chapter SIX: The White River Badlands

Any visit to the Black Hills must also be the occasion of a tour, at least for a few hours, of the famous South Dakota Badlands. This fantastic National Monument is not a part of the Hills, either geographically or historically, but because the two regions lie so close together—a scant fifty miles apart—they are expediently linked as two great natural wonders in the same region.

The term “badlands” has a loose scientific acceptance, meaning any region where a specific type of heavy erosion has taken place. Such regions usually have subnormal rainfall and sparse vegetation. Those rains that do occur, then, find little on the earth’s surface to prevent almost complete runoff, which is so vigorous as to act as a powerful cutting agent. The final ingredients of a badlands are rock formations known as unconsolidated—lacking any general unity of structure which might tend to withstand erosion. When all these conditions exist, the devastation of the rushing flood waters is without pattern, a great gash being carved in one spot while no damage is visible on a near-by outcropping. The end result is an almost frightening collection of gruesome stone monuments rising to the sky and marking the heights once reached by a general plateau.

Actually, much of the high western plain abutting on the Rocky Mountains is basic badland formation, and small pockets of distinct erosion can be seen all through eastern Colorado, western Nebraska, and eastern Wyoming, in addition to the vast depression in the valleys of the White and Cheyenne rivers in South Dakota. This one region, though, sixty-five miles long and five to fifteen miles wide, is the largest and from the geologist’s point of view the most important of all such regions in the world. Desolate, empty, seared by ages of sun and wind, it is now a great gash in the earth’s flesh which exposes to view rock and soil strata that measure a great span of earth’s history.

In addition to the splendid opportunity to see and study the various layers of the earth’s surface going back as far as sixty million years, the very composition of badlands formations makes any such region a veritable museum of fossils and petrified animal relics. The South Dakota Badlands have turned up absolute treasures of such paleontological finds, enabling scientists to trace the evolution of mammalian life all the way back to the appearance on earth of the first carnivorous animals—the vastly distant ancestors of the dog. And the Badlands are noted not only for the great span in geologic time of their fossil beds, but also for the number of different types which have been found in their ancient soil, more than 250 different prehistoric animals having been discovered in various stages of fossilized preservation in this general region.

The tourist, though, need not be even an amateur student of geology or paleontology to be thrilled and awed by a visit to this grotesque but beautiful area. The mere colors of the various rock strata, ever changing under the light patterns of sun and cloud, provide a never-to-be-forgotten experience. One of the most articulate tributes to the grandeur of the Badlands is that of Frank Lloyd Wright:

Speaking of our trip to the South Dakota Badlands, I’ve been about the
world a lot and pretty much over our own country but I was totally
unprepared for the revelation called the Badlands. What I saw gave me
an indescribable sense of the mysterious otherwhere—a distant
architecture, ethereal, touched, only touched, with a sense of
Egyptian-Mayan drift and silhouette. As we came closer, a templed
realm definitely stood ambient in the air before my astonished
“scene”-loving but “scene”-jaded gaze.

Yes, I say the aspects of the South Dakota Badlands have more
spiritual quality to impart to the mind of America than anything else
in it made by Man’s God.

The word “badlands,” which now has a genuine scientific meaning, was taken into our vocabulary from the folk name for this very region. In the earliest days of North American exploration, far back before the Revolution, French trappers had braved this empty wasteland on their endless quest for new fur grounds, and had brought back tales of this lost world of silence and strange shapes. They were the ones who gave it the name Badlands, but they were only translating directly the Sioux name, Mako Sika, which meant, precisely, lands bad for traveling.

To the early explorers the badlands meant only that—high escarpments to be overcome; twisting, winding, endless canyons from which there were no outlets; crumbling rock underfoot on the three-hundred-foot crawls from the canyon bottoms to the table-tops; and the hot, shimmering distances of this forbidding terrain as far as the eye could see.

It was, as a matter of fact, the existence of this area that helped keep the Black Hills nothing more than an empty question mark on maps until the rumors of gold began to circulate. The first American explorers, who might have discovered the natural wonders of the Hills in the 1820’s, found their paths diverted to the north and the south by this impassable valley, and consequently missed the Hills.

The first reliable record of the wonders of this lost world was dated 1847. That year, it will be remembered, was one of great moment in the history of the western movement—the year that Brigham Young braved the high prairies and pathless mountains with his great exodus, settling an empire on the shores of Great Salt Lake. Although the Pacific trails were fairly well established by then, his was the first of the true migrations, and the gold rush to California, the Oregon excursions, and the Pikes Peak mosaid were yet to come.

In this fateful year of 1847 a certain Professor Hiram A. Prout of St. Louis came somehow into contact with a representative of the American Fur Company, which ran substantial trapping operations all up the wide Missouri and its tributaries. How this meeting came about is lost to record, but we do know that the fur trader gave Professor Prout a souvenir of his recent travels through the Badlands of Dakota—a fragment of the lower jaw of a Titanothere, the first fossil ever to be quarried out of the region and used for scientific purposes.

In that same year a second Badlands fossil turned up, this one a well-preserved head of an ancestral camel, given to or purchased by the great scholar, Dr. Joseph Leidy. With true academic ardor both of these gentlemen, Leidy and Prout, rushed their discoveries into scholarly print, describing in learned journals the nature of their trophies. Enjoying the slender circulation of academic publication, the essays which described these fossil wonders eventually found their way into the offices of the government’s geological survey, which acted quickly to dispatch an expedition to the overlooked region of their origin.

That first exploring party, the David Owen Survey, went into the field in 1849. A prominent scientist-artist, Dr. John Evans, was attached to the group, and from his pen we have several sketches of this pioneer adventure into the empty wastelands. If these drawings look more like studies of Dante’s Inferno than like the breath-taking Badlands as they really are, it must be remembered that such geological formations had never before been visited by the members of that party, and, being completely alien to the America of their knowledge, impressed them every bit as a visit to the moon might have done.

The Owens party was merely the vanguard of the great army of brave men and women who have ever since made their dangerous ways into the remotest distances of the mountain and desert West, seeking neither riches of gold nor riches of land, but only more minute bits of the knowledge of the world of our past. Archeologists, geologists, and paleontologists from universities and learned societies the world over have spent liberally of their time, energies, and personal safety to scout out the secrets of mankind’s past in such remote corners of the earth as the Badlands. Year after year additional expeditions, both governmental and privately organized, made their way into this particular area, seeking out the fossil remains which turned up in great numbers.

V. F. Hayden of the United States Geological Survey was one of the most diligent of the early explorers. He made trips into the Badlands in 1853, 1855, 1857, and 1866, carrying on detailed and exhaustive studies and eventually unraveling the story of the region’s major geologic features.

As Hayden’s reports became more and more widely circulated, various universities found projects of specific interest in one or another phase of the work of uncovering fossil beds; and from year to year Yale, Princeton, Amherst, the universities of South Dakota and Nebraska, and other institutions sent groups into the Badlands for summer work. Gradually, as these several groups exchanged information and reports of progress, it became possible for their scientists to trace back, through the skeletal remains of prehistoric animals, the very processes of the evolution of many entire families in the animal kingdom. Not only are the fossil beds of the Badlands as richly stocked with remains as any such bed in the world, but in a great many instances entire groups of three, four, and five whole skeletons have been found, making it possible for museum workers to re-create almost perfectly the animals as they existed and to set up models of the terrain at various intervals throughout its entire sixty-million-year history.

Perhaps the most noteworthy as well as view-worthy section of the Badlands is Sheep Mountain, located at the far west end of the Monument. Down from the summit runs a great canyon, the School of Mines Canyon, named for the fact that the South Dakota State School of Mines at Rapid City long ago chose that location for the bulk of its paleontological research. Under the guidance of famed Dr. Cleophas O’Harra, for many years president of that institution, groups of Mines students went on extended annual encampments on Sheep Mountain, unearthing, among other rarities, full skeletons of the prehistoric midget horse, the saber-toothed tiger, and camels. It was this last discovery that lent considerable support to the concept, conjectural at the time of Dr. O’Harra’s discoveries, that a land bridge had once connected North America and Asia, allowing the migration of peoples and animals from the old world into the new. School of Mines Canyon, while some distance off the main highway leading from Pierre to the Black Hills, is by all means worth the time required to visit it. The canyon lies only thirteen miles from the town of Scenic.

The Badlands are reached by Highway 14-16 and by State Route 40. Coming from the west, from Rapid City, the visitor can take route 40 directly to the town of Scenic, forty-seven miles distant. From Scenic, in addition to connecting with the side trip to Sheep Mountain, 40 continues along the north wall of the Badlands all the way to Cedar Pass and out the east end of the region, merging at Kadoka with Highway 16, or, by means of a nine-mile connection, with 14.

Should the weather be bad and State 40 not recommended by local informers, the route is out of Rapid City on 14-16, east fifty-five miles to the town of Wall, thence by the access road through the Pinnacles, down into the Badlands halfway between Scenic and Cedar Pass, and joining State 40.

From the east, Highway 16 goes through Kadoka, from which town State 40 should be taken, leading in through Cedar Pass, and out either through Scenic and on to Rapid City, or at the Pinnacles, through Wall and back on 14-16. Coming from Pierre on 14, the tourist must leave that highway a few miles beyond the town of Philip and make the nine-mile detour on 16 to Kadoka, from there going on to Cedar Pass as described.

Several railroads serve the Badlands and its general region, notably the Chicago & Northwestern, the Burlington, and the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul. This last road, the “Milwaukee,” offers the traveler the best view of the region, winding up the White River Valley the entire sixty-five miles between Kadoka and Scenic, and providing the passenger with unparalleled if hasty views of some of the most rugged and isolated portions of all the area.

Bibliography

Allsman, Paul T. _Reconnaissance of Gold Mining Districts in the Black
Hills, South Dakota._ U.S. Bureau of Mines, No. 427. Washington,
D. C.: U.S. Dept. of Interior, 1940.

Baldwin, G. P., editor. _The Black Hills Illustrated._ Philadelphia:
Baldwin Syndicate, 1904.

Carpenter, F. R. _The Mineral Resources of the Black Hills._ South
Dakota School of Mines Preliminary Report, No. 1. Rapid City:
South Dakota School of Mines, 1888.

Casey, Robert J. _The Black Hills._ New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1949.

Dick, Everett. _Vanguards of the Frontier._ New York: D.
Appleton-Century Co., 1941.

Eloe, Frank. “Rushmore Cave,” _Black Hills Engineer_, XXIV (December,
1938), 274.

Fenton, C. L. “South Dakota’s Badlands,” _Nature Magazine_, XXIV
(August, 1941), 370-74.

Glasscock, C. B. _The Big Bonanza._ Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co.,
1931.

Hans, Fred. _The Great Sioux Nation._ Chicago: Donahue, 1907.

Hayden, F. V. and Meek, F. B. “Remarks on Geology of the Black Hills,”
_Academy of Natural Science Proceedings._ Philadelphia: Academy of
Natural Science, 1858, X, 41-59.

Hough, Emerson. _The Passing of the Frontier._ New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1921.

Kingsbury, G. W. _History of Dakota Territory._ Chicago: The S. J.
Clarke Co., 1915.

Lake, Stuart. _Wyatt Earp._ Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931.

Mirsky, Jeannette. _The Westward Crossings._ New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1946.

Newton, Henry. _Geology of the Black Hills._ Washington, D. C.: United
States Geographical and Geological Survey, 1880.

O’Harra, C. C. “The Gold Mining Industry of the Black Hills,” _Black
Hills Engineer_, XIX (January, 1931), 3-9.

——. _The White River Badlands._ Department of Geology, No. 13. Rapid
City: South Dakota School of Mines, 1920.

Rothrach, E. P. _A Hydrologic Study of the White River Valley. South
Dakota Geological Survey Report._ Vermillion, South Dakota:
University of South Dakota, February, 1942.

Todd, James Edward. _A Preliminary Report on the Geology of South
Dakota._ South Dakota Geological Survey, No. 1. Vermillion:
University of South Dakota, 1894.

Tullis, E. L. “The Geology of the Black Hills,” _Black Hills Engineer_,
XXV (April, 1939), 26-38.

Footnotes

[1]For an account of the history and natural wonders of Estes Park,
readers are referred to a previous book in this series, _Estes Park:
Resort in the Rockies_, by Edwin J. Foscue and Louis O. Quam.

[2]A treasured manuscript journal kept by the author’s great-uncle, who
was for many years curator of the Colorado State Historical
Society’s museum in Denver, reports an interview with Calamity Jane
some time before her death which convinced him that the facts were
substantially as they are stated here.

On the other hand, Mr. Will G. Robinson, the eminent State Historian
of South Dakota, reports: “On the authority of Dr. McGillicuddy, who
was a medico at Ft. Laramie, and whose original letter I have, I
would be entirely certain that she was born at Ft. Laramie, of a
couple by the name of Dalton. Dalton was a soldier, was discharged
and went out a short distance west to LaBonte. Here he was killed by
Indians, although his wife got back into the fort with one eye
gouged out, after which she shortly died. Her child got her
name—Calamity—by reason of this disaster. She was not much over 40
when she died in 1903.”

The discrepancy between these two accounts, both studiously
researched and documented by men whose professional careers have
been given over to solving puzzles of this nature with which western
history abounds, is typical of the disagreement among
well-authenticated reports of the birth and early life of this
female enigma.

In any event, it is a matter which is still subject to a maximum
amount of conjecture, and for a much more complete account of the
variant clues readers are enthusiastically referred to Nolie Mumey’s
_Calamity Jane_ (Denver: Privately printed, 1949).

Index

A
Abilene (Kan.), 84, 98
Adams Memorial Museum, 103, 107
Alaska, 73
Algonkian Period, 19
American Fur Company, 120
Amherst College, 122
Anchor City (S.D.), 63
Archean Period, 17-18
Archean sea, 20
Atlantic (Iowa), 88

B
Badlands, White River, 4, 6, 42, 115-17
Bass, Sam, 79-81, 82-83, 85, 90
Battle Mountain, 7
Beadle & Adams, 90, 95
Beaver Creek, 86
Belle Fourche (S.D.), 6
Belle Fourche River, 56
Belle Fourche Round-up, 46
Big Horn Basin, 66
Big Horn River, 53
Bismarck (S.D.), 53
Black Bart, 78
Black Hills & Badlands Assn., 44
Black Hills Range Days, 46
Black Hills Teachers College, 12
Black Moon (Indian Chief), 66
Blackfeet tribe, 49
Blodgett, Sam, 71
Borglum, Gutzon, 37-39
Bozeman Trail, 51-53
Brule tribe, 49, 52
“Broken Hand.” _See_ Fitzpatrick, Thomas
Buffalo Bill, 99
Burlington Railroad, 8

C
Calamity Jane, 77, 90-91, 94, 107-11
_Calamity Jane_, 109
California, 47, 50, 62, 75
Cambrian Period, 19-20
Cambrian sea, 20
Canyon Springs, 86, 89
Carlsbad Caverns, 28, 43
Carson, Kit, 55
Cathedral Park, 33
Central City (S.D.), 63
Cheyenne (Wyo.), 4, 59-61, 69, 80-81, 86, 89, 99
Cheyenne-Black Hills Stage, 69, 80
Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage, 4, 9
Cheyenne Indians, 7
Cheyenne River, 116
Chicago (Ill.), 6, 34, 49
Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, 7
Clarke, Dick, 93
Colorado, 32-33, 47, 58
Coolidge, President Calvin, 31, 38, 93
Crazy Horse (Indian Chief), 40, 52, 54, 61, 65-67
Cripple Creek (Colo.), 72
Crocker, Charles, 78
Crook, General, 59, 64-66, 110
Crystal Cave, 23
Custer (S.D.), 6, 9, 10-11, 30-31, 40, 42-43, 46, 59, 61, 63,
70-71, 105
Custer, General George Armstrong, 1, 10, 54-57, 64-67, 78, 80
Custer State Park, 19, 30
Custer’s Last Stand, 68

D
Darrall, Duke, 90
Days of ’76, 46, 92
Dead Man’s Hand (poker), 95
Deadtree Gulch, 71
Deadwood (S.D.), 4, 11, 20, 46, 69, 81-84, 86, 91, 99, 101, 105-6,
110-11
Deadwood City (S.D.), 76
Deadwood Dick, 77, 90-94
Deadwood Dick, Jr., 92
Deadwood Gulch, 10, 46, 71, 73
Denver (Colo.), 3-4, 49, 60, 96, 109
Devonian Period, 22
Dodge, General Grenville, 51
Dodge City (Kan.), 84

E
Earp, Wyatt, 84-86
Egan, Capt. Pat, 110
Estes Park, 3
Evans, Fred T., 7
Evans Hotel, 7
Evans, John, 120

F
Fair, James, 78
Fellows, Dick, 78
Fitzpatrick, Thomas, 50
Fort Ellis, 64
Fort Fetterman, 64
Fort Laramie, 50-52, 57
Fort Lincoln, 53, 57
Fort Pierre, 7, 13, 80
Fort Sully, 51
French Creek, 57, 69, 70

G
Gall (Indian Chief), 66
Game Lodge, 31-33
Gayville (S.D.), 63
Gibbon, General John, 64-65
Gold, discovered in the Black Hills, 3
Gold Discovery Days, 11, 46
Golden Gate (S.D.), 63
Golden Star mine, 73
Golden Terra mine, 73, 75
Gordon party, 60
Great Plains, 49

H
Haggin, James Ben Ali, 74
Harney Peak, 1, 19, 32, 35-36, 40
Harney-Sanborne Treaty, 53
Hayden, V. F., 121
Hays City (Kan.), 98, 110
Hearst, Senator George, 74-75
Hearst, William Randolph, 74
Hickok, Wild Bill, 90, 94-97, 100-102, 107-8
Hinckley’s Overland Express, 96
Homestake Mine, 69, 72-76, 80, 87, 89
Homestake Mining Co., 75
Hot Springs (S.D.), 6, 8-9, 11, 29, 34

I
Ice Cave, 43-44
Inkpaduta (Indian Chief), 66
_Inter-Ocean_, 58

J
Jefferson, President Thomas, 37, 39
Jenney Stockade, 86
Jennings, Dr., 7
Jewel Cave, 11, 23, 42, 44
Jones, Seth, 90
Julesburg (Colo.), 97

K
Kansas, 96
Kansas City (Mo.), 49
Kind, Ezra, 48

L
Lake, Agnes, 99
Laramie (Wyo.), 61
Last Chance Gulch, 73
Lead (S.D.), 75
_Legend of Sam Bass_, 79
Leidy, Dr. Joseph, 120
Lincoln, President Abraham, 37, 39
Lincoln Highway, 4
Little Big Horn River, 10, 68
Luenen (Germany), 12

Mc
McCall, Jack, 95, 100-102
McCanles gang, 96, 98
McKay, William T., 54, 56

M
Manuel, Fred, 73-75
Manuel, Moses, 73-75
Meier, Joseph, 12
Miles City (Mont.), 6
Minneapolis (Minn.), 6
Minnekahta Canyon, 7
Minnesota, 50
Minniconjou tribe, 49
Mississippian Period, 22
Missouri, 97, 108
Missouri River, 2, 6, 49, 53, 88
Missouri Valley, 48, 50
Mogollon (mountains), 63
Montana, 10, 47, 51, 64
Mount Coolidge, 41
Mount Evans, 33
Mount Moriah Cemetery, 103, 107, 113
Mount Rushmore, 37, 39, 40-41
Mount Washington, 32
Mumey, Nolie, 109
Murietta, Joaquin, 78

N
National Park Service, 28, 30, 43, 45
Nebraska, 42, 54, 88
Needles, The, 33
Needles Highway, 33-35
Nevada, 47
Newcastle (Wyo.), 43
Niobrara River, 54
North America, 17, 20, 24, 75
North Platte River, 2, 64
Number Ten, 99-100

O
Oglala tribe, 49, 52, 65
O’Harra, Dr. Cleophas, 123
Omaha (Neb.), 4, 49
Ordovician Period, 22
Oregon Trail, 51
Oregon-California Trail, 2
Owen Survey, 120

P
Paha Sapa (Indian name for Black Hills), 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 48
Paleozoic Era, 19
Passion Play, 72
Pearson, John, 71-72
Pierre (S.D.), 2, 6, 51
Pikes Peak, 58, 62
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, 40
Platte River, 50
Platte River-Oregon Trail, 49
Platte Valley, 60, 96
Portland-Independence Mine, 72
Powder River Valley, 65
Preacher Smith, 90-91, 104-5
Princeton University, 122
Prout, Prof. Hiram, 119-20

R
Rapid City (S.D.), 4, 6-7, 11, 13-14, 31, 46, 49
Rawlins (Wyo.), 109
Red Cloud (Indian Chief), 52-53
Reno, Major, 67-68
Reynolds, Charley, 57
Rhodes, Eugene Manlove, 18
Rio Grande Valley, 19
Robinson, Will, 108
Rocky Mountains, 1, 3, 15, 34, 37, 50, 62, 96, 116
Roosevelt, President Theodore, 37, 39
Rosebud Creek, 65
Ross, H. N., 55

S
St. Joseph (Mo.), 49, 96
St. Louis (Mo.), 49, 57
St. Paul (Minn.), 49
San Arc tribe, 49
San Francisco (Calif.), 74-75
Santa Fe Trail, 49
Santee Sioux, 50
School of Mines Canyon, 123
Seventh Cavalry, 110
Sheridan, General Phil, 56-57
Sidney (Neb.), 13, 61, 69, 75, 80
Sidney Short Route, 80
Silurian Period, 22
Silver Heels, 112
Sioux Indians, 7, 61, 63
Sioux War, 69
Sitting Bull (Indian Chief), 54, 64, 66-67
Smith, Rev. Henry. _See_ Preacher Smith
South Dakota, 2, 4, 13, 30, 36, 44, 93
Spearfish (S.D.), 6, 11, 13, 48
Spencer, Joseph, 34
Springfield (Mo.), 97
Standing Bear (Indian Chief), 40
Stanford, Leland, 78
Sunday Creek, 35
Sylvan Lake, 33-36, 39

T
_Ten Nights in a Barroom_, 103
Terry, General, 63-64
Teton Sioux, 2, 49
Texas Rangers, 79
Thoen, Louis, 48
Thunderhead Mountain, 40-41
_Trial of Jack McCall, The_, 103
Triassic Period, 24
Two Kettle tribe, 49

U
Union Pacific Railroad, 13, 49, 58, 80
University of Nebraska, 122
University of South Dakota, 122
Unkpapa tribe, 49
Ussher, Archbishop James, 17
Utah, 109

V
Vale of Minnekahta, 7
Virginia City (Nev.), 73

W
War Department, 59
Washington (D.C.), 58, 61, 93
Washington, President George, 37, 39, 91
Wells Fargo, 74, 83-84
Wheeler, Edward L., 91
White, George, 109
White River, 116
White River Badlands. _See_ Badlands
Wild Bill Hickok, 90, 94-97, 100-102, 107-8
Wind Cave, 23, 27-29, 42-44
Wind Cave Park, 41
Witwatersrand, 72
Wood Lake, battle of, 51
Wright, Frank Lloyd, 117
Wyoming, 4, 9, 32, 42, 86

Y
Yale University, 122
Yankton (S.D.), 102

Z
Ziolkowski, Korczak, 40-41, 103

$2.50

THE BLACK HILLS
MID-CONTINENT RESORT

From taboo Indian fastness to roaring gold camp to modern resort and recreation area—so runs the history of the Black Hills, Paha Sapa of the Indians, which are really not hills at all but mountains, the highest east of the Rockies. Back through geologic ages the story extends, to the thunderous time when Nature fashioned the intricate formations of the Hills and their companion geologic marvel, the Badlands.

Here, in racy and fluent prose, Albert N. Williams has brought the full sweep of this story to life, from its beginning in the mighty geologic upheaval that, before the Alps had been formed, thrust the giant spire of Harney Peak up through the ancient shale, to the present quiet rest of man-made Sylvan Lake, where it lies peacefully reflecting its great granite shields for the delight of the traveler.

On the way he tells of the discovery of gold in this “mysterious and brooding dark mountain-land” just when gold-hungry men had decided that the bonanza days were gone forever; of the Indian fighting that reached its tragic climax at the Little Big Horn; of the development of the Homestake, one of earth’s greatest mines; of the hazardous stage-coach journeys on which “shotgun messengers” guarded chests of bullion; and, most fascinating of all, of the amazing personalities—Sam Bass and Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane and Preacher Smith—who inhabited the Hills in their gaudiest days or, like Deadwood Dick, lived a no less vivid life in the pages of dime novels.

If this were all, _The Black Hills_ would be a book for any lover of our country’s natural glories and thrilling history to pick up and be unable to lay down again until he had finished it. But other chapters directed particularly to the tourist make it also a book for the traveler to keep always with him and to consult at every point in his journey through the Black Hills. All he needs to know is here—the highways to take into the Hills, the towns with their historic plays and celebrations, the peaks and lakes and caves he will find, the sports he may enjoy, the places where he may stay. A trip so guided cannot fail to be filled with the excitement the author himself has found in the Black Hills, of which he says that in his opinion “no other resort area in the United States possesses such a wealth of tourist attractions.”

Albert N. Williams was for many years a writer for NBC in New York, and for two years Editor-in-Chief of the English features section of the Voice of America. He is the author of _Listening_, _Rocky Mountain Country_, _The Water and the Power_, and numerous short fiction pieces in national magazines. He is at present Director of Development of the University of Denver.

Southern Methodist University Press
Dallas 5, Texas

Transcriber’s Notes

—Silently corrected a few typos.

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.