Chapter XVII: Hot Springs

We arrive in Hot Springs late in the afternoon and look for a cabin for the night. All of them are filled up, so we look for a camp site. Evans Heights is too steep for our heavily loaded car, and we drive down to the Municipal Camp. After pitching camp we attempt to find out what there is in Hot Springs to see. We find that there is much and accordingly lay our plans for a big day.

After breakfast the first thing we do is to cross the railroad track on foot looking for petrified moss and wood. From the stream bed we get several particularly fine specimens of the moss. These we cache while we go into a pasture up the slope across S. D. 79 looking for petrified wood. Our search is soon rewarded. We find many fine specimens and return to camp well loaded with stone. The phenomenon of the mineral water turning vegetation into stone is a peculiar one.

We next take the twelve mile road down past the camp toward Cascade Springs. Ten miles from Hot Springs we come upon what at one time promised to be a fine modern city. Modern buildings were built, including brick business buildings with glass fronts. The hope was that “Cascade” was to be the center of medical baths instead of Hot Springs. At the head of the would-be town is a great warm spring, or we might say a geyser boiling out of a large hole in the ground. The water is highly medicated. Other similar springs are in close proximity.

We take the road on through the town and two miles farther on. We pass through a gate to the right and almost at once hear the rumble of Cascade Falls just below us. We drive over to the brink of the hill, dismount, and descend. A beautiful waterfall is before us. The water falls only about eight or ten feet, but it is impressive in its speed and volume. Vegetation of various kinds, petrified by the minerals in the water or just in the process of petrification fills the channel above. Moss, waving to and fro in the water is like sand when we feel of it. It has a cool clammy mineral feeling rather than the soft sensation we had expected to find in moss. The bank high up, is lined with petrified moss of a coarse texture.

The whirl-pools just below the falls are deep enough for swimming but a few feet farther down the stream is just right for wading. This warm mineral water lives up to its reputation derived through long years as Indian medicine. One just seems to feel that this is something that tones him up ever so much. It reminds one of Ponce De Leon and his Fountain of Youth. Many people are out here today.

We decide that no prettier or more inspiring place can be found for our lunch, so we eat in the valley beside the falls. After lunch we inspect the aqueduct, for irrigation, I believe, that crosses just above the falls.

But we must be on our way. Some of us who are not accustomed to it wonder at the composition of the red soil in the Hills region. We see crops, good crops, growing on brick red soil. We can hardly credit our senses, but it must be true.

Back at camp we climb Catholican Hill, just above and to the south of us. From there we get an excellent view of Fall River, Cheyenne River, Harney Peak, The Soldiers Home, The Country Club, the city, and surrounding country.

We drive on into Hot Springs. This is one of the larger cities of the Hills. It is one of the most beautiful, as well. Probably the medicated springs and the hospital service are the things for which the city is best known. Many sick people come here to be cured.

The great Evans Plunge is a large indoor swimming pool. Into it the water at 90 degrees Fahr. pours in great volume. The mineral content makes it pleasant feeling and restful. Hundreds of people swim here daily in the busy season. This is a real swim.

Next we visit Minnekahta Plunge, the old original Indian spring. We are told that each gallon of its water contains approximately 62.55 grains residue consisting of Sodium Sulphate 16.07, Mica 2.46, Potassium Sulphate 16.51, Magnesium Sulphate 4.32, Calcium Sulphate 16.33, Sodium Chloride 13.79. Iron Sesqui oxide Trace.

The temperature is 96 degrees Fahr. This plunge is used as a medical plunge, largely, with tub service as well as the swimming pool. There is a hotel in connection with the baths.

We spend another night in Hot Springs and leave early the next morning for Wind Cave over S. D. 85. We arrive just in time for the first trip through, register, pay our fee, and start.

Wind Cave is a series of passages under ground formed by the erosive action of water. Not all of the passages have been explored, but three main routes are well marked. Above the ground there is no indication of a cave, nothing but a low broad hill. There is a souvenir shop and refreshment place above the entrance, and government buildings across the road. The cave is a part of the Wind Cave National Park, owned and operated by the United States Government.

Tradition tells us that the place was discovered by a cow-boy who was riding by when a strong current of air carried his hat down through a crevice in the earth. We wonder if he ever recovered his hat? Why is it these stories leave out the one question our curiosity prompts us to ask. Possibly his hat, though, was not as important as the discovery of the cave. They are still looking for the other end of that current of air.

Now we are ready to descend. We might profit by putting on clothes that will not be harmed when soiled, tho this is not necessary.

To the right of the entrance is a stone carving of Alvin McDonald, the first guide through the cave. As we enter, with gasoline lanterns, we feel a strong downward draft. This disappears as we proceed. We go down two long flights of stairs to start with. Down, down, down, we go, emerging in the Bridal Chamber, 212 feet below the surface.

Our guide tells us quite confidentially that a certain young lady wished to marry the young man of her choice, but she had promised her mother that she would not marry anyone on the face of the earth. To keep her word and still satisfy her love she was married down here below the face of the earth. When the Government took over the cave, however, they forbade the continuance of this, for it was running matrimony into the ground.

Farther on we see petrified prairie dogs, on a petrified mound. We hope our guide is strictly truthful, tho he tells us that even he cannot vouch for the accuracy of all he tells us. Then comes the Milky Way with petrified stars in a petrified sky, and after this the Snowball Chamber. The Post Office 240 feet down is filled with box work crystals in a sort of cobweb pattern, each box having some depth. We are shown the foreign department and the great Sears Roebuck mail chute. These formations are beautiful and remarkable formations of water, heat, minerals, and natural phenomena.

Room number 23 is Nellie’s room and the Beauty Parlor follows it. Rouge, here is free. The petrified zoo confronts us; very interesting indeed if our imaginations are up to par. The Bleeding Rock is colored with iron oxide giving it a blood color, and sure enough the Liberty Bell is cracked. In the rookery is a petrified bird on a petrified nest (believe it if you can.)

Again, quite confidentially the guide tells us that one guide went over lovers leap the day before and six old maids followed. After the petrified whirlwind, imagine it, we see a map of South America, and then enter Opera Hall. From it we pass to Grant’s tomb on the Hudson and be hanged if there isn’t an Alligator going up to see it.

The Devil’s Lookout is 80 feet high, with his Dinner Gong close by. The Furnace Room, Hen and Chickens, Hanging Bridge and Bridal Veil Falls are very realistic. Sure enough, there sits a water spaniel dog begging for—daylight. Now we see some Swiss scenery, a mountain goat, cheese, bread and beer. Only the beer is not there, it was drunk by the last party through.

We next come to the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is the custom to bow as you enter the low door and also bow going out. We are especially requested not to spit on the altar. Bishop Fowler’s Cathedral is 190 feet across.

We can just see the appetizing popcorn in Popcorn Alley, and then we pass on to the Hanging Rock. We carefully avoid going beneath it. Three hundred feet down and half a mile in we come to Odd Fellow’s Hall. There is the all-seeing eye and the three links—Friendship, Love, and Truth, with the third slightly stretched. There also is the road to Jericho and the Goat.

We pass Samson’s Palace, The Queen’s Drawing Room, Capitol Hall, and Turtle Pass. Here the trail divides, the short route going to the Garden of Eden, the medium route to the Fair Grounds, and the long route to the Pearly Gates. We take the medium.

In order we pass Scalping Grounds, Masonic Temple, Elks Room, with an elk head within and an American Eagle alighting on a rock, then the Grand Canyon with its great clefts hundreds of feet underground.

Monte Cristo Palace is 390 feet down. Old Maid’s Glasses follows and Dog Tooth, made of five points spar crystals. McKinley’s memorial is next, and then Assembly Hall. Here, again is much artistic boxwork formation. Next is A. O. U. W. Hall. In it is a stone book which, our guide tells us, is the only Natural History of Wind Cave. From here we go to the Giant’s Punch Bowl and on to Johnston’s Camp Grounds.

In the Bachelor’s apartments everything is upside down and all dusty. In his cupboard is a loaf of bread with a mouse gnawing at it. This leads us at last to the ticket office to the Fair Grounds. The Fair Grounds is a beautiful large room with a white ceiling, the whole covering about three acres. The first attraction is the South Dakota Teacher’s School Room with its calcite crystal wall. The Elephant’s Foot has fallen through the ceiling farther on. Then come S. D. Federation of Women’s Clubs Room, Ice Gorge, and The Northwestern Hotel Men’s assembly chamber. In the Farm Yard are a guinea hen, a little red rooster, a polar bear, the little red hen drinking, a guinea pig, a rabbit and a hen fighting, and a donkey. Last comes the jaw bone of a monster.

In the Meat Market hangs a ham, a goose, and some beef. Over high steps and under a low ceiling we pass into the Coliseum. The seats are of white rock. In Rambler’s Hall is a knife through the ceiling. Next are the Catacombs. Here we go down a rocky precipitous descent. Last comes the Elk’s Room, and then the return to the entrance. Everything we have seen is made of rock and our imagination.

This has been an eventful trip.

We drive on north over 85 and 81 to the South Dakota State Game Preserve. Here we see elk, deer, and buffalo. On the way we find some specimens of rose quartz. At the Game Lodge we stop to see the zoo. In it are deer, mountain sheep, coyotes, foxes, bears, eagles, owls, badgers, raccoons, porcupines, bobcats, prairie dogs, spotted rabbits, and elk, all alive. These are particularly interesting to lovers of animals.

The Game Lodge Hotel, which is the structure used by President Coolidge as the Summer White House of 1927, is a large well furnished affair, not altogether unsuited to the purpose for which it was used. Now, in the reception room on opposite sides of the comfortable fireplace are large oil paintings of President Coolidge and Grace Coolidge. Here this first lady of the land and her distinguished husband will, in the spirit of the paintings, receive guests in behalf of the nation and the State of South Dakota for years to come. Elk and deer heads also adorn the walls, while huge fur rugs cover the floor. Great leather rocking chairs and davenports add to the comforts of the room.

So popular is the Game Lodge as a summer resort hotel that any one wishing to secure a room here must do so several days or weeks in advance. During the various hunting and fishing seasons of the year this place is frequented by hunters from many other states of the Union as well as South Dakota.

Special hunting licenses may be procured providing lodging here during the hunt.

We, at last, must tear away our mooring to the Hills and head for home. We still have a few things to see, but we have the feeling that it is all over, and the total addition to our beings has been tremendous, too great for measurement, and as time rolls by it grows still greater.

We miss one of the interesting spots of the Hills, Buffalo Gap. In Calico Canyon three miles west of town are located the most beautiful colored sandstone in the Hills and a great natural bridge of rock.

At Hermosa is a neat little tourist park, but we cannot partake of it. In Hermosa also we see the church which won so much publicity during President Coolidge’s stay. Its picture does it justice. Hermosa Crystal Cave is ten miles west of Hermosa. At last, we speed back to Rapid City. Hidden City is on the way. This is the probable vestiges of what was once an ancient building or buildings. We spend another night in that inviting municipal park; and reluctantly with many a backward look, we head for home. Long after we leave the Hills we can look back and see those hazy black peaks rearing their majestic tops to the clouds. We can’t help recalling Morse’s old phrase, “What hath God wrought.” He indeed develops wonders here on earth at his almighty command.

We have been pretty much concerned about the sights, now we look around and see what our car looks like. The food is gone. The containers now house quartz, mica, granite, tourmaline, lithia, copper, gold ore, pictures, pine cones, and various other souvenirs. The car glides swiftly over the excellent roads, but nevertheless we feel it is heavily loaded. We weigh the car, and consternation; it weighs 4,285 pounds, or 1500 pounds more than it does empty. We may as well look at the speedometer too. It was 12,114 and now it is 13,584. We have gone 1470 miles. 250 of these might be subtracted as our trip inland from Pierre.

We have had our vacation, and now we go home to ponder. It has been a glorious trip.