Carrying on westwards I left my home state of Minnesota and now entered South Dakota.
Welcome to South Dakota - note the wind turbines in the background.
A quick stop for a photo of the state welcome sign then on towards the small town (population 208) of Bruce. I should mention that at this point I called my Dad on my cellphone – his name is Bruce. I think he really appreciated the connection.
With darkness approaching I made a turn south heading to Arlington for an amazingly good BBQ burger at a restaurant called 1481 Grille (the name coming from its location at the intersection of US Highways 14 and 81 – not the year of its founding). One more hour of nighttime driving brought me to Huron. This was a fairly typical mid-western farming community of 12,000 (including a good selection of cheap roadside motels) but it is more famous for having the world's largest statue of a ring-necked pheasant.
This gamebird, originally from Russia and China was introduced into North America for hunting in 1857 (interestingly the same species was also introduced into New Zealand in 1851). Despite being fairly widespread across the mid-section of America it is found in very large numbers on the plains of South Dakota. Pheasant hunting is a $219 million per year industry for South Dakota.
After an adequate nights rest including a free breakfast it was onwards following US Highway 14 through remarkably flat farmland – mostly cattle farming but also a little wheat. Roadside signs told me I was on the Black and Yellow Trail although I had to look on the Internet to find that is an old promotional name for US 14 as it links the Black Hills of South Dakota to Yellowstone National Park. Shortly after the town of Blunt I crossed the 100th meridian west.
Another half hour and I was downtown in Pierre, the capital of South Dakota. With a population of just 13,876 it is the second least populous state capital after Montpelier, Vermont. I found a car park right outside the state capital.
In 1861, the Dakota Territory was established by the United States government (this initially included North Dakota, South Dakota, and parts of Montana and Wyoming). The Dakota Territory consisted of the northernmost part of the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase from France. Settlement of the Dakota Territory, mostly by people from the eastern United States as well as western and northern Europe increased steadily, especially after the completion of an eastern railway link to Yankton in 1873 and the discovery of gold in the Black Hills in 1874. An increasing population caused the Dakota Territory to be divided in half and U.S. President Benjamin Harrison signed proclamations formally admitting both South Dakota and North Dakota to the union on November 2, 1889 making them the39th and 40th States. Harrison had the papers shuffled to obscure which one was signed first and the actual order went unrecorded.
During the Territorial period, the towns of Bismarck, Huron, Yankton, and Pierre all served terms as the capital city. When South Dakota became an independent state it was decided that it was also time to establish a permanent capital city. Many towns campaigned for this position, very much like a political campaign. The central location is what helped Pierre win the campaign but the City went into debt for 30 years because of the amount of money they spent on their campaign to become the capital city.
I wandered inside this magnificent building and found the information desk who provided me with a wonderfully informative brochure for a self-guided tour. The highlights of which are copied below.
The building was constructed between 1905 and 1910. The plans for the building were done by the Minneapolis architectural office of C.E. Bell and M.S. Detwiler, who based the design on the Montana State Capitol in Helena, Montana. The impressive front stairs brought me to the second floor entrance with a marble staircase opening onto a rotunda.
The dome of the rotunda is 96 feet high.
The floor in the capitol building is made of terrazzo tile. The floor is said to have been laid by 66 Italian artists. To give these artists a chance to place their signatures in the building (without allowing them to actually sign their names to the floor), each is said to have been given a blue stone to place in the floor. Only 55 of these tiles have been found, however. It is thought that the remaining stones may have been placed in locations now covered by walls, doors, or carpeting.
One of the legendary blue tiles.
The third floor houses the state's House of Representatives and the state's Senate. I was amazed to learn that by state constitution members of both the House and Senate work only 40 days per year (and this was only recently increased from 35 days per year).
South Dakota House of Representatives.
After a quick lunch it was across the mighty Missouri River (the longest river in the US), across a timezone into Mountain Time (winding my watch back an hour), and across increasingly desolate, dry, and very marginal looking farmland following US 14. After 60 miles I arrived into a little town called Midland. An old rusty sign at the edge of town had a most curious message.
I detoured into the town and on the main street found The Stroppel Inn and Hot Mineral Baths. The third-generation, family-owned inn has been offering hot baths, sweats, and massages since 1939. I stopped and for the incredible low price of $3.25 had a wonderful soak. The old hotel has two thermal baths, each about the size of a hot tub, but not as modern. In fact, they looked kind of gross with a strong sulfur smell that comes with geothermal water. But, it was so relaxing, so intriguing, and so unexpected. After almost wilting and having had all I could handle I enjoyed a fascinating chat with the owner on my way out. He provided a little more history.
Way better than it looks.
The first hot water wells in Midland were dug by the railroad back in about 1906, when the Chicago North Western originally went through the area. The railroad were seeking a source of water for the steam trains an quite unexpectedly the wells they sunk produced hot water – and this became the only source of water available for use in the steam engines. The first geothermal use in Midland was the establishment of the geothermal mineral baths in the old Bastian Hotel in 1939 by John and Violet Stoppel. They re-named the hotel the Stoppel Inn. The well they drilled was down 1,784 feet (544m) producing 33 gallons per minute (2 liters per second) of 116oF (47oC) water that continues today. An outside tank and cooling tower is used to cool the water for the baths. The hotel is also heated by geothermal heat from the well during the winter months.
The Stroppel Inn and Hot Mineral Baths in Midland, SD.
Onwards and westwards, feeling like I was increasingly in the Wild West as tumble weeds blew across the highway. Follow this link to learn that tumble weeds, that most iconic image of the old west, are in fact an introduced species originally from central Asia – who knew?Also looking like a western movie set was the town of Cottonwood. The population is listed as 6 – but this seems a little high. I explored around the deserted buildings until I found an old guy mowing his lawn/tumbleweeds. I asked him the history of the place. He told me when he was born in the place some 72 years ago it had a population of 1,700. It held a massive stockyards and railway loading facilities for cattle. They were ranched across the northern plains and were driven here by cowboys for loading on the train for the journey to the killing plants in Minneapolis and Chicago. All that is but a memory now and I am guessing it won't be long before there are only the remains of concrete foundations (and perhaps tumbleweeds).
Cottonwood - founded in 1907. Population was 1,700 now 6.
I now headed south to one of the newest units in the National Park system. The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site was established in 1999 to illustrate the history and significance of the Cold War, the arms race, and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) development. The National Historic Site preserves one of the last remaining Minuteman II ICBM systems in the United States.
The US once had over 30,000 nuclear warheads (the actual bomb) and as recently as 1992 over 10,000 were deployed on missiles, bombers, and submarines. After the recent Obama Administration decision to further cut the nuclear stockpile this number now stands closer to 5,000 with 450 attached to ICBMs. This national historic site consists of three facilities in three separate locations: a small visitors center, a launch control center, and a missile silo.
The National Park site represent the only remaining intact components of a nuclear missile field that once consisted of 150 Minuteman II missiles, 15 launch control centers, and covered over 13,500 square miles (35,000 km2).
To construct and deploy all 150 silos and 15 adjacent support structures for South Dakota's Minuteman Missile field cost $56 million in the early 1960s ($9.2 billion in 2005 terms). It was operated by the 44th Strategic Missile Wing, headquartered at Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, South Dakota. (Note: 450 of the newer Minuteman III missiles are still on active duty in other parts of the Great Plains – but more on that on a subsequent blog posting). I saw the fairly basic but interesting display at the visitor's center. Then watched a 10 minute film (and discovered later that it is available on the Internet by clicking here).
I drove four miles to the launch control facility, known as Delta One (D-01). It occupies approximately six acres just 1.7 miles north of an Interstate (think of the millions of people driving past each year who probably did not know what was lying so close). The launch control facility consists of an above-ground building containing a kitchen, sleeping quarters, offices and life support equipment. Below this building is the actual launch control center, buried 31 feet (9.4m) deep, connected to the building by an elevator. Guided tours are conducted underground but are limited to six people at a time due to the very small underground launch control center ("capsule"). I was not able to join a tour (they were booked for the day). As I discovered, self-guided tours are not possible here; the gate for the fence around D-01 is always locked, just like it was when it was an active launch control facility.
Launch control facility Delta One (D-01).
Look at the last line on the sign!
I drove another ten miles to the actual launch facility (or missile silo) known as Delta nine (D-09). Luckily I meet a ranger as soon as I arrived and joined his tour so I was able to find out a lot more about this site.
The missile silo occupies a 1.6 acre site, located even closer to Interstate 90 being just half a mile from the procession of trucks and cars thundering across the South Dakota plains. The complex is dominated by an underground launch tube ("missile silo") built in 1963. Essentially an 80 foot (24 meter) by 12 foot (3.7 meter) hole in the ground although made of reinforced concrete with a steel-plate liner. Today an unarmed missile sits inside.
The only distinguishing above-ground features are the concrete and steel Launcher Closure (silo lid) and the white security sensor mast. The 110-ton cover of the silo has been rolled partly away and welded to the rails it rides on. In its place, the launch tube was covered with a glass viewing enclosure. Not only did this allow me (and other visitors) to look down on the missile, it means satellites are able to verify that the site is not operational, and hence in compliance with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The ranger said every two years high ranking officers from the Russian military visit the site to also confirm that it is indeed inactive. The Park Service had a great self-guided tour that is accessed by calling a number with your cell phone and walking around the site, listening to the description of various points over the phone.
A view of the silo from above.
This missile (and the 149 just like it in this sprawling missile complex, which was only one of several massive missile fields located in the central United States) remained on alert for nearly 30 years. At the initiation of an order from the President of the United States the launch cycle time was less than 4 minutes to "missile away". The missile at D-09 was controlled by two Air Force missileers sitting in their underground launch control center.
Photo of the blast door from the launch control facility.
The Great Plains were selected as ideal places for nuclear missiles as they were far away from the ocean and Soviet submarine launched missile attacks. Further, by flying directly north up an over the pole the journey from D-09 in South Dakota to Moscow was just 5,170 miles. The missile could make that distance in less than 30 minutes. Each missile carried a payload of nuclear warheads equal to 60% of all the bombs dropped during World War Two.
The site was de-activated following the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) by President George Bush (Senior) and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. Under the terms of the treaty, the missiles were removed from their silos, and in 1994 the 44th Missile Wing was officially deactivated. The last site was destroyed in 1996, leaving this single launch facility and launch control center to be preserved as Cold War historic sites. All I can say is "Thank God these were never used". Everything about this place is frightening but I feel it is important that it be protected and interpreted so that we, and future generations, will forever say "Never again". I now feel even more strongly that any and all efforts to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons on this planet must be taken.
It was now just a few miles and I was entering into Badlands National Park. As the website so poetically describes; this large (244,000 acre) national park contains sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires blended with colorful soil and fossil beds intermixed by the largest protected mixed grass prairie in the United States.
Badlands.
This was my third visit to this national park. The drive through the heart of the park is incredibly spectacular.
My drive through the Badlands this time was made a little more spectacular with the arrival of a thunderstorm. I should mention that this part of the US is (in)famous for spring thunderstorms that often produce tornadoes. Earlier in the afternoon I had stopped to get gas after my hotpools soak in Midland and was told that a little town called Faith nearby had been hit by tornado (click here to see pictures of the tornado in Faith taken that same day by a storm chaser).
All afternoon I was listening to local radio and keeping a close eye on the skies (here is why). Seemingly out of nowhere the sky turned very gray and dark. Then it began to blow – so strongly I thought the van was about to be turned over. It began to rain, and within seconds it was pouring harder than I have ever seen, then it quickly turned to large hail. I pulled over to the side of the road as I could no longer see out the front window. Luckily I pulled over at a spot in the road where I was somewhat protected by clay spire. Leaves, tumbleweeds, and branches about as thick as my wrist began to blow all around the van. The wind began to violently rock the van and I lay across the passenger's seat as I was increasingly worried about the side window being blown in or the vehicle being tipped on its side from the force of the wind. For about three minutes I was pretty scared. Then the hail stopped, the wind eased, and I drove on cautiously for a few miles to seek shelter in the visitor's center. I was told by the rangers there that it wasn't a tornado but rather straight-line winds (also known as thundergusts and hurricanes of the prairie). Apparently these very strong winds that usually produce damage are just like a tornado although they lack the rotational damage pattern. It is about as close as I ever want to get to a tornado.
Storm getting real close.
Storm too close!
Still feeling a little rattled I carried on to a part of the country I love – but one that always breaks my heart. I soon entered onto the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This reservation for the Oglala Sioux tribe is large (3,469 square miles) making it the 8th largest reservation in the US, larger than the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. The reservation is home to almost 30,000 people. If you harbor romantic ideas about life on an Indian reservation then this place will smash it. I strongly encourage you to read this article (a little dated from 2003) but well worth the time.
This is amongst the very poorest places in the United States (in fact, Shannon County South Dakota which completely falls within the boundary of the reservation is currently the second poorest county in the US – another nearby county on the Rosebud Reservation is the poorest). As the newspaper article I linked reported (although I've updated a some of the statistics from various Bureau of Indian Affairs and other government websites) : Decrepit trailer homes, whose windows have all been broken, leaving jagged glass jutting out of the frames and curtains flapping in the wind, often turn out to be lived in. The ubiquitous junk cars -- no home here seems to be complete without one sitting in front of it -- sometimes serve as dwellings, too. Packs of scruffy, collarless "rez dogs" run at large. Many houses, most of them trailers or government-provided manufactured houses, has a wheelchair ramp. It's usually a sign that someone has lost a limb to diabetes, which affects half of all adults over 40 here, due to the poor dietary habits that accompany poverty. While the rest of America frets over a recession that has driven unemployment rates from 4 percent up close to 10 percent, Pine Ridge's unemployment rate is estimated to be 83 percent -- and it's been that way for as long as anyone can remember. The closest the rest of the country has ever gotten was 25 percent unemployment, during the Great Depression. With the poverty comes staggering rates of homelessness, alcoholism, disease, drug abuse, murders, suicide, infant mortality, teen-age pregnancy and school dropouts. Average life expectancy here is lower than in Bangladesh -- 48 for men and 52 for women.
I have never understood the attitude of many American's to the first peoples of this country. But my point here is not to induce feelings of anger or justification for past and present wrongs, nor am I suggesting feelings of guilt or shame, but rather to encourage a greater understanding of history. To this regard, I recently read and highly recommend On the Rez by Ian Frazier. I am now reading, thoroughly enjoying, and also highly recommend Neither Wolf nor Dog by Kent Nerburn.
On the rez
I traveled through the heart of the reservation under storm clearing skies with night approaching. Through beautiful spectacular countryside and hillside collections of rundown houses at the reservation towns of Potato Creek, Kyle, Sharps Corner, and Porcupine before arriving at Wounded Knee. This to me is the saddest place I've ever been to in America. While Civil War Battlefields, Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, President John F. Kennedy's grave in Arlington, Ground Zero in New York City, Manzanar National Historic Site (a confinement camp in California's desert for more than 11,000 US citizens of Japanese ancestry during WWII) have all left a lasting impression there is a profound feeling or spirit I feel here, especially on the hilltop mass grave. Here is a brief account of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre and 1973 Wounded Knee Incident.
Memorial to the victims of the Wounded Knee Massacre.
I headed into Pine Ridge – the largest town on the Reservation and found a place for a sandwich. I filled up with gas, headed north to Oglala then south on a long, twisty, and at times very rough dirt road following the White River to cross the border into Nebraska. I arrived tired, just after 10pm, into Chadron having covered 700 miles today. I found a very nice clean and cheap motel room on the main street and promptly fell asleep.
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