This line had also begun operations in 1875 but had been forced to suspend its activities because of the government restrictions. Up to February, 1877, N. L. Witcher, who, with his sons, composed the firm, had completed fourteen trips to the Black Hills. Because he used oxen exclusively to pull his wagons and because of his speed in transporting freight, he was familiarly known in the Hills as "the lightning bull freighter". Witcher hauled his freight and supplies to the Black Hills by way of Yankton and Fort Pierre.58

Tom Philips was another Sioux City individual who engaged to some extent in transportation between that city and the Black Hills. On April 14, 1876, he arrived at Custer City, in the Black Hills, with a party of one hundred and sixty-four men." No definite record of the extent of his activities is available. But he was still engaged in the transportation business in 1877, as the following statement in the Sioux City Journal shows:

Persons bound for the Hills are arriving in Sioux City by nearly every train from the east, and already quite a company have assembled here. Tom Philips was engaged yesterday in putting his light train in moving order, though he will probably not get away before Monday next.60

Sioux City capitalists were also interested in a project to build a railroad from Sioux City to the Black Hills, by way of the Niobrara Valley of Nebraska. Their idea was not only to secure the trade of the Black Hills for Sioux City but incidentally to tap a rich farming territory. The company, which was known as the Covington, Columbus and Black Hills Railroad, was running trains between

58 Sioux City Weekly Journal, June 15, 1876, February 1, 1877; Sioux City Tribune (Weekly), January 26, 1877; Tallent's The Black Hills, p. 190. 59 Sioux City Weekly Journal, April 27, 1876.

60 Sioux City Weekly Journal, February 22, 1877.

Covington and Ponca, Nebraska, by the fall of 1876. Passengers were ferried across the Missouri River to and from Sioux City. Among the citizens of Sioux City prominently interested in this railroad were A. W. Hubbard, Eli Robinson, Wm. Adams, and D. E. Davenport. The company had constructed only twenty-six miles of railroad by 1880 when further construction was suspended." It was not until 1885 that the Black Hills were reached by a railroad. By the end of that year the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad reached Buffalo Gap, and the next year was extended to Rapid City. The building of this railroad, however, was not a Sioux City enterprise.

The peak of the Black Hills gold rush was reached in the spring of 1877. Commenting on the large numbers who were going to the Hills, the Sioux City Tribune said:

The number of Black Hills teams passing through at this early date, is remarkable. Covered wagons are going through town at every hour of the day. The number of men to a wagon will average about three. Besides these, a greater number are going up on boats and by rail to Yankton, who will depend on securing transportation at Fort Pierre. With the present rush to that region there is little danger of trouble with Indians. There will be an army of men extending from the Missouri river to the Hills, for the next four months.63

But this great rush did not continue as long as the Tribune predicted, and soon the influx of gold seekers to the Black Hills practically ceased. All the available claims

01 Sioux City Weekly Times, January 1, 1876; Sioux City Tribune (Weekly), November 10, 1876, June 15, 1877; Shuman's Statistical Report of the Railroads in the United States, pp. 370, 371, 412, in the Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, Vol. IV.

62 Resources of Dakota (Published by the Dakota Commissioner of Immigration, 1887), pp. 9, 12, 244.

83 Sioux City Tribune (Weekly), April 13, 1877.

had been taken by this time, and nothing was left for newcomers. Writing from the Hills under date of June 4, 1877, W. H. Wright, a special correspondent of the Sioux City Journal said, "Immigration has about ceased into the Hills. Those coming in with freight trains say there are none on the road." Thereafter Sioux City had little direct interest in the Black Hills except to furnish supplies for those who were already in that region.

As has been true in the history of every gold field, the fortunes of the Black Hills gold seekers varied greatly. Some quickly gained the dreamed of wealth, but many more returned from the Hills poorer than when they went, disappointed and embittered by their experiences. The Northern Vindicator spoke truthfully when it said, in 1876, that "undoubtedly the first ones in the diggings will go away rich but the majority of those who go had better stay at home and mind their knitting.''65

As a rule the Sioux City papers published only stories telling of rich gold discoveries, with the purpose of promoting migration to the Hills. Among the successful miners from Sioux City was Thomas E. Phillips who returned to that city after five months in the region. He had "struck it rich" in the Deadwood district, and had a pound and a half of "shot gold" to exhibit as evidence of his good fortune. His story was typical of many that appeared in the Sioux City papers.

66

But on one occasion a story of quite a different character was published in the Tribune, with the following comment: "In these days when every report reaching us from the Black Hills is freighted with glowing reports of

64 Sioux City Weekly Journal, June 21, 1877.

65 Northern Vindicator (Weekly, Estherville), February 5, 1876.

66 Sioux City Tribune (Weekly), August 4, 1876.

the richness of the country and the opportunities for money making, it is refreshing to hear the wail of a thoroughly homesick man, who went out with a gunny sack expecting to fill it with the precious metal and get back home a millionaire in a month." It then published a letter written from Custer City, January 20, 1876, by a Denver man to a friend which read as follows:

This is the devil's own country. If you have a grain of charity in your soul, send me $25. Don't say you haven't it. If you can't get it otherwise, go to church and steal it out of the contribution-box, and then you wouldn't have half the sin on your soul that you will should you leave me here. Bad luck to this country.67

These stories show that there were two sides to the Black Hills gold rush. It was only natural in view of the great influx of gold seekers, many of whom had no experience in mining or in facing the hardships of out-door life, that comparatively few should gain wealth while the greater part should fail. Those who failed, on their return from the Hills, sought to create the impression that the whole excitement was a hoax and a humbug. They were not justified in this, for statistics show that a considerable amount of gold was being produced in the Hills at the time the gold fever was at its height. In 1877, it was estimated that the gold secured from quartz amounted to $1,500,000 and that from placers $1,000,000.

THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

IOWA CITY IOWA

68

ERIK MCKINLEY ERIKSSON

67 Sioux City Tribune (Weekly), March 24, 1876.

68 Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia, 1877, pp. 245, 246.

A TYPICAL IOWA PIONEER COMMUNITY1

I

We have come together on the scene where two generations of men have worked, struggled, and won, to pay tribute to them, to render, in some small measure, due homage. Although this period is short, it is an epitome of that history which mankind has been writing for untold thousands of years. It marks the presence of settled industry, intellectual and religious effort, and coöperation in maintaining civilization and the agencies which make it and men what they are.

But we do more than recall the men and the work of the past. We look confidently to the welfare, happiness, and progress, in both the present and the future, of those now here and those who are to succeed our forebears and ourselves upon these scenes.

The dedication, to public purposes, of a liberal portion of the rich soil of this township and county is, after all, only the continuance and extension of the policy inaugurated here from that day in 1843 when the first sturdy, high-spirited Vermont settler made his way far into the region and used his strength and enterprise to collect and furnish the materials for the rude building at the confluence of two rivers to be known as Fort Des Moines, on a spot destined soon to become the capital and later, the metropolis of a great State.

1 An address delivered at the dedication of the Public Park at Carlisle, Warren County, Iowa, May 13, 1922, by George F. Parker.