September 10 Unusual Black Hills Attractions

Hello Everyone,

Many vacationers head for the Black Hills to see such famous attractions as Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial. We discovered four lesser known sites that are unique to the area. Since three are seasonal, you’ll need to see them now or wait until after Memorial Day.

For a wonderful chuckwagon dinner and show as well as the area’s number one tour company, head for Fort Hays. Chapel in the Hills is a replica of a Norwegian stave church constructed in 1100 A.D. Both are close to Rapid City. You can view two segments of the former Berlin Wall at that city’s Memorial Park and learn about South Dakota railroad history in Hill City.

FORT HAYS

Chuckwagon dinners and shows are popular in the Black Hills. Our favorite is the Fort Hays Chuckwagon Supper and Show open from mid May to mid October. It offers a reasonable price, delicious food, and a very entertaining show.

Fort Hays also has some unusual features. Those familiar with the Oscar award winning movie Dances with Wolves find original buildings from the film set. Craftsmen at the Fort’s Old West Town Square create such items as tin plates, rope, knives, and signs from wood shingles from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 to 6:15 p.m. Visitors can also explore a gift shop and a boutique with both featuring local artists, pan for gems, and view a South Dakota movie.

You can eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Fort Hays. For breakfast, from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., purchase the 99c all you can eat pancakes. Side orders are extra with your choice of biscuits and gravy, sausage, cereal, juice, and other beverages. Lunch, starting at $4.99, occurs from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

They ring the supper bell nightly at 6:30. However, it’s best to come early to tour the movie set and the craft workshops so plan on arriving about 5:00 p.m. The dinner includes your choice of BBQ beef or chicken, chuckwagon potatoes, baked beans, a biscuit, chunky applesauce, and old-fashioned spice cake, all served on tin plates. For a beverage, you have your choice of coffee or lemonade served in tin cups. You go through a line, which flows rapidly, as employees dish out your food. In their coffee/ice cream shop, they sell coffee, sarsparilla, ice cream cones, sundaes, and floats. It is open from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m., 5:30 to 6:15 p.m., and 6:45 to 7:15 p.m.

The Fort Hays Wranglers, a group of nine musicians, five of whom perform on any given night, play everything from cowboy music to country, rock, and patriotic on a variety of instruments. We saw three guitarists, a fiddler, and a drummer. Their show runs from 7:15 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. Two of the guitarists imitate Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Elvis is in the house. I didn’t see any comedians, on the night we were there, though band members tell the typical corny jokes.

The show started with Rocky Top and Play Me Some Mountain Music. After their imitations of Nelson and Cash, the band played I’ve Been Everywhere Man. Liz Knowles, their fiddler for that night, was superb. Her version of Orange Blossom Special was spectacular. I’ve never heard it played so fast before. After the leader talked about the Sons of the Pioneers, the band performed several of their numbers such as Tumbling Tumbleweed and Ghost Riders in the Sky. They shifted to rock and popular music with such numbers as Sweet Caroline, These Boots are Made for Walking, Hey Jude, and My Girl.

A highlight was when one of the guitarists, Stringbean Svenson, switched to the fiddle and had a duet with Liz playing The Devil Went Down to Georgia. Smoke rose from the floor as they performed. The finale recognized veterans and first responders as the unfurling of an American flag accompanied Lee Greenwood’s famous song, I’m Proud to be an American, and America.

Released November 21, 1990, Dances With Wolves, starring Kevin Costner, won the Oscar for the best picture and six additional Academy Awards. Visitors can stand where John J. Dunbar (Costner’s character) was given his new orders to Fort Sedgewick. That same building is where you purchase tickets for the chuckwagon dinner.

In the rope shop, we watched Jesse Weets make rope from hemp. He explained the entire process. It is quite a procedure knowing just how many strands to use and how tight to spin the rope. We learned cowboys made their own out of horsehair, cowhide, and leather.

Fort Hays has panning for gems and minerals which youngsters really enjoy. It’s run by Steve Ferley and Keith Schulte. Ferley was assisted by his grandson, Dakota, the night we were there. Gem bags containing 12 to 20 pieces sell for five dollars.

Rory Foresman refers to his store as a Car Guys Man Cave. He carries hats to die-cast models. Look for the old car out front to locate his place.

You can tour Old West Town Square and the movie set for free. Dinner and show are adults $34, seniors $32, children (ages 5-12) $17, and ages four and under, free.

MOUNT RUSHMORE TOURS

We enjoyed meeting Herman Jones. Until I read an article he later gave me about himself, I thought his job was creating wood shingles with people’s names on them. He made one for us. He turned out to be the owner of Fort Hays and Mount Rushmore Tours.

The story starts when Herman’s great-great-grandfather homesteaded near Caputa, east of Rapid City. It was on this land, now owned by his cousin, Joanne Sanders Olson, and her family that Dances with Wolves was filmed. When filming wrapped up, the set pieces were left behind. Costner advised the Olson family to tear down the set and find a use for anything they could. According to the article Herman gave me by Laura Tonkyn, the next year the governor called and said, “It looks like the movie is going to win some Academy Awards. Don’t tear down those buildings.”

Herman’s cousins started hosting busloads of visitors who wanted to see the set. One day, in 1993, when the bus couldn’t navigate the field, Jones bought the buildings and moved them to their current location. He built the Fort Hays dinner show next to it that same year.

Herman is also the owner and operator of Mount Rushmore Tours. After working for Gray Line Tours, he bought his own tour bus business in 1973, Stagecoach West Bus Service & Touring Company. In 1974, he decided to run tour buses from Rapid City to Mount Rushmore with stops at area attractions, in between, for the 1976 bicentennial. It was not successful.

He and two partners built the Flying T, a chuckwagon dinner show, on his property near Rapid City at Spring Creek in 1979. In 1985, he concentrated on bus tours selling Flying T to his partners and purchasing the ground for the Fort Hays property. His tour bus company continued to struggle to the extent that Fort Hays went on the auction block in 1995.

That same year his late wife Wanda suggested they tie the chuckwagon meals together with bus tours in a pre sold package. They also worked deals with hotels. During the ten years before Wanda’s idea, they only drew 3,500 people a year. After her idea, attendance zoomed to 12,000 people taking the tour, and they salvaged both businesses.

Today, 14,000 people a year take one of the Mount Rushmore Tours and between 60,000 and 70,000 visit the Fort Hays Chuckwagon and its expanding pioneer town. In 2013, Herman received the Black Hills Pioneer Award from Black Hills and Badlands Tourism.

The Mount Rushmore Sightseeing Tour Package is ideal for those who have a short time period in the Black Hills and want to see the principal attractions in one day. It starts with breakfast at Fort Hays Headquarters at 7:30 a.m. and ends with the dinner show at night. From 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., bus passengers spend time at Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park including the Needles, Sylvan Lake, and Iron Mountain Road. Lunch is on their own at Custer State Park’s State Game Lodge, the summer White House of Presidents Coolidge and Eisenhower. It’s $104 for adults and $52 for children. Without meals, the tour costs $85 for adults and $42.50 for children.

The company also offers a winter five hour tour from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. of Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial. Pickup is at your hotel. This runs from October 12 to May 12. Another tour combines a one-way 1880 train ride from Hill City to Keystone with an all day tour. It’s offered June 3 to September 1. A special tour occurs in late September during the day of the Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup. For details on all tours, go to their web site.

DETAILS

You’ll find Fort Hays and Mount Rushmore Tours at 2255 Fort Hayes Drive, Rapid City. Their telephone number is (605) 343-3113. Reservations are necessary for tours and the dinner show.

CHAPEL IN THE HILLS

People are amazed to find a Norwegian stave church in the Black Hills of South Dakota that was built in 1969. It’s the result of the dream of Dr. Harry R. Gregerson, the originator and preacher of the Lutheran Vespers radio program, which started during the 1940s. As a pastor at Eastside Lutheran in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, he had facilities in his basement to record the sermons he preached weekly over the radio. He also made master tapes and sent them to various stations on the Lutheran Vespers network. These were mostly played Sunday evenings.

Dr. Gregerson dreamed of a place where Lutheran Vespers would have a place of operations as well as a location for visitors to worship and meditate. He decided to have it in the Black Hills, five miles from downtown Rapid City. The chapel served as the home of Lutheran Vespers until the radio program moved to Minneapolis in 1975, the home of the American Lutheran Church at that time. The program remained on the air until the early 2000s. A nonprofit corporation has operated the Chapel since the move.

Different resident pastors served the Chapel until 2003. At that time, it hired a manager and has used local pastors serving Lutheran churches in Rapid City to preside over evening services, weddings, and vow renewals.

After deciding where to place the Chapel, the next question was what should it look like. Because of the prominence of Norwegian Lutherans in the area, it was decided to replicate the stave church in Kirkevoli, Borgund, Norway. That structure is regarded as that country’s most beautiful and best preserved church. Except for the altar, pulpit, and baptismal font, it remains the same today as when it was built in 1150.

Stave, also called “Stavkirke” churches, were developed in Norway and are seen nowhere else except possibly in Europe’s other northern countries. Norway started building these churches during the 10th and 11th centuries. At its peak, 900 to 1,200 stave churches existed. They eventually fell into disuse. During the late 1800's, only one hundred remained. Today only 33 exist with most of them radically altered over the years.

They were all made of wood of a special type of fir called “malmfuru.” It was characterized by great size, hardness, and straight trunks. The tree eventually became extinct and was replaced by ordinary fir trees. Douglas fir is the closest approximation to it in the United States.

The name Stavkirke comes from the use of staves (large pillars) to support the church structure. A foundation of flat stones elevated the foundation beams from the ground and moisture. Planked walls were placed vertically with four more beams to support the roof.

The first stave churches had simple peaked roofs. Over time, stave churches became taller and narrower with a series of roofs, each offset and becoming smaller, as the churches reached higher. An intricate system of beams and additional staves supported all this.

Abundant woodcarving is another characteristic of stave churches. The extensive experience of Norwegian woodcarvers goes back to the days of the Vikings who had ornate figureheads on their ships. Church builders used primitive tools, dowel pins instead of nails, and only used metal on ornate door furnishings and locks. Differing from the original is that Chapel in the Hills has concealed heat and lights and wooden pegs cover metal bolts. It also has an organ in the rear which the Borgund church does not.

It took an effort to find craftsmen to do the intricate hand carvings for Chapel in the Hills such as the dragons on top of the gables and human faces in the interior of the staves’ capitals. Erik Friedstrom, one of Norway’s best woodcarvers, agreed to do the carvings which couldn’t be done on the building site. Hedge Christiansen, a Danish immigrant, who lived in Rapid City, did the interior carvings. You can tell the Viking influence since the interior resembles an upside down Viking ship.

While stave churches once had elaborate carvings covering their entire walls, in the Borgund church, these were largely confined to the portals. They have an intertwining of serpents and animals. A similar layout of carvings was followed in Rapid City.

The carvings are full of symbolism like a giant storybook. There are 12 staves in the chapel depicting the 12 apostles or 12 tribes of Israel. Freestanding crosses, adorning the church’s interior and exterior, are in at least nine different patterns.

All of the building’s structural trusses are tied to x-shaped crosses (St. Andrew’s crosses) in the interior. St. Andrews died on an x-shaped cross in the early days of Christianity. Some people say this chapel is dedicated to St. Andrew. On the tallest part of the chapel, a stylized weathervane is in the shape of a rooster. Some say that reminds them of St. Peter and his denial of Christ before the Crucifixion. A second roof stylizes the tree of life.

The Norwegian Department of Antiquities provided a set of blueprints of the Borgund Church to be used in the construction of the Chapel in the Hills. Yet, problems still existed in trying to duplicate the structure. Borgund’s church had been constructed of “malmfuru.” Since the wood no longer existed, the Rapid City chapel was built of Douglas fir. Timber was found and shipped from Oregon for the 52 massive staves, vertical planks enclosing the structure, and 16,000 shingles to cover the intricate roof. Shaping staves was another problem since it was a new experience for the Dilly Company builders who constructed Chapel in the Hills.

The dimensions of the Chapel in the Hills are identical to the Borgund Church. Overall length is 53 feet; width 35 feet; and height 59 feet 6 inches. At the Borgund Church, there were no pews. The old, infirm, and mothers with children sat on benches along three sides of the nave. Everyone else stood or knelt.

Chapel in the Hills has 16 plain, wooden benches serving as pews. While visiting, rest awhile and listen to an audio recording describing the meaning of the various aspects of the Chapel’s design and carvings.

If you enter the chancel facing the main portal, you’ll find a small 18 inches square sliding door. It opened to a hole through which lepers received holy communion.

An arcade called an ambulatory, which is partially roofed but left open to the elements, surrounds both churches. In Norway, it served three purposes. It provided shelter from inclement weather while parishioners waited for the church to open, protected the church walls, and provided a place for men to leave their weapons before entering the church.

The question of finance was handled by a generous gift from a local banker, Arndt E. Dahl of Rapid City. He provided for the land, original structures, and landscaping. In return, he requested that the chapel be dedicated in memory of his parents. His father, Reverend Anton A. Dahl, was a pioneer Lutheran minister in the Upper Midwest. Funds are raised today from donations, weddings, and the gift shop.

Besides the chapel, visitors will want to explore two other buildings on the property. The “Stabbur” is an authentic grass-roofed storehouse. It serves as the Chapel’s gift shop with books, Scandinavian merchandise, chapel souvenirs, and handcrafted Scandinavian items such as hardanger, rosemaling, and wood carvings. It was disassembled in Norway, the pieces numbered, then reassembled in Rapid City. It had an open front porch originally which has now been enclosed.

The other structure is an authentic log cabin museum. It was built by Edward Nielsen, a Norwegian prospector, in 1876 during the time of the Black Hills Gold Rush. You’ll meet carved statues of Ole and Lena at its entrance. It houses items used in everyday lives that were imported from Norway or made by Scandinavians in the United States during the 1800s. Look for the 16 dolls in Norwegian costumes, an 1890s calendar, a trundle bed, and old violins hanging on the wall. You’ll also spot spinning wheels and hardanger curtains.

The caretaker’s house is now home for visiting pastors.

A meditation trail was added in 2010 to the grounds. Complete with benches and statuary, it winds from the chapel into the hillside. It’s ideal for prayer or meditation.

DETAILS

The Chapel is open 8:00 a.m. to Dusk starting May 1st.Thirty minute services are open to the public from Memorial Day to Labor Day each evening at 7:30 p.m. Dress is informal. For further information, call (605) 342-8281. The address is 3788 Chapel Lane, Rapid City. Admission is free.

BERLIN WALL

Just like you wouldn’t expect to find a stave church, neither would you plan on discovering two sections of the Berlin Wall and two tank traps in the Black Hills. However, they have been present at Rapid City’s Memorial Park since 1996. It is called Memorial Park to remember the people who died in the flood of 1972 and whose homes and businesses were washed away.

These historic remnants originally came in the mid 1990s as a traveling Berlin Wall exhibit at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City. They were selected by Helmut Trotnow, curator of the Contemporary History Museum of Berlin, Germany. He thought the tank traps were extremely important.

Dale Clement, then an executive at Black Hills Corporation, an electric and gas utility company in South Dakota and Wyoming, decided to buy the exhibit. He thought it was a fitting tribute to freedom given Rapid City’s proximity to Mount Rushmore and Ellsworth Air Force Base. Ellsworth had contributed bombers to the 1940s Berlin Airlift.

Local dentist, Paul Reinke, paid for half of the wall. After community minded citizens erected the interpretative panels, it was turned over to city ownership.

Apolda, a German city kept behind the Iron Curtain, was selected in 1996 to be a sister city to Rapid City. It was where Russian soldiers were kept in a prisonlike setting because they weren’t allowed to mingle with the East Germans. The citizens of Apolda worked diligently on the destruction of the Berlin Wall.

With only 40 locations in the United States where original sections of the Berlin Wall are displayed, the one in Rapid City is touted as one of the most comprehensive. The sections are 12 feet high. In front of them are two iron “tank traps” that stand about three feet tall. The sections and tank traps were located between the Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie.

The display contains approximately 30 photos. Plaques tell the complete story from the wall’s building in 1961, to confrontations between the United States and Russia because of it, how people tried to escape, its tearing down in 1989, and the celebration afterwards.

DETAILS

Memorial Park is located at 600-684 Omaha Street in Rapid City. Hours are 6:00 a.m. to dark. The telephone number is (605) 394-4175 .

SOUTH DAKOTA RAILROAD MUSEUM

Railroading was vital to South Dakota’s agriculture, mining, and timber industries. To learn its history, head for this museum in Hill City. It opened in its present location on May 1, 2010. You will need about an hour to tour its fascinating displays.

The museum’s purpose is to educate the public about the railroads that served South Dakota from 1872 to the present. This is done through artifacts, documents, photographs, and artwork.

Many movies and television shows have used railroads as part of the story line such as How the West Was Won, Gunsmoke, Scandalous John, North by Northwest, and Orphan Train. In a partnership with the Ava Astaire McKenzie Foundation (the daughter of Fred Astaire), CBS, and other partners, this museum digitally preserves the state’s cinematic railroad history with its exhibit - On Track Cinema. Take time to sit and watch several of the videos.

A highlight is the graphic 8 by 75-foot timeline/collage depicting important events about South Dakota railroads and our national history from 1776 to 2019. According to historian John F. Stover in The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads, South Dakota’s rail mileage peaked at 4,276 miles in 1920. It was a mixture of the main lines of the Milwaukee Road and the Chicago & Northwestern and agricultural/mining branches. Many of the tracks were abandoned in the 1970's. South Dakota now boasts of 2,029 miles. Its last passenger service was in 1969.

Model train fans will enjoy the operating 300 square-foot DCC-controlled HQ railroad where four trains run. It has models of locomotives and rolling stock from many railroads that ran or still operate in South Dakota. The layout contains numerous scale buildings and scenes from around the state and region.

The Home Town Depot display depicts an office in a train depot. It answers such questions as how to operate a telegraph, who were the employees, and what were their job descriptions.

A unique feature is the “indoor stall” in which period standard and narrow-gauge equipment can be rolled into the building from the nearby Black Hills Central Railroad yard. An example of this is a 1947 wooden caboose one can explore inside the museum.

It sat in the backyard of Jeannie Bauder, in Huron, South Dakota, for many years after riding the rails through Watertown and Huron. Along with an extensive collection of train memorabilia, it found its new home at the museum in 2016.

Visitors will see a wood burning stove the brakeman used to stay warm, a desk where records were updated during the trip, railroad conductors’ hats, and silverware from a dining car. They’ll also see a menu that was part of President Coolidge’s trip to the Black Hills in 1927.

Other displays include railroad dining car china from the Burlington line, lanterns, time tables for 22 lines, railroad blueprints, photographs, and maps. Look for the pewter models of 12 great American steam locomotives in miniature such as the DeWitt Clinton and Chattanooga Choo Choo.

The museum touts its Warder Research Library for research. You can purchase some scale model railroad cars or railroad and history books. Back issues of railroad magazines are given away for free.

Although the name indicates that funding is provided by the State of South Dakota, that is not the case. All funds for operations, materials, and railroad items have been donated along with money raised from grants, admissions, and fundraising events. It also depends on their active volunteers.

DETAILS

The South Dakota Railroad Museum is open daily from early May to mid-October from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. On Thanksgiving weekend and weekends in December, it is open when they hold their 2019 Trees and Trains. Check their web site for days and times. It is located next to the 1880 train depot. Their address is 222 Railroad Ave, Building A, Hill City. Their telephone number is (605) 574-9000. Admissions are $6 for adults. Seniors, AAA members, military, and those who ride the train receive a $1 discount. Children age ten and under receive free admissions.

We did not take the train. After watching a 45-minute video on it, we decided we could see the same scenery from the highway and did not want to pay $29 per person round trip. It’s a vintage 10-miles steam train trip between Hill City and Keystone and back several times a day.