Compared to Black Hills gold rush, "California was nothing..."

A nice-sized crowd showed up for the final Black Hills National Forest Moon Walk of 2010 last Saturday night (9/18/10) near the old gold mining community of Meyersville, located a few miles south of Rochford.

The remnants of Meyersville are typical of hundreds of villages that sprung up in the Black Hills following the discovery of gold in the 1870s.  There’s not much left except a few timbers, stones, a few holes in the ground, and an occasional building. 

The sun had already slipped behind the hills to the southwest by the time speaker Bill Swanson welcomed the group Saturday evening.   A high school science teacher in New Underwood, Swanson was born in Deadwood and grew up in the northern hills – developing a keen interest in the history of this region.  In fact, he’s the second generation of Swansons leading community education classes about history in the  Black Hills – his father taught the first ones back in 1976. 

After working on oilers for several years, the younger Swanson says he came back to the hills and is proud to carry on the tradition his father started.  His folksy presentation was well-received by the group that gathered for his September presentation entitled “Mining Towns of the Late 1800s.”

Focus of this Moon Walk was Meyersville, a mining community that dates back to 1883, nestled in a small valley north of Deerfield Reservoir.

 

“It was never much of a town,” Swanson said, “basically a settlement and mining camp.  Residents purchased supplies from Rochford , Lead or Custer.”   Up the road toward Deerfield are the Yellow Bird and King of the West Mines, but those two sites weren’t included as part of this Moon Walk.  Even in daylight, those two old sites are mostly hidden from view, even though they are right alongside the road.

Swanson led the walkers up a narrow path to a place where a few timbers and stones remain from the old forty stamp mill that once stood.

“This is the original site of what was later the Lookout mine and mill.  It was here for about six month, but then the equipment and timbers were moved to Lookout.”

Farther up the hillside, hidden in the woods, were the leaning timbers of a house that was part of the operation.  Swanson’s partner in researching and writing history articles about the Black Hills – Mart Krause of Rapid City – says that the leaning timbers that remain were once a part of the Frank Cochran mining headquarters, built in 1890.  While the mining operation soon moved, the old building has remained all this time.  As recently as the 1990s, the building was upright and an old safe was situated inside.  It is now long since gone.

We trudged through the tall grass and negotiated a fence, finding yet another building in the woods that – even in daylight – would be hard to spot.

Swanson went to the center of the building, while hikers remained clustered around the perimeter of the structure, attentatively listening as Swanson gave further details about the defunct gold mine.

In his presentation to the assembled Moon Walkers, Swanson suggested “getting out of your cars, hiking to the sites, closing your eyes, and try listening back 130 years to what was going on.  There were no airplanes.  No 4-wheelers.”  Walking along a path, Krause told us that he and Swanson always hike in to locations like this – they never use motorized vehicles that might disturb the site.

Swanson said other research has indicated that as many as 1,500 post offices were strewn throughout the Black Hills region during its mining rush.

“This was the last real gold rush,” he said.  “California was nothing compared to this.  Ore was still coming out of the Black Hills more than 100 years after it had been discovered.”

The price of gold has now busted above $1,300 per ounce, and you might expect to see a resurgence of mining in the Black Hills.  But despite the continuing operation at Wharf Resources – and maybe a few more placer miners among visiting tourists – it’s likely that newcomers roaming the hills these days are in search of another valuable item, more untold history about these beautiful Black Hills.

And with this final Moon Walk for 2010, we were treated to plenty of it.  We've posted a few photos from the event in our 2010 Moon Walk Gallery.

With thanks to all of the presenters – and the folks at the U.S. Forest Service, who have facilitated the Moon Walks – we’re already eagerly awaiting new topics and locations for 2011!