Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1886-07-31

Custer City, July %, 1Ss6.-Special
correspondence of The Journal: The
ride from Buffalo Gap to Custer City is
II Of great picturesqueness. 1t is said
to be the most romantic Of any in this
section of natural wonders. Leaving
the Gap after the arrival Of the morning
train M almost Immediately enters the
hills and begins a gradual ascent. To
the right lay the broken and Craggy
foothills, rocky, barren and bleak, and
to the left rise one timbered hill above
another, here and there broken by
canon and dells or mountain streams,
while often far above all, rocky peaks
glisten in the sunlight as bright as
though the rays were playing on a
mountain of ice. The road for a few
miles leads through a canon that grows
rougher and c~raggier as we penetrate
the hills, then we begin to Mount bench
after bench until we find ourselves sew
eral thousand feet above the valley to
the right. This low land as seen from
our elevated position, though broken,
rocky and bleak, looks like a gigantic
panorama painted expressly to show
dusty, smoking, rugged and virgin
nature. with trees in the valley, rocks
rising like sentinels on its h~illsides, its
lowlands green in grasses, and It's knobs
barren and sandy.
As WE ENTER THE HILLS
the scene changes to deep canons with
heavily timbered sides, and here and
there a lone rock that rises hundreds Of
feet above surrounding hills. In the
afternoon we drive through the camp
occupied by Gen. Custer in 1875. A
few marks yet remain as mementoes of
that unfortunate hero. Near by we see
the ruins of the old stockade erected by
Gordon and Witcher in November, 1874,
who left Sioux City early hat year.
After leaving this historic pile of logs
we soon near Custer City. Ten miles to
the north is seen the famous Harvey
peak; five miles to the southeast is
Lookout mountain three miles to the
west is bleak Grandview mountain, and
BY our side two miles east of the town
Is Calamity peak, and barren and craggy
as the character Of it's famous ame
sake-Calamity Jane.
GOLD WAS FIRST
In the Black Hills by Custer in 1874 at
Custer City. That was only twelve
short years ago, but what a history Of
romance, hope, success and disappoint-
ment has crowded into these years. The
history Of Custer City reads like Grimm's
fairy tales. Very likely no town in
America had such a boom and realized
10 little from it MS Custer City. The
town was laid out in July, 1875, by a
town company, and called Stonewall.
On the 10th Of August following Gen.
Crook reached the town and compelled
all but seven to leave the Hills. He ar
rested the ~yenturesome miners and took
them to the Union Pacific railroad.
The seven parties were left to guard the
property in the stockade from the In
dams until the government could move
1t. But in November the crowd surged
in again, and before the first day of
February Custer City had grown to a
town of 400 houses and a population
Of 5000 people. In April, 1876, gold was
discovered in Deadwood gulch, and in
Size OF three weeks the town had run
down to a population Of fourteen people.
Houses were burned by those remain
ing for firewood.
THE FIRST LADY IN THE HILLS
was Mrs. ID. +. Tallant, who came with
her husband and son in 1874 from Sioux
City. When Prof. Jenney came here
for the government, and Col. Pollock
and fourteen companies, to find out
whether gold did really exist, thousands
of miners hid in the hills and lodged
Indians and soldiers for several months
awaiting his public announcement. 1t
was Sioux City enterprise and adven-
ture to first send men and freight to this
section. Mail was first brought in by
freighters, and when an outfit was near
town some citizen Of a speculative turn
would ride out to meet it and buy the
mail, and then sell the letters to the
miners for SO cents each. In 1876, II.
T. Clark established a stage line from
Sidney, and used his own envelopes,
charging 25 cents each. Later on w.
w. Marsh, of Omaha, put in a line of
stages and also charged 25 cents a letter.
A daring fellow by the name of Jim
Demereaux, late in the fall Of 1875, car
ried mail on a pony between Sidney
and Custer City, and had many narrow
escapes from Indians and road agents.
He yet resides here, and loves to
recount his experiences. The morals of
Custer City during its palmy days were
not by any means as pure as now. A
large dance house, now a fine store. ran
for two months night and day. 1t was
filled by the lowest Of womankind and.
it Is safe to presume, mankind also.
Custer City's best days was between
December, 1875, and April, 1875. There
were then twenty-nine saloons and