Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1905-10-06
MANY TONS OF COAL
TO Be SHIPPED IN
Plans Being Made BY Settlers
on Rosebud for Coming.
Winter.
HAVE PLENTY OF MONEY
The Farmers on the New Reservations
Land Have Made Good This Sum-
mer and Are Even Buying
Milk, Cream and Butter.

Bonesteel, S. D., Sept. 25.-With soft
coal selling at the rate of $13 per ton
at inland points on the reservation,
lucky tickle holders who drew quarter
sections of government lane in Uncle
Sans big lottery a year ago, and who
have been moving on their claims dur
ing the last spring and summer are
just now preparing to spend their first
winter on the Rosebud. The excessive
cost of coal at reservation towns is due
to the fact that every pound or any
commodity has to be freighted by
wagon from Bonesteel to the inland
towns and the f~reighting costs rs cents
per 100 pounds. And to keep up with
the traffic that is going on, freight
wagons forming a line a quarter OF a
mile in length leave Bonesteel every
morning, bound for the several post
offices on the prairie.
Have Plenty of Money.
But despite the cost of articles which
they are forced TO buy, Rosebud set
tiers are very highly satisfied with
their outlook and they la money
jingling in their pockets this fall. For
almost every foot of sod on the whole
416, 900 acres of land which were given
away has this summer produced Won
derful crops in flax, corn, tomatoes,
potatoes, Watermelons, muskmelons and
even strawberries. The seeds We're
planted right down in the thick, hard
sod and the crops couldn't be dis
tinguished from those grown on the
fertile fields of long cultivated Ne
ibraska to the south by the best agri-
cultural expert. The flax crop is a
bumper and samples of all crops which
are being lined up in Bonesteei for the
first Gregory county fair show the won-
iderful productiveness of the Rosebud
soil.
Signs of Prosperity.
The Rosebud of today presents /
vastly different picture from the Rose
bud of a year ago. The former prairie,
with limitless stretches of wild grass
and never the sign of a house, is now
dotted from end to end with little reg
ularly stationed sod huts-the homes
of the settlers. Every single quarter
section on the whole reservation with
the exception of one forty-acre stretch
is now taken by a claim holder, either
a legitimate homesteader or a squat
ter. And for the past few weeks there
has been a continuous performance OF
field trials with bird dogs on almost
every quarter section. Every settler
ever the old maid school teachers who
have settled down out there-oWnS a
bird dog and a shotgun, and they have
kept up a constant b"ombardment which,
resembles the fall of Port Arthur as
shown at the cheap street carnival.
Milk Is Shipped In.
One unique feature of the Rosebud
today, which perhaps would be hard to
find in another American settlement
of $500 farms, is the fact that the
reservation is practically cowless. De-
spite the recent whole page picture
of a Chicago yellow journal depicting
the Rosebud maidens as they MIXED
the boSsy cows, there is scarcely a milk
giving animal on the whole tract, and
the milk and cream of the Rosebud
settler Is bought in tin cans and
shipped in, by way Of Bonesteel, from
the condensed milk plants of the east.
Mike Gilden, travelling passenger
agent for the Chicago, Milwaukee and
St. Paul, who drew a claim, is the
only man who lives in a brown stone
front. With a little gravel that he
found on his claim he mixed cement
that was shipped in and built a homo
of the new process of building blocks.
He resides on the reservation.
Puff of the Automobile.
Up to date methods of getting about
have permeated into the new country,
n the puff of the automobile may be
heard rushing across the prairie coun-
try where the red man once lived and
fought just as on the crowded city
streets. Delighted with the sight Of
the human machine as it moves with
out pull or push, Ben Two Johns, n
we'll known chief among the Sioux, has
purchased two big autos with the
money which he received from the
government as his snare of the pay
ment for the eeded lands.