The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1910-03-25
SOUTH DAKOTA
NOW OF ACE
Young State Attains it's Ma
jority This Year--Its
Trying Times.
THE THE DATES ACCORDING 10 FEDERAL ACT
1t is Fifty-One Years Since the First
Permanent White Settler
Came Hither.

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South Dakota this year attains her
majority by reason of the federal act
signed February %, 1889, says Pierre
dispatch. Her career perfectly typities
the child which comes up from weak
ness and dependence to robust and ag-
gressive manhood.
1t Is fifty-one years since permanent
white settlements were made within
the present state along the lower Mis-
souri, section. 1t was forty-nine years
on March I'd since the territory was
created, and the first legislature con-
vened a year later; thai is to say on
March 18th, st. Patrick's day, 1862,
the first law making body convened.
Her development in early territorial
days was extremely slow, for she was
beset by many adverse circumstances.
Dame Nature has way of trying out
her pioneers in every land, and the
South Dakotans were subjected to the
law of the survival of the tittest. Her
first great menace came from the hos
tile Indians, and a four-year Indian
war; followed by years of drouth, of
ravenous grasshoppers and devasting
prairie fires and winters of such Sc
verify as to render modern winters
tropical by comparison. The settler
who stuck it out was good stuff and
no mistake.
The first real impulse Tor great de-
velopment came with the discovery OF
gold in the Black Hills, which caused
a stampede in this direction, and the
many. thousands who crossed the
prairies created business IN the settle.
ments, made markets for their pro-
ducts and advertised the agricultural
possibilities.
Very many, disappointed in securing
gold in the Hills, turned back to Sc
cure it from prairie homesteads. In
1877 began a homesteading movement
which eliminated in the great Dakota
boom of the early eighties, when in a
day, as it were, all the region east of
the Missouri was converted from a
wilderness into well settled region,
made accessible by railroads and pro-
vided with markets, schools, churches
and all the conveniences of civiliza-
ton.
Inevitably this boom was followed
by reaction. Nature started another
trying out of the settlers and many
thousands were not equal to the test.
Fire, flood, frost and drouth were too
much for them and they went back
ito live with wife's folks"
1t was in the very storm center of
reaction that South Dakota was born.
Such years of failure and discourage
ment as 1889 and 1890 have scarcely
fallen upon any other new common
wealth. Destitution was everywhere
prevalent. The officials of the new
state were compelled to appeal to the
benevolent people of the east for means
to keep the people alive, their trouble
eliminated in the great financial de-
preston which swept America in 1893,
a total crop failure in 1894 and the
robbery of the state treasury of every
dollar it contained at the beginning
of 1895. Having by these processes
selected a few choice souls, who stayed
for seed, nature put on smiling coun-
tenance and has from that time for
ward beamed kindly upon the growing
population of the state.
For fifteen years the development OF
South Dakota has been most satisfac-
tory. Each year has been better than
the last. Productions have grown to
a stupendous sum, returning to the
people more than any other state in
proportion to population: the reserve
wealth has piled up until the paltry
s4,0Oo,0OO of bank deposits of those
days have grawn to more than $3.50, OOO,-
600. The annual production of agri.
cultural products is more than $780,
600, 600.
Education has been fostered and re.
ligion advanced quite in degree with
her material prosperity.
The struggle which resulted in the
division of Dakota territory into two
sovereign states of the union is an
epoch in American history. The con-
stitution adopted by the fathers OF
Dakota is the highest testimonial to
their patriotism and wisdom. AT a
time when the west was flooded with
adventures the homesteaders of South
Dakota selected body of men to
draft a constitution which has not a
job or an opportunity for graft about
it. Its provisions for the preservation
of the school lands and the school
funds has been adopted by congress as
a model for all the new states. Three
times were the people called upon tt
enact and re-enact the constitution
but they kept the faith throughout
| For ten years Dakota territory was