Dewey County advocate. [volume] (Timber Lake, S.D.) 1910-1913, 1912-05-10
THE FAMOUS FOX
RIDGE COUNTRY
A WORD ABOUT ITS METROPOLIS, ITS
STURDY PEOPLE AND ITS PRO.
DUCTIVE SOIL.

Long before the reservation was
thrown open to settlement we had
heard of the Fox Ridge country,
SO had Wilbur Merrick-the Dan
iel Boone of that section, and that
is why he pushed out over the vir
gin prairie from LeBeau and start
ed the now flourishing town OF
Eagle Butte, the metropolis of the
Fox Ridge. He pitched his tent
just south of the present site of that
place and for several months acted
as banker, postmaster and general
merchant before the smoke of a
locomotive announced the coming
of the railroad-tl1at essential to
modern progress and civilization.
OF course Merrick was soon joined
by many others and now Eagle
Butte is place of about 900 and
is we'll represented in every line OF
business usually found in this sec
tion Of the. state. There are four
good general stores, two banks,
four lumber yards, two churches,
ample hotel and restaurant accom-
modations, drug store. bakery,
meat market, three land dealers,
who will talk to you so fast you
can't get a chance to tell them
you'll take quarter, auto garage,
liveries, doctor. attorney, photo
grapher. dentist and last but in NO
sense least, the Eagle Butte News,
presided over by Frank Bowman,
an excellent newspaper man who
never fails to sing the praises OF
that section of the country and in
spire the faltering homesteader with
new hope in the splendid future that
is about to open up to him.
The Fox Ridge itself is a rolling
upland of good black loan, vary
ing in width from eight to fifteen
miles between the breaks of the
Moreau and Cheyenne rivers.
Some of the very best of the ridge
is in the unopened part of the res
ervation to the east of Eagle Butte
Of which the Mossnan ranch COW
ers considerable portion. The
greater part of this land is already
allotted to Indians. There is some
stone OH the ridge in the vicinity
of Eagle Butte, however. not
enough to seriously interfere with
the cultivation of the land.
There is probably no town on
the reservation which has so many
people who came from other parts
of South Dakota as Eagle Butte.
S. O. Webb has been in the state
for something like 80 years and has
been all over this country as STIR
veyor. The country has always
been interesting to him geological
ly and he has in his possession a
number of unusual specimens.
There are several who came there
from LeBeau, some from Fort
Pierre and other parts of the state.
AS one goes west from Eagle
Butte the ridge widens and the
next town is Lantry. The country
in around Lantry is, we believe.
the most compactly settled part of
the country. Lantry has two lum-
Der yards. one good store with an
other building, Lantry Ledger,
owned by F. G. King of Faith,
blacksmith shop, etc. This place
is the home of William A. Messer,
who, his friends insisted should be
a candidate for commissioner from
the first district. He is good
business man and one has only to
meet him to understand why he is
SO popular and why his neighbors
want him for the place. Ben Bones
is the name of the hustling real es
tate dealer of this place. From his
eminence on a nearby hill he has
long since learned to recognize
land seeker from afar off. His
motto is: Quick sales and small
profits"
The whole country is peopled,
like the rest of the reservation
country, with hopeful. energetic,
men and women, who
are doing their part to build for
themselves permanent homes and
who, if nature does her duty, will