Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1913-07-19
KNOWN BLACK MOUNTAINS.
Historical Data Would Indicate Blacl
Mountains to be the Proper
Name for BILLS.

not know that this name has been ap-
piled to those mountains by the earliest
explorers of the Northwest. The Spear.
fish Mail who defends the present name
because it was used by the early seekers
for gold probably shared with the Ar
gus-Leader its ignorance that the very
first records of the Black Hills country
refer to them as mountains.
We are indebted to Charles E. Deland,
of Pierre, for this knowledge. Ina very
interesting article in a recent issue OF
the Pierre Capital-Journal, Mr.. Deland
says that 'the Black Mountains consti-
tuted a great landmark to Lewis and
Clark as is shown by eleven references
to that group found in their journals"
Mr.. Deland says that when Lewis and
Clark camped near the mouth of the
Platte in 1904, they referred to the fact
that certain tribe of Indians lived "be-
yond the Platte river and westward to
the Black Mountains" If the Spear
fish Mail is looking for precedent which
has some age to it, why does it reject q
name that was used in 1904?
Lewis and Clark swung around the
mountain group until they reached
Judith basin, in what is now Montana,
and of this they said that "we have now
to congratulate ourselves at having es-
capped from the last ridges of the Black
Mountains"
Brackinbridge who came up the Mis-
souri, in 1911, according to Mr.. Deland,
with Hunt of Astor's expedition, says
in his "Views of Louisiana" that this
range "was called by the hunters the
Black Mountains"
ut is equally clear" continues Mr..
Deland, "that the Indians knew them as
mountains. Among many similar evil
dences may be mentioned that when
the federal commissioners were nego-
tiating with the Sioux in 1875 at the
Red Cloud agency in western Nebraska
for a cession of that region (where the
whites were intruding in search of gold
Fast Bear, referring to the locality in
question said: "You ask me to give up
the mountains that are to the north of
u.s."
1t thus appears that from the time this
group of mountains first appeared in the
records in 1904 up to 1876, they were
spoken of as Black Mountains, except
that one party of French trappers and
gold seekers called them Hills. Custom
has adopted the name of Hills and this
name will probably stick, but we think
it has been proved that the Black Noun
tains is the name that has seemed to
most people the more appropriate and
fitting.
On this subject Mr.. Deland says:
'It is the bounden duty of every South
Dakotan-and, for that matter, of every
dweller in the northwest-to call this
wonderfully varied and interesting To-
cality by the only name it should prop
erly have, Black Mountains. We all
know it is the most easterly outpost of
the great Rocky Mountain range, the
point in the Rockies first reached by
tourists from the east. Its peaks belittle
those of the Alleghanies, the Adiron.
dacks and the White Mountains and the
singular beauty and diversity of the
whole group are outdone only by the
wonderland of Yellowstone Park. When
the Black Mountains shall become known
to the American people for what they
really are in inspiration and in health
giving properties, no other spot on the
American continent will outrival western
South Dakota. With the weird, fantas-
tic outpost of the Bad Lands on her
southeastern border, the Slim Buttes and
other sentinels of enchantment to the
northeast, and the DEVILS Tower and
other monuments to westward, this ma
jestic group Of mountains offers to the
traveller and to the sojourner feast of
natures garden that is beyond words to
tell
"The fact seems to be that some of the
French trappers of the fur-trading days,
who were exploiting the foothills in that
region, referred to this region as hills,
thus the word came in time to supplant
mountain. 1t was usurpation, and as
such should be forever cast aside.
"Let the management of every rail-
road running through or into the Black
Mountains join with the people in ad-
vertising in every way this rich mine in
scenery as the Black Mountains In
that event, it is predicted that within
less time than would be supposed, the
new and the proper designation will be-
come the language of every tongue that
that region and the American
people and the peoples over christen.
dom will soon come to know that the
land of the Homestake mine, of Spear
fish Canyon, of Hot Springs sanitariums,
Of Sylvan Lake, of the Wind and the
Crystal Caves, of her half-dozen gorges,
Of her Needle Park, of the School of
Mines, of Fort Meade, and of her ever
lasting settings of titanic rock ever
against her woods and her streams of
trout and of flowers, is none other than
the land of the Black Mountains, and
that the whole boundless array of sights
is the magnificent gateway to the yell
lowstone Park. That Harney's Peak
sends greetings to the world Of tourists,
and with undsunted eye challenges the
best in America to contest with the dia-
dem over which she des."-Argus-
Leader.