The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1927-06-20
BARREN BLACK
| Hills Grave OF
i. W0MAN'S HOPE
Pioneer Wife Met Only Grief
and Hardship in Her
Quest for Gold.
BY G.. J. LILLY

WASHINGTON, June 20.-Fifty-
two years ago the first white woman
went into the Black Hills of South
Dakota, but her journey was far
different from that so recently
made by the First Lady of the
Land.
Mrs Annie D. Talent, the first
white woman, alternately walked or
node in a canvas-topped prairie
schooner.
Mrs. Calvin Coolidge, the first
lady, travelled on a special train,
one of the finest ever assembled.
Mrs. Talent suffered the hard
ships and privations of pioneer
venturing into land where only
armed military forces had ever
dared to go before.
Mrs. Coolidge enjoyed all the
comforts and luxuries that pros
porous nation can lavish upon the
wife of it's president.
Story of Hardships
The story of Mrs. Talent is one
of suffering and bravery with an
end scarcely worthy of the hard
ships that she endured.
Learning of gold in the Black
Hills, she set out Oct. 6, 1874, with
Der husband, Is other men and u
boy, from Sioux City, Iowa, in a
s%agon train heavily stocked with
munitions and food.
Their destination was secret be-
cause to tell anyone in those days
that you were going to the Black
Hills was to invite government in
tervention.@ The hills were part of
the land set aside for occupancy by
the various tribes of the Sioux In
Gians and any trespassing was likely
to be resented by an uprising and
death to the trespassers.
Fewer than twenty miles a day
were traversed by this pioneer cara
van in striking contrast to the presi-
dental train, clicking along al
more than twice that many miles
an hour.
Death Stalks on Trail.
HomeSickneSS, thirst, hunger and
death travelled along with the Tai
lent party, coupled with the ever
present fear of attack and possible
humiliation at the hands of row.
ing Indian bands.
Months passed before the Black
Hills were sighted. 1t was Christ
mas before the bedraggled party,
much of it's cattle lost, it's food
practically gone and it's members
virtually in rags, came to final
resting place at a spot now his
torically treasured as the location
of the Gordon Stockade."
Here five rude cabins were built,
and around them. was erected
high fence to make more difficult
an attack by the Hidden but always
nmresent enemy.
~ The first white woman spent her
~"vacation" in the Black Hills in a
rude little room with cloth Win
dow bearing the following legend in
large red letters: Xxx Extra Su-
perfine." Here she ate, slept, worked
and lived through a long, hard
winter. Mrs. Talent had to help
build her modest residence. -
Ousted by ARMY"
No visitors penetrated into those
hills and the little stockade where
for several months Mrs. Talent and
her companions extracted gold from
the creeks near their homes.
A couple of lieutenants and a
small crew of privates finally called
upon Mrs. Talent on morning in
early spring When they came, the
first white woman ever to visit the
Black Hills was hoisted onto an
Army pack mule and placed under
technical arrest. She was taken to
a nearby Army post and ordered
back to civilization under penalty
not to return.
The first white woman is now
buried somewhere in the West
where she went in search of a for
tune she never found.
But a monument has been erected
In the hills in her honor and an
other marks the site of her little log
cabin. And the First Lady of the
Land is likely to hear the appealing
tale of this woman who preceded
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