Butte Co., SD - Description and History, 1884 This file is a complete transcription of the descriptive information about Butte County as found in A. T. Andreas' "Historical Atlas of Dakota", 1884. BUTTE COUNTY This is the most northern of the counties comprising the Black Hills group. The county was constructed from Lawrence and Mandan counties by an act of the Territorial Legislature, passed at the session of 1882-3. The commissioners were appointed July 11, 1883, and held their first meeting at Minnesela, July 23. The first county officers were: County Commissioners, Henry Chamberlain, Christian Flucken, J. I. Woolston; Treasurer, John Hilderbrand; Clerk and Register, C. F. Johnson; Judge of Probate, C. H. Gores; Sheriff, Henry Stevens; Coroner, William Mitchell; Superintendent of Public Instruction, Peter Miller; Surveyor, G. Z. Richards; Assessor, George M. Browning. Minnesela is the county seat. The county is subdivided into four school townships and four road districts. The population of the new county is from 1,500 to 2,000, mostly engaged in farming and stock raising, for which occupations it is admirably adapted. The total area is about 1,300 square miles, of which twelve Congressional townships, or 432 square miles have been subdivided into sections. The county includes, or was intended to include, all of old Mandan County and the greater part of Townships 8 north, of ranges from 1 to 7, lying south of the Belle Fourche (river), formerly a part of Lawrence County, and also the fractional parts of Town 7 north, of ranges 1 and 2, lying north of the Redwater River. By some misunderstanding of the geography at the time the county was laid out, a small corner, equivalent to nearly three sections, was left out of both Lawrence and Butte counties, and now constitutes Mandan County. The county is fifty-four miles in length, east and west, by twenty-four miles in width, north and south. Butte County lies wholly outside the Black Hills in the open plains country, having very little timer, what there is being mostly in the southwest corner. This portions of the county is also the most uneven and hilly, the greatest part being rolling prairie, with valleys along the streams. The portion lying north of Township No. 9 north is yet in a state of nature and unsettled. Until within the past two or three years the county was within the buffalo range, and large numbers of these animals, as well as deer, elk, antelope, etc., were killed annually. The principal streams are the Belle Fourche, or north fork of the Cheyenne, and its branches, Cherry, Indian, Crow, Hay, Whitewood, False Bottom creeks and the Redwater River, the latter, after its junction with the Spearfish, forming the largest stream running out of the Black Hills. There are no mountains within the limits of the county, though there are considerable bluffs and hills in the southwest and a number of Buttes in the north and northeast, prominent among the latter being Owl Butte near Cherry Creek, and the Deer's Ears and Slave Buttes along the north line, from which the county takes its name. There are a number of small lakes and ponds in the southwest part of the county, between Hay Creek and the Belle Fourche, the largest being on sections 3, 10 and 11, Town 8 north, Range 1 east. The county covers a splendid stock and agricultural regions, and the southern portions are well watered. Coal of the lignitic variety exists in large quantities in the western part of this county, and will some day be in demand. The town of MINNESELA, the present county seat, is finely situated near the Redwater River, about three miles above its junction with the Belle Fourche. The name is from the Sioux language, and is said to signify "Redwater." The site is on high ground at a considerable distance from the river, and was laid out by A. A. Choteau and D. T. Harrison, in May, 1882. The plat covers eight acres, being the east half of the northeast quarter of Section 24, Town 8 north, Range 2 east of the Black Hills meridian. The proprietors constructed a large flume, eleven feet wide and two and one-half feet deep, from a point on the Redwater a mile and a half above the town, and brought water to their flouring and custom mill. This flume has a capacity of 4,000 miners' inches, and furnishes a fine waterpower. Messrs. Choteau & Harrison, who, in addition to the town plat, own several ranches contiguous, have constructed a first class flouring mill having a capacity of sixty barrels every twenty-four hours, and fitted it up with the latest improved machinery of the Hungarian roller process pattern, and are doing a good business, the surrounding country furnishing the finest wheat in the West. The fall of water at the mill is sixteen feet and the supply constant and uniform. An irrigating ditch is continued for some ten miles below the town, from which the ranches in the valley draw for purposes of irrigation. It is the purpose of the proprietors to erect a sawmill for cutting lumber, which can be rafted either down the Redwater and Spearfish, or the Belle Fourche and Hay Creek. The flouring mill, which is a model one in every respect, was built, ready for operation, in ninety days. It contains seven sets of rolls and two sets of buhrs. The fall of the Redwater at this point, and for several miles above and below, is about twenty-six feet per mile, giving a current of ten miles per hour and furnishing a great amount of water power. The whole Redwater valley can be irrigated at comparatively small expense. Among the earliest settlers of the Redwater and Belle Fourche valley were William Haydon, Ed. Duford, William Grimmett, Conrad Berg, John McClure and D. T. Harrison. A. A. Choteau, one of the well known St. Louis family of that name, was also an early settler. His father and others of the family were connected many years ago with the fur trade of the northwest and particularly along the Missouri River Valley. Mr. Choteau is a member of the Territorial Legislature. D. T. Harrison was from Colorado, coming to the Redwater valley at an early day. He and Choteau make a specialty of wheat raising, for which the principal valleys in this region are peculiarly adapted. The wheat grown is mostly of the Scotch Fyfe variety and makes first quality flour. Minnesela has a post-office, established in 1882, a hotel, one general and one hardware store, and a dozen families. The Methodist and Catholics have church organizations, and a school is in operation. The town, in the fall of 1883, was connected with the outside world by a weekly mail from Deadwood. Minnesela is the only town at present in the county, but there are three other post offices at Butte, Vale and Empire, in the Belle Fourche Valley, below Minnesela. With the advent of railways there must grow up somewhere in the valley a great cattle and grain shipping station, possibly at Minnesela, and perhaps at some new point in the Belle Fourche Valley.