Homesteaders of McPherson County, South Dakota ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Data scanned and proofread by James J. Lewis (jlewis@triskelion.net). This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the SDGENWEB Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/sd/sdfiles.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOMESTEADERS OF McPHERSON COUNTY Compiled and written by Workers of the South Dakota Writers' Project Work Projects Administration University of South Dakota Official Sponsor AMERICAN GUIDE SERIES E. Stoebner, County Superintendent of Schools McPherson County Cooperating Sponsor FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY JOHN M. CARMODY, Administrator WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION HOWARD O. HUNTER, Acting Commissioner FLORENCE KERR, Assistant Commissioner M. A. KENNEDY, State Administrator Cover Design by Annette Wilcox South Dakota Art Project 1941 PREFACE THE current price of wheat is a major topic in a county such as McPherson where the people are dependent upon, and especially proud of, their highly developed farming community; but they are also extremely conscious of, and anxious to talk about, the homesteaders who opened the region for development. There are many stories of hardship and futile doggedness, of hilarious occasions and overflowing wheat bins. In this profile of McPherson County are anecdotes, recollections, and notes on present-day problems, as related to workers of the South Dakota Writers' Project through interviews and correspondence with scores of local citizens and former residents. We wish to mention a few of them here: Mrs. Idelette Lundquist, John Dexter, Amos Hoffman, Daniel Opp, Mrs. Elizabeth Ulrich Reue, Mrs. John Heibel, Mrs. J. Hepperle, James Clayton, Heile H. Yost, F. C. Arndt, A. Y. Denton, Mr. and Mrs. Ed Hickman, C. A. Merkle, Freda Jung, Fred A. Reub, Peter Schuchardt, Mrs. Albert Schuchardt, and Henry Artz of Leola; Soloman Isaak, A. W. Schumacher, A. Bjork, and F. C. Shankland of Eureka; Douglas Chittick of Wetonka and Fred Odenbach of Greenway; Mrs. Joe Weber, Mannie Weber, and C. F. Hargitt of Forbes, N. Dak., Mr. and Mrs. C. S. Acker and Mrs. Thad Fuller of Aberdeen; Mrs. Ruth Kribs Hanson of Anoka, Minn.; Mrs. Charles N. Herreid of Mason City, Iowa; and the late Hamlin Garland of Hollywood, Calif. We also wish to express our appreciation to Drs. E. C. Ehrenspreger and C. G. Beckwith of the University of South Dakota, to C. B. Foncannon of Aberdeen, and to Emil Stoebner, McPherson County Superintendent of Schools--all of who gave generous assistance in making the publication possible. Most of the text was prepared by Jess E. Strader of the WPA Writers' Program in South Dakota. LISLE REESE, State Supervisor. CONTENTS Preface 3 A County That Wheat Built 7 Making A Home 17 Threads of the Pattern 27 Leola Burns and Rebuilds 32 Eureka--A Noted Wheat Market 38 Other Trade Centers 44 The Pied Piper of Leola 50 Farming Experiences 54 Schools and Churches 64 The Fourth Estate 71 Transportation 73 Recalling the Storm of 1888 76 Prairie Fire 79 Around the Banquet Table 85 Bibliography 87 A COUNTY THAT WHEAT BUILT MCPHERSON COUNTY is in north central South Dakota, its 737,000 acres lying in a vest wheat-producing belt between the Missouri and James Rivers. North Dakota forms the northern boundary, and Brown County lies to the east, Edmunds County to the south, and Campbell County to the west. Although created in 1873 by the Dakota Territorial legislature, the county remained part of the unsettled prairie frontier for the first nine years of its existence. By 1884 there were sufficient settlers to organize a county government, and in 1885 the county grew by four townships which were added by the legislature from range 66, an area known as the "lost range" because for years it stood unattached to any county. Named for Brigadier General James B. McPherson, Union officer who was killed during the seige of Atlanta, the county had among its early homesteaders many veterans of the Civil War. McPherson County has developed into a prosperous farming region; during the 1890's it claimed the largest primary wheat market in the world. The 1940 Federal census listed 8,353 persons, about one-fourth of whom live in Eureka and Leola, the largest towns. To the traveler crossing McPherson County on State highways 10 or 45, the distances between farmsteads is noticeable. The people who live in the farmhouses far back from the road came to this region in the 1880's from the eastern part of the United States and from crowded colonies in Russia to seek more land, more freedom, more opportunities. The land was productive and the people have held on to it. The average farm today is 480 acres, and as in the days when families bundled up and bounced for miles across the prairie in lumber wagons or slipped across the snow in sleds to weddings, housewarmings, and dances, there is a feeling of neighborliness. More and more the towns of Eureka and Leola are becoming important market and social centers for this intensive farming region. A traveler going through the same region ages ago would have crossed an ice sheet. The productive soil from which spring crops of grass and grain is the work of the glacier which edged along over a vast waste, ground many rocks to fine dust and gravel, left some in boulder size, deposited a moraine, receded or melted, and left a thick mantle of glacial drift. The western three-fourths of the county is called the West Coteau. The eastern edge of the West Coteau ends abruptly in the moraine, a line of low hills crossing diagonally from south to north. From these hills eastward McPherson County is a flat level prairie. The lowest point, 1,450 feet above sea level, is in the southeastern part. The rolling West Coteau section, interspersed with level areas, averages about 1,900 feet above sea level. The highest point, reaching 2,100 feet, is in the northwest corner of Weber township. Because the county lies at a great distance from any large bodies of water, there is a wide range of temperature. The lowest recorded was 48 degrees below zero, the highest 115 degrees above. The destructive effect of hot summer winds has been less pronounced recently because of a higher relative humidity caused by evaporation from growing grasses and plants. During a period of 21 years preceding 1930 the shortest growing season for the eastern part of the county was 138 days in 1922. In the western part of the county, somewhat higher in altitude, 131 days elapsed between the last killing frost in the spring and the first killing frost in the autumn. Precipitation during the period from 1909 to 1930 in the Eureka area, according to incomplete records, averaged 16 inches, while the observer at Leola reported an unofficial average of 20 inches since 1900. Rainfall is greatest in all parts of the county during the months of April, May, June, July, August, and September. An abundant supply of good water is available from surface wells in most parts of the county. Artesian, or deep water, wells have shown a diminishing flow in recent years. Water pushing up through sandstone and like water-bearing formations underlying McPherson County results in flowing springs which feed Spring Creek in the northwest part of the county and keep it flowing most of the year. Four or five townships are drained by Spring Creek and its tributaries. Willow Creek is perhaps the most important of the numerous dry runs, which thoroughly drain the eastern part of the county sloping from the base of the highland at the rate of fifteen feet to the mile. An abundance of small lake beds catch the surplus water in the highlands and the central and southwest parts, all of which are practically undrained. The county has a natural body of water called Long Lake and five WPA-built artificial lakes: Hausauer, Wolff, Crompton, Eureka, and Lundquist. Near the springs in the various parts of the county and along many of the numerous creeks and runs, the Indians pitched their camps. McPherson County's summer landscape, then a placid lake of buffalo grass in the eastern part, broke into a green swollen sea of grass in the west. It was part of the great Sioux hunting ground, and herds of buffalo, deer, and antelope were common. Many arrowheads and stone hammers have been found around old camp sites, marked by rings of stones where the tepees stood. There is a lone rock on a high hill about twelve miles north of Leola. The rock has a buffalo head and Indian symbols carved on it. Not far from the rock is Dead Horse Gulch, a deep, precipitous, heavily wooded ravine, so named because pioneer settlers found the skeletons of twenty-five horses there, supposedly a herd of Indian ponies trapped by an early blizzard. Excavators in the spring of 1904 opened an Indian grave in the gulch finding some twenty-five articles, including beads of many colors, brass bracelets and rings, parts of a hunting knife and shield, matted feathers, two buffalo vertebra, four soldier buttons, and a fork handle with the name of T. Hill engraved on it. In 1863 General Sully crossed what is now McPherson County on his way to present North Dakota, where he engaged the Indians at the battle of Whitestone Hills. Remnants of two stone forts along the old Fort Sisseton-Fort Yates Military Road, which crossed the northeast corner of McPherson County, indicate early exploration. Apparently the fortifications were built by white soldiers as a protection against the Indians. It was down this old military road that John Weber and his family, the first of a trickle of white settlers entering McPherson County in 1882 and 1883, came to their homestead. Coming from Boonville, Missouri, in 1882, Weber located in the foothills of the Coteau near the present North Dakota State line. He had come out with Dr. L. F. Diefendorf, who later became an Aberdeen resident, in 1881 to hunt and look over the country. On July 4 of the next year, he stood on a knoll overlooking the country that had strongly appealed to him as holding great possibilities for cattle raising. He descended from the knoll and a few rods to the east located a site for his sod shanty. He brought with him nothing but two muzzle-loading pistols and a .44 Winchester rifle. He went back to Aberdeen where he found a pair of big fat oxen, for which he paid $240. Purchasing other needed equipment, he brought his family from Aberdeen where they had remained while he was locating the claim, and the Webers were soon established. Capt. Samuel Preston Howell, a Civil War veteran, was the second settler to locate in McPherson County, coming in the fall of 1882. Later he became a county commissioner. He was the first McPherson County settler to engage in stock-raising on an extensive scale. Bela E. Dexter, also a Civil War veteran, arrived late in 1882, in advance of his family. He came from Gowanda, New York, where, as a pattern maker, he invented machines to make cheese boxes and grape baskets. In May, 1883, Tarkquin Franklyn, John Murrie, Andrew Williams, S. P. Hardenbrook, Walter Cavanaugh, John Hooker, H. A. Moulton, his son Louis, and Capt. E. D. Haynes gathered at Ordway, and with their teams they started northwest looking for homesteads in McPherson County. Leaving range 66, they were struck with the beauty of the level prairie and located squatter claims. Establishing a townsite, they named it Leola, in honor of Capt. Haynes' daughter. Carl Schuchardt mentioned elsewhere, was among the first settlers. Charles N. Herreid, coming to Aberdeen from Wisconsin on legal business, fell under the spell of the frontier prairie and located a squatter's claim in McPherson County in 1883. He was a leading spirit in the organization of the county and became its first clerk and register of deeds and later governor of South Dakota from 1901-1903. A literary homesteader who later became famous, was Hamlin Garland. He joined several who went from Ordway to stake claims in McPherson County in 1883. Travelers making the "correction-line" jog, as they enter McPherson County from the south on State 45 are less than a mile east of the old Hamlin Garland homestead. His shack is no longer standing and its site on the level prairie is not marked. His claim (SW 1-4 of Sec. 32, twp. 125, range 67) was about nine miles south of Leola, and five miles west of his father's store, which was situated close to the line in Edmunds County. On September 29, 1885, county records show, Hamlin Garland paid $17.13 taxes to the treasurer at Leola, the assessed valuation of his land being $575. In the claim shanty, Garland, who became the author of 24 or more books including poetry, short stories, biography and fiction, scribbled notes on the four walls from floor to ceiling wherever space was available. Having proved up on his homestead, Garland went to Boston in 1884 to continue his schooling. He was employed in the Boston School of Oratory the next year. During 1885-89 he taught classes in English and American literature and lectured on Browning, Shakespeare, the drama, and other subjects. His first book, _Main Traveled Roads,_ published in 1890, marked him as a writer of frankly realistic fiction. Later publications made Garland noted for his vigorous portrayal of midwestern life with a strong local color. _A Daughter of the Middle Border_ won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1921, and at the time of his death in 1940 he was called the "Dean of American Letters." Garland's stay in McPherson County' though brief, added to his fund of experience which found expression through his ready pen. Writing about his life on this claim he said, "In truth, while it was a very beautiful country in early spring, it was all very bleak and bare for the most of the year and all the buildings were impermanent......I lived through several terrific blizzards there....One of my poems, _The Cabin_ exactly describes my life on this claim in the midst of a savage storm...." My cabin cowers in the onward sweep Of the terrible northern blast; Above its roof the wild clouds leap And shriek as they hurry past. The snow waves hiss along the plain, Like hungry wolves they stretch and strain They race and romp with rushing beat; Like stealthy tread of myriad feet They pass the door. Upon the roof The icy showers swirl and rattle. At times the moon, though far aloof, Through winds and snows in furious battle Shines white and wan within the room-- Then swift clouds dart across the light, And all the plain is lost to sight; The cabin rocks, and on my palm The sifted snow falls, cold and calm God! What a power is in the wind! I lay my ear to the cabin-side To feel the weight of those giant hands; A speck, a fly in the blasting tide Of streaming, pitiless, icy sands;-- A single heart with its feeble beat-- A mouse in the lion's throat-- A swimmer at sea--a sunbeam's mote In the strength of a tempest of hail and sleet! Garland's _A Son of the Middle Border_ gives a complete description of his life in McPherson County. It contains these lines which express a sentiment felt by many residents of the county: "A lonely task it is to plow! All day the black and shining soil Rolls like a ribbon from the mold-board's Glistening curve. All day the horses toil, Battling the savage flies, and strain Their creaking single-trees. All day The crickets peer from wind-blown stacks of grain." Many have read and enjoyed Garland's _Old-Fashioned Threshing on the Prairie_ published in one of his short story collections, and now copied in school texts as an example of good literature. MAKING A HOME THE EXPERIENCE of a pioneer family may be taken as typical of the pioneer life common to many McPherson County homesteaders. It was evening in the spring of 1886, and it was raining when this Russo-German pioneer arrived at his claim in the western part of McPherson County. He stopped his weary oxen with an emphatic, "Ho!"--emphatic because it carried in it the consciousness of an end and a beginning: an end to a long journey, a beginning of the process of building permanently on the prairie. No sooner had the wheels of the wagon ceased rolling than two boys bounded off into the wet grass which stood knee high over this lakeside knoll that was destined to be their playground. Not having the typical covered wagon, this family removed the endgates, took their things from the wagon, lifted the box off, and turned it upside down in the grass. A canvas was then stretched over the running gears and fastened to one side of the wagon box a few feet away. This formed a temporary shelter where the family, collecting their few household possessions, had a lunch and made their night camp. The boys on hands and knees crawled to their beds under the wagon box. The parents slept between the front wheels, their feet extending beneath the canvas covered wagon tongue. In weeks following, sod was broken, part of it being used for building, the remainder planted to crops. In building their sod shanty, the pioneers cut two rows of sod strips some 12 inches wide and laid them close to one another to mark the outline of the house and serve as the bottom layer of the walls. The next layer, consisting of strips the same width and about twenty-four inches long to match the thickness of the wall, was laid crosswise, thus acting as a binder. In this manner layer was placed on layer. After the walls had been built to the desired height, timber from the Missouri River was hewn to provide the top plate and rafters. Across these were laid rushes, which in turn were covered with 12x18-inch pieces of sod, turned roots up. The material used in setting the windows and making the doors was chosen carefully. The finished sod shanty had two rooms--the family lived in one, the oxen in the other. A little later the family chose another site a few rods away for the farmstead. New buildings were necessary. But their nearest lumber yard was about 60 miles away, and therefore raw building materials of the prairie were used. A mudhole was improvised by pouring water on the ground and driving horses around in it. When the mud was of the proper consistency, straw was sprinkled ahead of the horses on top of the mud. The horses continued to tramp until the mud and straw were thoroughly mixed. In this way a substitute for concrete was provided. This straw and mud was used as mortar between the stones gathered from the prairies, as the thick outer walls and partitions were built for the house, barn, and other outbuildings. In one of the walls the chimney rose vertically from near the ground through to beyond the roof. Around the lower end of the chimney the pioneer father built the stove, the side and rear walls of which were constructed of carefully selected smooth stone, so that the interior surface could easily be cleaned. The stove stood about 30 inches high from the floor. In the front wall was an opening about 14x16 inches through which fuel was passed. A block of dried mud fitting closely into the opening served as a door. To form the top of the stove, two pieces of wood were mortised together at right angles and laid upon the walls. The wood was then plastered with straw and mud to a thickness that prevented it from burning and the four squares formed were rounded with mud in such a manner that when completed the top of the stove resembled a modern four-hole range. Pots, pans, or smooth flat stones were kept over the holes when fire was burning in the stove. The pioneer mother mixed dough in a wooden trough about 18 inches long, hollowed from a section of a 12-inch tree. After the last kneading, the dough was placed in large bread pans. When it was about ready for baking a hot fire was built with hay or any available fuel. This was kept burning until the rocks and mud in the walls and top of the stove became hot. Then the fire was raked from the stove and the interior walls thoroughly cleaned. The bread tins were placed inside and the door closed. When biscuits were desired, small dabs of dough were thrown against the inside walls to bake. Many say that they never tasted better bread and biscuits than were baked in the homemade stoves of pioneer times. Butter for the bread was churned in a two-gallon can, when the family was fortunate enough to have cream. In one instance a lone cow supplied three families for the first two winters. During the first few weeks a near-by lake supplied the water necessary for livestock and domestic use. But a nearer water supply was desirable and the pioneer set about digging a well. Wells were sometimes located by the "witching" method. Prominent among those who "witched" for water was James Hart, who on the morning of May 10, 1883, with his daughter sitting beside him, drove to his claim in eastern McPherson County with two oxen, a mule, a horse, a breaking plow, seed corn, potatoes, beans, and garden seed. He made camp "witched" a well with a forked willow, dug it, and watered his breaking team before his daughter had called dinner. It took little digging to reach the water vein his willow had pointed out in this flat land, affectionately called "Old Gumbo Flat." Water in western McPherson County was seldom available at a depth less than 25 to 30 feet, and to dig a well that deep without a rigging to haul up the dirt was a problem. A man could not, of course, throw the dirt twenty feet above his head. The resourceful pioneers met the difficulty as follows: When the excavation had proceeded so far that the digger could no longer throw the dirt to the top, a ledge was excavated in a side wall at the proper height and another worker stationed there as a relay. With a relay of three workers, a well could be dug to a depth of 25 to 30 feet, or deeper if necessary. The new arrivals had little money, none in fact, to buy furniture with; but a few simple tools and skilled hands solved this problem. From a load of wood gathered near the Missouri River, a log one foot in diameter was selected. This was split through the center. Each of its halves was then held on edge while a two-inch slab was split off the outside, thus forming from the central part of the log, two rough planks some 12 feet long, about one-foot wide, and four inches thick. These were dressed with adz and broad-ax to planks nine inches wide and about four inches thick. From these were sawed four 5-foot lengths which were fastened together edge to edge, with wooden pegs driven into holes bored into the edges. A table top 3x5 feet was now assembled and ready for the four augur holes which pierced it at a slight angle, about eight inches from each corner. Into these, four round poles of suitable diameter and about 40 inches long were driven tightly to serve as legs. The table resting on one edge was then dragged through the doorway. The legs were dug into the dirt floor about 8 inches to make the table stand at the proper height and make bracing unnecessary. The two scrap ends left from the two 12-foot planks were rounded off and dowelled together to form a chair bottom about 18x18 inches. Four holes were bored at an angle through this bottom so that the tree-limb legs would flare out and prevent the crude, backless chair from tipping too easily. Two benches, to stand alongside the table, were then made according to a similar pattern, but of lighter material. These were five to six feet long by 10 inches wide, and about 20 inches high. In making a bed, two 4x8 planks were fashioned from a log about 13 feet long and sawed two pieces about five and a half feet long, and two pieces seven and a half feet long. These four pieces were sawed in about six inches back from each end. Pieces were split from these ends until a round shaft about six inches long and two inches in diameter extended from the squared shoulders at each end of the plank From what was to be the top and inside of each of the long side pieces, a part about equal to a 2x2-inch strip was adzed away, to form a shoulder on which the ends of the slats might firmly rest. Four poles, four or five inches in diameter, were next sawed to suitable length for head and foot posts. Two holes, one above the other and crossing at right angles, were bored with augurs through each leg about 18 inches from the bottom end. At one end of each hole the post was cut flat with the ax to accommodate the ends of the side and end pieces. The slats were then made of lighter material, and the different parts carried inside the house. The shaft points of the end and side pieces were pushed through the posts and wooden pegs were driven through them to hold the square shoulders tightly against the posts. Lastly the slats were fitted and the bed was ready for the canvas tick filled with hay. The making of the davenport required even more skill. An armful of short, thin boards was used for the bottom and cross slats. Upright corner boards, the front and back supports, and the braces were turned from green logs. When the uprights were braced, they looked much like two sets of runners for a large bobsled. These were set up runner side in, one at each end, and pinned to the back and end supports which resembled the side pieces of the bed. However, they were shorter and stood closer together. The cross slats were whittled to even widths and fitted along the bottom and over the arms of the davenport. Two-inch spaces were left between slats. Two or more one-inch boards nailed along the back completed this crude, yet very serviceable resting place. Later, just a few rods to the west of the rock house, they built a frame house. Their moving into this more modern structure marked the third forward step in the process of building, their home growing better with each change. The prairie was now more thickly settled and the family units lost the sharp identity that had characterized them in the 1880's. Each had become a part of a closely welded community. Two miles from the old homestead, one of the sons built a huge stucco house and two big barns, installing an electric light plant that served all the buildings. Sitting on a mohair davenport and speaking further about early times and pioneer conditions, he said: "Soon the windlass came into use, making well digging easier and safer . . . . "Very few could boast of a kerosene lamp. The typical prairie lamp was a rag wick smeared with lard and twisted into a saucer of lard or butter. Lard in the lamp meant no lard for food. On the other hand, lard for food meant long winter evenings by stove light or in darkness . . . . "Markets were far away and money was scarce. Our closest market for milled flour was 60 miles distant. This trip the farmers usually made twice each winter. For or five men, seeking supplies for perhaps eight families, would go with one team of oxen or, if the trails were drifted deep with snow, on skis of their own making, pulling boxes on skis behind. "They brought back along with the flour real coffee and other articles of food, common now, but then very rare, and luxuries indeed. The pioneer, in the place of coffee, often used barley, browned in the oven and ground by rolling a round bottle over it. Real coffee was saved for Sunday or other holidays and when visitors came. It was never used more than twice a week on the average. Barley was also ground into flour. Prunes were a delicacy we had even less seldom than coffee. "The medium of exchange that the pioneer would lay on the counter was often a bag of choice kernels of wheat which he had cradled and flailed, cleaned and separated, not as we do now with the modern fanning mill but by throwing the flailed wheat against the wall with a shovel. The heavy grains would rebound farther and fall behind the lighter ones. They were then scooped into a bag. "Few saw much real money in those days. I remember that father, in order to capture some of the elusive dollars, walked back over the trail down which the oxen had brought us, a distance of about 260 miles. He got work digging cellars at $1.20 per day and we were getting rich." THREADS OF THE PATTERN ON MARCH 6,1884, a bitterly cold day, five McPherson County homesteaders--Charles N. Herreid, Henry Z. Moulton, John Darlington, W. W. Cornwall, and S. P. Hardenbrook--who were spending the winter at Ordway in Brown County drove across the snow-covered prairies, and gathered in John Darlington's shanty, (NE 1-4 sec. 36, township 125, range 67). Around a sheet-iron stove, which they had taken along, they shivered through an orderly meeting. Business began with Moulton and Darlington presenting certificates of appointment as commissioners, sent by the Secretary of Dakota Territory. John W. Dow, who also was appointed a commissioner by Governor Nehemiah Ordway, was absent, but the organization proceeded without him. With Moulton as chairman and Herreid as clerk, the group named the county officers. The hour was too late to complete the work in hand, so the meeting was adjourned to convene at 9:00 o'clock the next morning. At that time the task of organization was resumed and carried to completion. The minutes of this meeting, in Herreid's handwriting, are now on file at Leola, and show the appointment of the following officers: Register of Deeds and Clerk, C. N. Herreid; Sheriff, Shannon P. Hardenbrook; Assessor, Joseph Worth; Judge of Probate, Wendell W. Cornwell; Surveyor, Capt. E. D. Haynes; Treasurer, E. W. Howell; Coroner, Z. Spitler; Superintendent of Schools, Wm. A. Broadhurst; Justices of the Peace, Henry Hoover, Andrew Williams, Bela E. Dexter; Constables, John M. Hooker, Wm. Roberts, and George Kemp. Sometime after the first organization meeting, a question arose concerning the legality of the appointment of the three commissioners by the governor. Though the Secretary of the Territory had certified their appointment, Governor Ordway had failed to send them credentials. The commissioners were thus not legally in service until the second organization meeting, three months later, at which time the commissioners were supplied with the proper credentials. There was no change in the list of county officials with the exception of the appointment of D. B. Strait as Superintendent of Schools, W. A. Broadhurst having declined to serve. As railroads had not yet reached McPherson County, the earliest settlers came in ox- and horse-drawn wagons. Early west-end settlements were made by George J. Heib, Jacob Homan, George G. Neuharth, Frank Fink, Adolph Meidinger, Henry Schnabel Sr., Johann Schnabel, and others who arrived in 1884. By July 1885, caravan after caravan was rolling into the county, and the population nearly doubled between July 1885 and June 1886, according to an item in the _Aberdeen News_ of June 25, 1886. Russo-Germans, Scandinavians, English, Irish, and other foreign groups heard from afar the cry of wheat land being opened for homesteading. From Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, from southeastern Dakota, came people seeking free land where wheat could be turned into gold. Some obtained but one quarter section, while others acquired preemptions and timber claims in addition to homesteads. Of the many squatters who had come into the county before the completion of the survey in 1884, some found it necessary to move their shanties in order to conform with the newly established boundaries. This was, as a rule, a simple matter, since most of the shelters were of a rudimentary nature. Many built better homes when they were permanently located. The greater percentage of settlers who came to eastern McPherson County in 1882 and 1883 represented nationalities of northern Europe. They were of a generation born in the United States. In western McPherson, the Russo-Germans, coming from south Russia, far outnumbered other nationalities. Trainload after trainload reached Eureka between 1887 and 1893. Their ancesstors [sic] were Germans who left Alsace-Lorraine and the Black Forrest [sic] regions because of disturbed economic conditions of their native country following the Napoleonic Wars. They settled in the vicinity of Odessa, Russia, upon the invitation of Alexander I, who offered them political autonomy, religious liberty, freedom to use their own language, and exemption from military duty. Before migrating to America, these Germans had lived in Russia for three generations. Adhering closely to the agreement of Alexander I, they had maintained their racial integrity, had continued to wear their somber black apparel, a distinct contrast to the gay dress of the Russian peasant, and had kept their language almost pure. The original allotment of of the Russian crown land had grown too small to support the increasing population. This was not a pleasant fact, and when the Russian government further provoked the German colonists by decreeing that henceforth they would be subject to military duty and that the Russian language must be taught in their schools, many decided to leave Russia. The prospect of free land brought thousands of them to Dakota Territory. Many Russo-Germans came to Eureka through the influence of an early banker and real estate dealer, Charles Pfeffer, who owned the first flour mill at Eureka and became one of the county's wealthiest men. Pfeffer milled a carload of flour and enclosed a printed card in each sack, billing the shipment to Odessa, where it was distributed among his old friends. When they read the cards telling of the opportunities which awaited settlers coming to McPherson County, those who could made arrangements to come. Later he gave many 160-acre tracts of his land for the benefit of the schools, and several districts in the county today write in their ledgers "Income from the Pfeffer Fund." A study of the 1935 State Census reveals how decidedly the Russo-German immigration influenced the ancestry statistics of McPherson County. The census report shows that of 8,652 persons in the county, 5,893 claimed German ancestry, 1,974 indicated American ancestry, 254, Russian. There were 68 persons of English ancestry, 66 Norwegian, 58 Irish, and 40 Swedish. The same census shows that of the 8,652 persons in the county, 6,484, or 76.5 percent were born in South Dakota, and 1,036 were born in other States of the Union, making a total of 7,520, or 86.9 percent native born. McPherson County had a foreign-born population of 13.1 percent in 1935 as compared to 7.4 percent foreign-born in the State as a whole. In 1890 there were 3,502 foreign-born residents in the county but by 1935 this figure was reduced to 687. LEOLA BURNS AND REBUILDS McPHERSON COUNTY'S first town was Koto, founded in the spring of 1883. It had a toy balloon growth, but was quickly passed by its rival, Leola, which was started a few weeks later. During Koto's brief existence it had board sidewalks, two land offices, two stores, a large hotel, a post office, two printing offices, a blacksmith shop, a schoolhouse, and several dwelling houses. Principal booster of Koto was a native of Indiana, Zachery Spitler, promoter, builder, and locater, who filed on land one-half mile east of Koto. From the time of its founding in 1883, Leola grew rapidly. Early Leola leadership centered around Charles N. Herreid who managed to have Leola, seven miles southwest of Koto and about 40 miles northwest of Aberdeen, chosen the county seat by popular vote at the first county election in 1884. The young settlement soon bad a town pump, a number of frame buildings with false fronts and scroll-saw trimmings, board walks, and a busy Main Street. It retained these characteristics until April 2, 1889. The _Aberdeen News_ of April 4, 1889, summed up the situation in terse fashion: "Leola, the county seat of McPherson County, and the once thriving town of nearly 300 souls is in ashes--the victim of a of a [sic] fierce prairie fire driven by a strong wind Tuesday." During the following years Leola staged a come-back. It became the heart of a great cattle industry, marketing thousands of head of fine cattle. Brick and stone were used in building structures more permanent than those of pre-fire days. Since then Leola has twice faced the prospect of losing the county seat to Eureka through elections. In 1892 Leola won the right to retain the honor by a margin of only four votes. It was said that wily east-enders drove by team and sled to Hillsview through a snowstorm and falsely reported the election postponed, deceiving enough west-end voters to give Leola's supporters victory. This may have provoked a reported west-end attempt to steal the courthouse records. So ntense was the feeling that a group of men from Eureka hatched a plot to gain possession of the county records. The plan included the leaving of the vault unlocked, and other details that would have made the coveted records readily accessible to the plotters. However, news of the plot leaked through to Leola's watchful citizenry. Men waited, armed with shotguns. The sleighs and bobsleds which Eureka had sent to transport the records across the snow- blanketed prairies were driven into a farmyard west of Leola. The plotters entered the house intending only to warm themselves, but they found such excellent liquids and such gracious hospitality that their conquest was forgotten. In 1900 the question of county seat location was revived. Eureka repeated its offer of 1892 which would give the county a 99-year lease of its city hall at $1.00 a year. Further, it appropriated $1,000 to remodel the building in the event of the removal of the county seat to Eureka. The west section outvoted the east section of the county but failed to obtain the required two-thirds majority necessary to effect removal. Thus Leola remained the permanent location of the county seat. With a present population of about 800, Leola is a thriving town, surrounded by productive grazing land and tilled fields. Its water tower forms a landmark, and modern homes, fine schools and churches, one railroad, and two highways indicate a modern, progressive town. The highways are State 10 running through town east and west and State 45 which enters the town from the south, and unites with State 10 westward for twenty-four miles. Federal assistance has enabled Leola to build a mile of oil pavement for its principal street, and a dam that formed Lundquist Lake, a 19-acre fish-stocked body of water that is surrounded by a splendid park. Mrs. C. N. Herreid, wife of former governor Herreid, recalls the growth and development of Leola since she left her home in Wisconsin, June 15, 1884, to find a new home in Dakota territory. Her recollections are as follows: "Mr. Herreid had come out on legal business for a man in Winona, Minnesota in 1883. He became interested in the new county, McPherson, and stayed to help lay out the county seat, Leola. "The next year, 1884, I joined my husband. I was interested in the newness of all the surroundings, and enthusiastic in doing my part. Our modest little frame building in Leola did duty for a time as both office and residence. We had a country residence also, a preemption claim a mile and a half northeast of town, where we spent some of our time. The best vegetable garden we ever had in this state grew that summer of '84 on new breaking. Mr. Herreid filed on a tree claim also north of town. Our homestead rights were never used. "Mr. Herreid was appointed the first Register of Deeds for the new county, one of his duties being to transcribe all its records from those of Brown County with the county seat at Columbia. This with his regular work as Clerk, Register of Deeds and practicing lawyer, kept us very busy with necessary as well as congenial duties. Many a midnight, during the next two or three years, found us both over our books. "In 1886, we built a residence in the western part of town. We also constructed a barn for our driving horse. "The people of Leola, desiring schools, churches and other elements of civilization, had them in full operation by this time. One of the 'lares et penates' of my western migration was a cottage organ, which often was taken to the schoolhouse or other places for religious exercises. "In 1888 came the Great Blizzard! Our personal experience was not different from that of others except for a strong current of electricity which made it a problem to feed coal into our big 'base burner'. However, we found a way, as we always did in a tight pinch. "Then in '89 we experienced the terrors of the Great Fire! Seeing the little town almost wiped out, making the people homeless, some penniless, was an experience that can only be realized by meeting it face to face. "Looking back to that time, now, I believe that living through those two disasters had made me stronger in meeting the greater trials of life. "After the blizzard and the fire the town languished. Many returned to their former homes. We 'stood by' until the early 90's, then regretfully moved away when it seemed the only thing left to do. We never lost interest in the town. When the M. & St. L. finally built their extension to Leola no one was more pleased than we, and when the new Court House was built free of debt, we were on hand to assist in the celebration. I feel something of the pride of a parent in the county's growth and advancement." In 1928 the new courthouse at Leola was dedicated; and in 1934 Leola held a three-day celebration, June 11-13, in observance of the Golden Jubilee of its founding. EUREKA, NOTED WHEAT MARKET IN 1887, four buildings, each housing a family and a pioneer business concern, huddled on section 36 just east of the newly-laid tracks of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad. Another building stood west of the tracks. These five composed the town. To the people living near it was St. Petersburg, but to the outside world it was merely the town at the end of the tracks. The fifth building, the only one west of the tracks, was the claim shanty of A. G. Bernard, who homesteaded on the SW quarter of sec. 35, twp. 127 north, range 73. He proved up on his claim and sold it to the Milwaukee Land Company, which platted the land as an original town site and named it Eureka. Captain Hopkins selected the name and land commissioners approved it Friday, July 29, 1887. Although not platted until October 3, 1887, Eureka greeted its first train on the 27th day of July of that year. In the meantime, people who were desirous of purchasing lots and establishing business places and residences had to wait. However, rapid growth and fame were ahead for Eureka, which spread quickly westward, building mainly on the quarter Bernard had homesteaded. Trainloads of German immigrants from Russia unloaded there, some to start up business ventures or to work in town, others to go out, break the prairie, produce wheat, and cart it back to this end-of-the-track town. Overjoyed that the railroad had brought a convenient marketing outlet, settlers came immediately to Eureka and began dumping their sacks. Oxen plodded in and out, horses labored in and trotted out, oxcarts and wagons creaked in under loads of fat, tightly stretched white grain sacks, and rattled out with a supply of eatables and other necessities. Seeding, harvesting, and hauling wheat was the major occupation of hundreds of pioneer men and women. In October and November, 1892, the stream of wheat boosted the Eureka railroad station earnings to some $100,000 for each month--more than that of any other station on the entire Milwaukee system. Two hundred men, representing some forty-two grain buying concerns, worked in day and night shifts to handle the three or four million bushels of sacked grain that poured in during the harvest season. Eureka maintained that it was the greatest primary wheat market in the world! This was the peak year of the 15-year period between 1887 and 1902, when wheat was the principal source of income. In the 1890's Eureka presented a busy scene. Grain carts and wagons crowded into Main and Market Streets, farmer called to farmer, oxen bellowed, horses neighed, boys danced by the teams they were watching while waiting their turn to unload. Footsteps echoed along the high board walks, overhung here and there with board awnings projecting from the store buildings. Business men and merchants displayed their merchandise and urged their bargains--all eager to get a share of the nearly two million dollars' worth of business that was transacted annually in Eureka. With its hustle and bustle, the Eureka of the 1890's was a decent little town. The grain haulers, composing by far the largest proportion of the visiting population, were peaceable. They would buy lunch and beer, visit, spend a little time looking up friends, and call it a day. Many made it a practice to call on the minister when in town. It was a common sight to see six or eight ox teams and wagons leaving town each tied to the wagon in front. The men often rode in the front wagon with a keg of beer, which on the long journey home they enjoyed along with their songs, stories, and visiting. On the whole, there was little drunkenness and almost no gambling. Fights took place occasionally, but not often. The most notorious conflict occurred when the battle was on for the location of the State capital in 1889. Two factions lined up in Eureka and staged something like a riot. This resulted in the mobbing of a saloon keeper and the cleaning out of his saloon, because the winning side did not like what he said about the capital question. When the Soo Railroad came west to Pollock, competition forced the Milwaukee to extend its tracks northwest to Linton, North Dakota. The extension of the two roads diverted a large percentage of trade to the new towns which sprang up, and by 1902 Eureka was no longer the great primary wheat market it had been for a period of years. The Eureka of today offers a startling contrast to the Eureka of pioneer days. Trees have pushed their branches above the telephone wires. Eureka Lake, formed by damming the overflow of an artesian well, covers 44 acres. Scores of boys and girls learn rowing, diving, and swimming, and spend their summer evenings and Sunday afternoons in a pleasant environment of trees, a bridged island, a sanded bathing beach, and a boat dock. There are also tennis courts and a ball park. Band concerts take place in the city park which has been beautified with a rock-fence enclosure. Concrete walks have taken the place of the old board walks, and the streets have been gravelled--some oiled. Farm trucks roll up elevator approaches and onto large scale platforms which may be tilted to let the grain pour from truck boxes into large elevator hoppers and thence into bins or directly into the cars. How different from pioneer times when sacked grain was rolled from ox carts and wagons up cleated planks often to be handled again and again before being finally deposited in the freight cars for shipping. Eureka is the largest town in the county. It had an estimated population of 1,500 in 1940. It has a community hospital, a community fairgrounds, and State Experimental Farm, established by act of the State legislature in 1907. Its first crops were planted in 1908. In 1910 Edward Isaak and J. A. Gardner, manager of the Dakota Central Telephone Office in Eureka, and Dr. J. O. Kraushaar built equipment and established Eureka Wireless Station 9 PI. The station was closed during the war, but was reopened and remained active for some time. Because of adverse economic and crop conditions, the Campbell-McPherson Bi-County Fair has not been held for several years; and the Eureka Lutheran College--a vital factor in the upbuilding of the community from the time of its dedication in 1910--moved to St. Paul in 1933 and merged with another college of the same denomination. On March 18,1929, the Eureka Community Hospital was opened. In 1937 Eureka held a three-day celebration, June 16-18, in observance of the Golden Jubilee of its founding. OTHER TRADE CENTERS TALL grain elevators loom on the horizon to mark the locations of smaller towns--Hillsview, Greenway, Wetonka, and Long Lake. Hillsview, so named because of the hills surrounding it, is on the Milwaukee Road about nine miles south of Eureka. It was founded in 1887 and grew up much as did other small prairie towns, its first building being a combined railroad station and section house. The principal reason for the existence of this town of 133 people is that it is a shipping point for grain and live stock between Eureka and Hosmer. Men from Hillsview and vicinity worked on various WPA projects improving streets and highways and building a dam which will provide an artificial lake for the community. A school, churches, stores, and service stations help meet the needs of the people. Greenway, in common with Hillsview and Eureka, is visited by two Milwaukee mixed trains each week day. It lies at the crest of a rather steep railroad grade a few rods east of the Campbell County line in the northwestern part of McPherson County. It was founded in 1902 when the Milwaukee Road extended its tracks north from Eureka. Jacob Lutz, the first inhabitant, started the first grocery store. When the town had increased to a total of four houses, a bank, and a store, it experienced a shortage of water. The Soo Railroad offered to move Greenway to Madra, about a mile north, where good water was plentiful and where the Soo Line tracks crossed those of the Milwaukee. Milwaukee Railroad officials, however, promised to drill an artesian well if the town stayed where it was. The town remained and water was obtained at the cost of $8,000. A huge water tank was built; but because of an alkali content and an offensive taste, the water was not suitable for locomotives or for home use, and the well was soon abandoned. The problem of a plentiful water supply remained unsolved until 1935, when a large surface well was dug as a WPA project. In normal times many carloads of grain and livestock are shipped from Greenway annually. Since Greenway is so close to the west edge of the school district, its schoolhouse stands a half mile east of town to accommodate pupils living in the eastern part of the district. Greenway, with a population of 100, has several churches, stores, service stations, and a post office, as well as the characteristic grain elevators. Even Madra, which is near the North Dakota State Line at the junction of the Soo and Milwaukee railroads, and is populated only by the one family which lives in the depot, has its grain elevator. A coal shed and stock pens are the only other improvements left, though at one time there were eight buildings, including a store with hotel accommodations, a cream station, and two houses. The first resident was John Lyer. Bill Jahraus built the first store and Gottlieb Nase had the first livery stable and cream station. Once called Barbara, Madra got its new name during the World War. Wetonka, a town of 100 people, was established in 1906, the same year that the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad's branch line was completed between Aberdeen and Leola. Railroad officials chose the name "Wetonka," a Sioux Indian word meaning "great" or "promising," from a list submitted by Doane Robinson, the State historian. The townsite is on the homestead of George Kirman, fourteen miles southeast of Leola. E. B. Friel, for many years postmaster and known locally for his poetry, built the first residence in Wetonka. This house served also as a postoffice until it burned in 1910. The Wetonka public school was founded in 1907, when two schoolhouses were moved in from the country; and Mrs. Will Leighty was hired as the first teacher. The present brick school building was constructed in 1911 and the town was incorporated in 1916. Unusual for a town of its size is the water system built in 1919 at a cost of $39,000, which provides running water for school, homes, and business places. In 1914-15 Wetonka, favorably situated on a plain abounding with grouse and prairie chickens, was the scene of the All American Great Western Field Trials. Moses H. Bantz, an Aberdeen insurance man, served as secretary. Prominent sportsmen from many parts of the United States and Canada brought bird dogs of various breeds to be loosed in pairs and scored on their ability to find and hold birds. For approximately ten years valuable dogs were brought to this vicinity for training. A decade ago there was much business and social activity at Wetonka. A missionary society, Pioneer Club, Ladies Aid, Parent-Teachers' Association, Woodmen, Yeomen, Odd Fellow and Rebecca lodges were well attended. With the coming of poor crop years, business fell off, hard times curtailing such activities. In one lodge the members still pay their dues but they have no local meetings. Another lodge has been dissolved locally and members have transferred to lodges in the larger towns. However, Wetonka citizens, in common with those of other small towns, are holding on and carrying on school and church affairs. A few good crops, would revive other activities. Long Lake, a town with a population of 121, was founded in November, 1920, by John C. Schaffer, a McPherson County homesteader. He bought a quarter of land from another homesteader, Jacob Maier, and at his own expense hired R. B. Easton, a surveyor, to lay out a part of it in lots. Long Lake was named for a small country post office then located about a mile and a half northeast of the present town. The post office had been named for the lake by that name which is about two miles west of town. Jacob Heyd Sr. was the first retired farmer to move into Long Lake. Several things delayed the town's growth. Until the coming of the railroad, about eight years after its founding, the post office was not in town. The nearest railroad station, Leola, was 22 miles away. All merchandise bad to be hauled by teams. In winter, when weather and roads were bad, it often took two days to make a round trip to Leola, and during wet summers, trips were often postponed for days on account of soft roadbeds. Late in 1925, railroad men looked the country over hoping to extend tracks from Leola to Long Lake, but the total crop failure of 1926, and resulting bank failures, discouraged them. In 1927 there was a bumper crop and work was begun organizing the farmers and soliciting funds. Late in the fall the original plat of Long Lake was resurveyed and enlarged by the Woodbery Engineers of Minneapolis, and a town site company known as the Dakota Town Site Company was organized. In the fall of 1928, the Mandike Construction Company of Minneapolis started laying the steel, but the railroad was not finished until November 26, 1929. It was on that day that the Long Lake people heard the first rail locomotive whistle of a train coming to their town, that of an M. & St. L. special from Aberdeen. It was a big day for the people of that community, when the Golden Spike was driven, lots auctioned off, speeches delivered, and music rolled out by the Long Lake band, organized five years before. A building boom followed and Long Lake became the typical little prairie town and shipping point it is today, its graveled streets auxiliary to the graveled roads leading into it. THE PIED PIPER OF LEOLA C. W. HAWES of Leola ran a livery stable in connection with the Leola House in the early days of the city, but he was a born promoter. He was elated when he received a communication from one G. A. Tolbett, 114 Randolph Street, Chicago, appointing him local representative of the Australian Rabbit Extermination Company. The letter outlined the company's plan to exterminate the rabbits in Australia by shipping in live gophers from America. The plan included the inoculation of gophers with a disease fatal to rabbits but harmless to the gophers. Hawes welcomed the opportunity offered him in Tolbett's letter to buy live gophers for the company and hold them until Tolbett should arrive on a specified day to ship them east for inoculation before they were sent to Australia. He therefore inserted the following advertisement at his own expense in the _McPherson County Herald_ of April 23, 1903: 10,000--LIVE GOPHERS WANTED--10,000 We will pay 25c apiece for female and 15c for male gophers delivered at Leola House on May 2, 1903. The Australian Rabbit Extermination Company 114 Randolph St. G. A. Tolbett Gophers were therefore brought in by the hundreds, in containers of all sorts and all sizes. There were buckets covered with screen wire, and wooden boxes and crates nailed shut with screen wire, lath, or wooden slats. Boys and girls, men and women snared gophers with care, for no crippled or harmed gophers were to be accepted. In many instances farm responsibilities were temporarily shoved aside, and whole families were out hoping to get a little ready cash. Sitting anxiously at one end of a string, the hunters were jubilant when an unsuspecting gopher poked its head up through a noose at the other end, which was quickly tightened by a little jerk to capture the small prairie animal. The frame livery barn, covering a large part of a city block, was under the supervision of Hawes. His will was law there. He could store it full of gophers if he wished, and he did. He stacked both sides full of crated gophers all the way to the roof. There was no room left for extra horses, in fact, there was no room left for anything. Some of the boys and girls, anxious or uncertain as to whether they might be there on the appointed day, were willing to take less than the advertised price and sold to Hawes for cash. In some instances town children caught stray gophers which had gnawed their way out and resold them to Hawes. Gophers were plentiful and vendee Hawes handed out his nickels freely. May 2 came. The livery barn was overflowing with gophers. A. Y. Denton, manager of Leola House, which stood near the livery barn, granted many the privilege of stacking their crated gophers on the front porch of the hotel, much to the consternation of his guests. A crowd gathered, waited, grew impatient. Inividuals [sic] threatened vengeance if they had been duped into wasting their time. The day ended. No representative of the Rabbit Extermination Company arrived by stage. The gophers were still on hand. More time passed. There is a difference of opinion about whether or not some of the plumper mothers deposited new litters in the crates. The captive and poorly-fed rodents grew very hungry. Gopher began to eat gopher. Decaying remnants filled the air with a terrible odor, which mingled with an already offensive smell arising from the crated animals. What to do! No word had come from the Rabbit Extermination Company. There was no "River Weser rolling wide" and Leola's Lake Lundquist had not yet come into existence. So instead of leading the gophers out of town to a watery grave, Hawes hacked off lath, ripped off screen wire, and turned them loose on the spot. They swarmed under and over near-by board walks, until people could hardly pass by without stepping on gophers. They spread over town, nibbling off early garden stuff. Hawes lost his investment and whatever popularity he may have had. It was not until long afterward that Leola folk learned that the whole affair was a practical joke played on Hawes by William Cochrane, a young Easterner who had come west for his health and was employed as principal of the Leola schools. Cochrane was suffering from tuberculosis and died a few years later. Before he died, he told his brother, W. L. Cochran, who was superintendent of the Aberdeen public schools while he himself was at Leola, that he was responsible for the ill-fated gopher purchases of Hawes. Through a friend in Chicago he had carried on correspondence with Hawes and persuaded him to insert and pay for the gopher advertisement in the Leola paper. Leola gardeners of 1903 have long since forgotten their wrath over the gophers that ate their gardens. They join with others in many a good laugh at the ridiculous venture. They recall that William Cochrane had considerable dramatic talent and a delightful sense of humor in the several plays in which be appeared while a resident of their town. They also find satisfaction in thinking of the amusement that Cochrane must have experienced in watching the development of the humorous little episode which he had planned and which worked out so successfully. FARMING EXPERIENCES THE lack of ready cash in the early days, coupled with the absence of fast, economical, and convenient transportation, forced numerous settlers into the practice of thrifty principles which have stood them in good stead since. Money came slowly but it also left slowly. Muscle and ingenuity were frequently substituted for expenditures. Farm wages in the earlier years of the county were incredibly small. Daniel D. Opp, a Leola business man, recalls having hired out as a lad of 13 to Daniel Mettler in 1885 for the sum of $10.00 and board for the entire year's work. The following year he felt that he was receiving a tremendous salary when his year's work for a man named Burrer brought him $75.00. Another example of minimum wage for farm labor is cited by Fred A. Reub, who relates that his father worked during the summer of 1884 for an Edmunds County farmer for 25 cents a day, while the family lived on the homestead and added what it could to the income by gathering and selling buffalo bones. The following year, 1885, brought an excellent grain crop and the elder Reub was able to earn four times as much, or $1.00 per day, which is perhaps a representative wage of that time. In the fall of 1883 there were no threshing machines in the county and an ox-hoof threshing resulted from a short conference between Bela Dexter and Carl Schuchardt. A new supply of flour was needed for winter; so the men hitched up their teams and drove to the field after two loads of wheat bundles. Returning, they chose a clean place on the sod near Schuchardt's house and unloaded the bundles, forming as they did so a large circle. The wheat heads were turned in. A yoke of oxen, Jack and Charles, was chosen to trample out the wheat. Peter Schuchardt, then a boy of about seven years, seated in a saddle on Charles, prodded the beasts along and kept them in their proper course until the grain was well trodden out of the heads. The men then shook the trampled mass with forks to settle the wheat, throwing the coarser straw aside. Using shovels they winnowed the grain time after time to separate it from the chaff. From this heap they sacked about 80 bushels of wheat. Dexter hauled it to the mill at Aberdeen, 40 miles away, and brought home the 1,000 pounds of flour it produced. This is believed to be the first wheat taken out of McPherson County, and it was undoubtedly the first threshing done in the county. Both these men won local recognition later: Dexter as a harvester, Carl Schuchardt as a thresher. Dexter owned the first McCormick binder in Koto and Carl Townships. Before the binder was delivered he was required to sign a contract with the McCormick firm to cut all the small grain in Koto and Carl townships. During the harvest season this binder was used 24 hours a day when conditions were favorable. At night there was a lantern to mark the corner where the twine sack lay, a lantern on the lead team, and two or three lanterns on the binder. In one instance, Dexter and his neighbors operated it continuously for 17 days and 17 nights with stops only long enough to change power and men. For the most part, on account of dampness, wheat was cut at night and grains more heavily bladed in the daytime. In the fall of 1884 there was a manpower threshing by 30 or 40 men gathered at Bela Dexter's. They included bachelors, married men who had come to homestead ahead of their wives, and a few who had their wives along. Matthew Brooks, George Kemp, Frank Newman, Zachary Spitzler, James Blair, Frank Mitchell, Steve Kahill, Mike Lynch, and John Haynes were among those who took part in this threshing. These men, anxious for entertainment, came evenings to the Bela Dexter place, and while Mrs. Dexter played the organ, they sang and danced square dances and waltzes. Sometimes they came blackened or painted and in costumes to make themselves look ridiculous. To show that they were appreciative of these happy times, they once chose to do a very unusual thing. They took Carlsgard's threshing machine, pulled it in between two stacks, got it crooked, lifted it over in place, set the horse power, hitched themselves to the doubletrees, and threshed the two stacks, turning out about 220 bushels of grain--all by manpower. Carl Schuchardt's first steam engine was a Huber portable, which was pulled about the country by four oxen. Despite his fear of the steam engine, John Paul, a helper, went everywhere with the threshing machine measuring the grain. One day the engine flues sprang a leak and Bela Dexter was called to repair them. As the men went back and forth, one of them sneaked along an old muzzle-loading gun with a big charge of powder in it. Paul had stationed himself near the separator spout with his half-bushel measures, where it was his duty to level them off with a straight board, so that neither the thresher nor the farmer hiring him would be beaten in the transaction. Dexter had been working for some time and the engine was about ready to start puffing again. One of the men picked up a short piece of flue removed during the repairing and stationed himself near the side of the separator opposite Paul, who had already become nervous because of repeated warnings that the engine might blow up any time. At a signal the gun was discharged and the piece of flue was tossed over the machine, landing near Paul, who raced madly to the straw pile and buried himself. Schuchardt threshed for years. His next power unit was a Huber traction steam engine, said to be the first traction steamer in the county. The summer of 1887, following the poor year of 1886, was dry and hot, and the chance for a crop to mature seemed remote. No credit was available for most farmers and farm produce sold at ridiculously low prices--eggs at five cents a dozen and butter at three cents a pound, if it found a market at all. Subsistance for both man and beast became a serious problem. There was an excellent yield in 1888, and 1887 was forgotten. The price of wheat was good and prosperity seemed assured. A large majority of farmers with oxen thought this a good time to buy horses and although the price ranged from $400 to $500 a team, many did so, mortgaging their land and livestock to finance the deals. The disappointing wheat yields of 1889 and a virtual crop failure in 1890 left the buyers without funds to meet mortgage payments and the security was in many cases lost. During this difficult time, which reached a climax in the early 1890's, food and some clothing was sent to stricken McPherson County farmers, and the Milwaukee Railroad hauled corn and other feed for livestock gratis, in order that farmers might purchase it at the lowest possible price. This dark picture had one bright spot in that horse breeding was developed. Well bred stallions were brought in and breeding horses assumed importance on many farms. It is said that nothing helped win favor with a prospective father-in-law more than a fine team of horses or the knowledge that there were many colts on the suitor's home farm. Because of changing national and international economic conditions, together with adverse weather conditions, farmers ceased to depend solely on wheat for income and raised more oats, barley, corn, alfalfa, hogs, and sheep. C. F. Hargitt, an early settler, had still another source of income from a large orchard containing plum and apple trees, which bore fruit every year from the 1890's until 1933, when because of severe drought the blossoms failed to open. The earlier depressed economic era was replaced by a period of prosperity in the first two decades of the new century. Except for 1911, a bad year, crops were good, and many granaries were filled to overflowing. Excellent herds of beef and dairy cattle were developed and several creameries were built in the county. The price of butterfat was good and nearly every farm received a steady, if not a large, income from cows. In 1920 much livestock was being shipped from the county and farmers decided to save themselves money by forming an organization that could lessen shipping expenses and probably get a better market price than could the individual shipper. The Sioux Falls _Argus-Leader_ of January 16, 1920, carried this item: "Leola.--Livestock shippers of this county have organized the Livestock Shipping Association. Thirty-five farmers and livestock men have joined." Despite the greatly increased numbers of livestock, the county produced more hay than was needed locally. The Sioux Falls _Argus-Leader,_ April 20, 1920, printed the following: "Leola.--Farmers of McPherson County have realized more than $750,000 from their wild hay crop during the past nine months. From this section alone 441 carloads were shipped from September 1, 1919, to April 20, 1920." Poultry also became an important source of cash income, markets for it becoming established in every town in the county. Farmers in general had built good buildings and owned their own equipment, an [sic] a large number were independently wealthy. The prosperous period continued until after the World War, when McPherson County, in common with other northwest communities, was caught in the web of over-expansion that spelled the ruin of many farmers, a number of whom lost part or all of their land. Scant rainfall and the presence of grain disease emphasized the necessity for new varieties of plants and different methods of handling the soil. The activity of the Eureka State Experiment Farm, established in 1907, contributed much to agricultural progress [sic] the county. This agency helped test and select varieties of wheat and other grains which might mature before the ravages of rust and hot winds were likely to occur. It helped in the selection and breeding of quick-growing types of corn, and has kept the farmers of the community posted on new developments in agricultural plants and methods of farming that might assist them. McPherson County was gradually adjusting itself to new agricultural methods and was learning not to exploit the soil, when the depression of the 1930's set in. The necessity for planned conservation was further emphasized by violent dust storms beginning in 1933. The dust blizzard of November 13, 1933, which rolled coarser bits of soil into fence rows and ditches and sent particles of some of McPherson County's finest and richest soil to window sills in Chicago and New York, is an example of how severely the wind may attack the land. Throughout the day the towns of the county were hidden in dense, moving clouds of dust. Streets were lighted and motorists on the highways had to drive slowly with their lights on, or stop entirely when the wind, tearing at a plowed field, moved a mass of dust across the highway, reducing visibility to zero. Meager precipitation, sometimes as low as 11 inches a year, caused a series of new total crop failures beginning with 1933. This period increased distress, and farmers of McPherson, as elsewhere, came to require substantial assistance from Federal sources. This aid saved many of them. Between 1933 and January 1, 1939, McPherson County farmers had received $1,676,264 from Federal farm programs. Payments made in wheat, corn, hog, cattle, sheep, and agricultural conservation programs are represented in this figure. In the late summer of 1939, farm wages were slightly below a normal average, steady farm hands receiving about $1.00 a day, and harvest help about $2.50 a day. Butterfat averaged 20c a pound; eggs brought a little more than 1c each; pork and beef products remained rather steady. Then in early September, 1939, because of increased demand following the outbreak of hostilities in Europe, prices of hogs jumped temporarily about $2 a hundred, and wheat and cattle made a sharp turn upward. Other farm commodity prices will probably improve and result finally in an increase in farm income, wages, and better economic conditions generally throughout the county. The county has established one grass demonstration plot, containing the following varieties: western wheat-grass, slender wheat-grass, crested wheat-grass, Brome-grass, and reed canary grass. This plot is located four and one-half miles north of Eureka on Gus Hausauer's farm. Farmers of McPherson County planted 115 acres of trees during the years 1936-38, and 11,910 trees were planted during 1939. One demonstration tree-planting project is being established on William Lapp's farm southeast of Eureka where the trees were planted on the contour. Under the Soil Conservation program, farmers in the county built 225 dams in 1939. These are small stock-watering dams for the purpose of stabilizing the water supply on the farms. SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES TWO private schools opened in McPherson County in the summer of 1883. One was just south of the State Line, where Ruth Kribs taught in her own claim shanty. The other was in Elias Howell's claim shanty, with Katie Scott as teacher. Mrs. Joe Weber of Forbes, North Dakota, formerly Kate Hart, and half-sister to Ruth Kribs, gives this picture of early schools in McPherson County: "I certainly enjoyed attending our first school which was held in our eldest sister's claim shanty in northern Weber Township, and was taught by Ruth Kribs herself. Katie Scott held school in a shanty somewhere near the Howell ranch in northeastern McPherson that same summer. . . . . "In the fall of '84 school was opened in a public school building in Weber Township, with Irene Brewer as teacher. A dance was given in the new building before the seats were fastened down. I attended though but a child . . . . "We Hart children attended school there for five years, I believe, and at the time Minnie Slye taught, we were the largest school in McPherson County. There were the Webers, the Habermans, the Scotts, the Howells, the Peppers, the Bardens, Floy Mitchell and Maria Aylesworth. We seldom had more than five months of school a year as there was but one school in the center of the township, which necessitated some of us driving four or five miles. This would be impossible during the cold weather. "When I see the rows of cars parked around the schoolhouses today, my memory goes back to the equipages that stood around our schoolhouse. We drove a small pony with a blind eye and a lame leg to a buckboard; Jimmy Shaw drove a team on a hay rake, bringing his sister Nettie and the teacher; the Howell children, all but Brooke, drove a road cart while he rode his pony, Jerry, and herded cattle from school. The Webers drove a blind sorrel mare hitched to a buggy, while Maria Aylesworth drove a yoke of oxen on a wagon, bringing a barrel of water every day for her trusty steeds. The Barden boys rode a flea-bitten white mare with a picket line around her neck, and Floy Mitchell rode her spirited little pony named Dandy. The Habermans, Peppers, and Scotts lived near enough so they could walk and were saved the trouble of caring for horses. "Many of the old schoolmates got right along after leaving the country school. Even Gilbert Scott, who had so little chance in childhood, is now a graduate of the Minnesota State University, and there are two doctors, one lawyer, several electricians, one senator, many teachers, and a bank president or two, who first began their education in the old Weber Township school. "We had excellent teachers in the old school, and many of the old pupils taught there later. Some of them were: Fred and Mayme Weber, Helen Howell, Anna Haberman, Johnnie Hickman, and I taught there one term myself, while two of our oldest daughters taught in a new schoolhouse which was built in later years." The first public school teacher in the county was Irene Brewer, who stayed at the home of Capt. S. P. Howell. Her first term, 1884, lasted three months. One third grade certificate, the first of any sort issued in the county, was granted to Mrs. J. G. Oulson, November 29, 1884, by J. A. Kelley, Koto lawyer, who must have served in the capacity of temporary superintendent prior to the services of D. B. Strait. "How very distinctly I remember our first school," recalls Fred Odenbach. "A young man came and held classes for one month in a sod house." In 1885 township schools were in operation in Weber, Koto, Leola, Washington, and Howard Townships. The school census for that year covering the five townships showed 91 children between the ages of seven and twenty years. The 1938 school census of the same five townships revealed 504 children between the ages of six and twenty-one years. D. B. Strait served as the first officially qualified County Superintendent of Schools. He gave bond on January 5, 1885. Despite the fact that he went about on crutches and his head shook with palsy, he did well. In his first year of service he made 38 visitations to see about organizing new schools and to check those already in operation. Strait, interested in institutes for his teachers, went to Ipswich to meet Superintendent J. W. Parmley of Edmunds County, and they arranged a joint institute for Edmunds and McPherson Counties. This was held at Ipswich, October 6 to 10, 1885. Strait's notes on file at the county seat, Leola, South Dakota, pronounce the institute "a perfect success." Strait gave three public and five private examinations for certificates in 1885, and granted two second grade certficates [sic], good for 18 months; four third grade certificates, good for 12 months; and two probations, good for six months. The first second grade certificate issued in the county was granted to Miss Emma Hickman, April 21, 1885. The first first grade certificate was issued to Miss Emma Hickman, December 21, 1886. In 1885 McPherson County had five schools, five rural teachers, 91 pupils and 220 reported as of school age. In 1938, there were 97 rural schools in operation. There were 102 rural teachers and 1,324 pupils. The rural school census of 1938 listed 3,626 children between the ages of 6 and 21 years. In 1938 two modern school systems of Eureka and Leola had 666 pupils enrolled, including 256 high school students. CHURCHES With regard to the history of church work in McPherson County, Fred Odenbach, a son of one of the earliest pioneers, has this to say: "There were no church assessments. Our earliest church services were held at our homes, usually outside with men sitting on wagon tongues, piles of hay, or on the ground. Many brought dinner along because they had to drive several miles. At first we had no set time or fixed place for our meetings. The one wishing to have services would give the signal by setting a small pile of hay on fire. A quantity of wet hay over this would make plenty of smoke which could be seen for several miles. It was not long before about 15 families went together and built a sod church . . . . . " Reverend Ulrich Reue and his wife, early Christian workers, entering McPherson County in October, 1887, ate their first lunch at Eureka in a new barn where they lived until a house was built for them. Rev. Reue organized small congregations over the county and people came from 40 to 60 miles to attend services. Having no horses of his own, he depended on the farmers to take him across the prairie from one charge to another. In the winter, covered with robes and seated on spring seats fastened to stone boats or in bobsleds, the minister would travel all week, even in sub-zero weather. Mrs. Reue tells of one harrowing experience she had the first summer they lived in the county: "In June of 1888, we experienced our first cloudburst. My husband was not at home. Fred Mohs, our nearest neighbor, lived a mile away. Right when the greatest downpour came, there was such thunder and lightning and I sat on the bed with one of my small sons under each arm. If I had to go, I wanted the children to go with me. "It was not long until the water was running through under the house from one end to the other. The next morning Spring Creek and its branches had overflowed making a large flood of water that looked like a sea. My husband was on the other side of the stream just returning home with another minister who had a horse and buggy. Mr. Mohs came with an ox team and brought my husband and his friend across in safety." Nor was minister Reue's family exempt from the Indian scare of 1890, at which time neighbor told neighbor that the Indians were in open revolt and would no doubt soon be upon them. The Reues packed their most valuable things and went along with others to Eureka. Many of the women and children were sent by train to Aberdeen where they would be safe. Although there was some disturbance on the Rerservation [sic] at this time, the report that the Indians had broken out was false. Women who had planned to bake that day returned in the evening to find the dough undisturbed. Those who had put their nicest things in wells hoping the Indians would not find them had only to draw them out again. According to the 1935 State Census, 7,389 of the 8,652 persons living in McPherson County claimed religious affiliations representing 18 different denominations. THE FOURTH ESTATE ALTHOUGH two newspapers were publiished in McPherson County in 1883, _The McPherson County News_ at Koto, and _The McPherson County Standard_ at Leola, it is difficult to determine which one was published first. There is little doubt, however, that the first paper was printed in Koto, probably in the print shop of James Blair. What was apparently the only existing copy of the first issue of the _McPherson County News_ (said to be dated May 3, 1883) was carelessly destroyed by a courthouse janitor. _The Banner, The Blade,_ and _The Northwest_ were early papers of eastern McPherson County. _The Blade_ and _The Northwest_ were consolidated into _The Northwest Blade_ about 1887 at Leola, and moved to Eureka in October 1893. _The Post_ was an early English newspaper published in Eureka, while _Die Eureka Post_ was printed entirely in German. _The Northwest Blade,_ the only paper published in Eureka today, for years carried a section in Germain [sic]. This practice was discontinued in August, 1936, when F. C. Shankland became publisher. _The McPherson County Herald,_ also entirely English, published in Leola by Henry Artz, is another contemporary newspaper. Only a few words of German were used in _Eureka,_ a historical publication compiled by Eureka's Golden Jubilee Organization, 1937, and edited by L. E. Falk of Aberdeen. However, the Zion Lutheran Church published _Das Goldene Jubilaum,_ 1889-1939, printing the history in German and the statistics in English. A good share of the church and Sunday School literature used in McPherson County is printed in German, mostly as a favor to the older church members who have not learned to read English fluently. TRANSPORTATION EARLY transportation followed trails across the prairie. Long trains of surveyor wagons and caravans of Indians with their creaking Red River carts were a common sight for early settlers. Mail service at that time formed a decided contrast to the daily deliveries of today. Packages which the James Hart family, early homesteaders in northeastern McPherson County, should have received for Christmas, 1882, reached them March 6, 1883. This mail was brought from Ellendale, Hart's share being two two-bushel sacks full. Although the county has two arterial highways and many graded and graveled roads over which some truck service is carried on, no bus company has thought it practical to send a line into the county. There is no direct air service, and the traveling public must enter or leave the county by train, automobile or truck. However, Eureka maintains an airport six miles west of town, built under the CWA program. It is always ready for emergency landings. Eureka leases the land from the State and subleases it to farmers for pasture or hayland. The eastern part of McPherson County waited a long time for railroad accommodations, after the early promises had faded into nothing. When the Minneapolis & St. Louis extended its rails to Leola in December, 1906, the event was celebrated with considerable ceremony. Scores of citizens drove out to meet the first train at some distance from town and hailed it as a Christmas present, since it arrived on Christmas day. Later the rails were extended from Leola to Long Lake by the Mound City & Eastern Railroad Company. This company operated a steam train for some time, but now utilizes a device known as a "road-rail" as motive power. This unusual device, operating from its base at Long Lake, employs a common motor truck as power, the truck being kept on the rails by pilot trucks of flanged wheels. It goes to Leola twice weekly. Less-than-carload freight is loaded into the truck, while carloads up to five are trailed. For all of Leola's joy over rail transportation, the time came when it was to protest the rates on freight as unreasonable. A few years later when the railroad company threatened to abandon the rails between Aberdeen and Leola because the line was unprofitable, the city council of Leola passed a resolution banning commercial motor trucks from the city and pledged all its freight and express to the railroad. Twice-a-day motor truck service for mail, express, and less-than carload shipments and a weekly train for carload shipments now serve Leola and other stations on the line. A star route from Leola to Long Lake provides daily mail service to that point. The western part of the county is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad with a daily train each way except Sunday. A star route also quickens mail service between Eureka and Leola on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. RECALLING THE STORM OF 1888 THE day of January 12,1888, which dawned with a mildness that set snowy eaves dripping and sent men to their morning chores without heavy topcoats, ushered in a period of furious swirling snow, high wind, and low temperatures, considered by many to have been McPherson County's worst blizzard. Bela E. Dexter was out in it all night. He passed within 20 rods of his house, but did not know it until he came upon a plowed field which he recognized as one lying about one half a mile southwest of his homestead. Here he unloaded the coal which he had purchased that morning in Frederick. He continued to drive for some 40 minutes, but even with the load lightened he was unable to persuade his weary team to breast the gale. Turning his horses so the wagon crossed the direction of the wind, he unhitched. He then tied his team facing the wagon box which sheltered them somewhat and busied himself fastening heavy blankets over the horses and wrapping grain sacks around their legs. By his continued activity, he was able to keep both himself and the team from freezing, though he became chilled. With morning came the realization that he was three miles from home. A lull in the blizzard gave him a chance to pick up some of his coal and reach the shelter of his own buildings. When the blizzard struck, Fred A. Reub and his parents were living in Arena Valley in one end of their sod shanty across a partition from the oxen. The storm raged throughout the night, Reub recalls, and when the family awoke at noon the next day they found their house covered with snow and pitch dark. The shanty doors, hung to open outward, were banked shut with heavy snow. The only possible exit was the Santa Claus-sized chimney. Up through this, Reub says, the father climbed. Bringing hay for the oxen and straw to burn, he slid down the chimney, which served as a doorway until the storm raised. A story is told of a Leola teacher who guided her pupils to safety with a clothesline. For a few minutes, however, she lost the way. Then she stumbled into the old town pump and regained her sense of direction. More than 200 lives were lost in this storm. South Dakota's part of the Territory listed 91 deaths, mostly school children. Christian Kaul, a homesteader in what is now North Dakota, was the only person known to die in this storm in McPherson County. He and his nephew, Jacob Meisser, went to visit a neighbor, employing a binder twine guide. On the return trip they discovered too late that the twine was broken. They lost their bearings and drifted southward across the State Line and stumbled against a deserted sod shanty in McPherson County. Kaul requested his nephew to put him into the old-fashioned handmade stove inside the shanty. Meisser did this but Kaul froze to death. Meisser froze his feet and legs half way to the knees before help came. A number of cattle perished in the county, as most of the pioneers were taking advantage of the spring-like morning and had turned their stock out for water. PRAIRIE FIRE IT SEEMED a simple enough act when Eben Daugherty set fire to a straw pile in the Arena Valley northwest of Leola. It seemed safe enough, too. The buffalo grass which was a foot or so high over most of McPherson County was wet with a drizzle of rain that had settled into snow. There was no fire hazard on this middle-of-March day in 1889. The straw pile blazed bright in the sea of brittle, icy-stemmed grass-blazed bright and charred the surface of the pile to a depth of three feet or more, and then smouldered . . . . . . smouldered for two weeks. In the meantime mild spring winds had melted the snow and ice and the grass stood brown and dry. Then April 2 came the wind, a terrible wind that seemed to dive down and hit the ground hard, then bounce up and dive down again; and so it crossed the prairies, moving at a terrific speed, estimated by some at nearly 80 miles an hour. This wind, so it is thought, dived into the charred stack, scattered the smouldering straw and fanned it to flames, setting a fire that roared, curled and arched over the prairie like a great breaker. Flame points flashed out as far as two rods or more ahead. Farmsteads in the path of the flames were burned, and the little city of Leola suffered almost complete annihilation. Amos Hoffman, then living four miles southwest of Leola, was among those who fought the fire. At times he could hold his ground only by turning his back and lifting his coat collar. The heat singed his hair. His was one of the few places saved. Though the wind blew out all attempts to widen his fire guard, the earlier fire guard, with his assistance, split the fire into two strips which did not again unite until they came near Aberdeen, there to be stopped by the railroad yards and the grades. He later said that he could hardly stand in the wind, and that running with it was like running down a steep hill. One person lost his life. A man named C. W. Old was plowing some distance from his house when smoke and dust darkened the sky. In a facing mixture of smoke, dust, charred grass, sand, and gravel, Old lost his bearings and contact with his ox team. The oxen ran for shelter and after the flames swept by were found standing safely behind the barn on the near-by Breitag farm. Homeless because of the fire, Mrs. Old came trudging across the black prairie with her three children to inquire whether the Arndts, her neighbors, had seen her husband. At that moment Arndt looked south from his dooryard just in time to see a man fall forward. He hurried toward the place with Mrs. Old and two men, Fred Lauman and Metz Earnest, who had given up an attempt to reach Long Lake, because it was almost impossible to prod their oxen along in the terrible storm. When the four reached the stricken man, they saw it was Old, who had fallen forward on his face and elbows. He was terribly burned about the body, and nothing remained of his clothing except a part of his lace boots. Mrs. Old wrapped her apron around the charred form of her husband and the three men carried him into Arndt's home. Arndt hurriedly put some hay in a wagon, and covering it with bedding, placed the dying Old on it and drove him to Leola. When he reached town about five o'clock in the afternoon, the little village was already on fire. Arndt's spirited team was difficult to manage, as flying shingles and embers occasionally fell on the backs of the frightened animals. He left the severely burned Old in the Moulton store, but later the victim was moved to the courthouse, where he died during the evening. Leola men had fought the fire valiantly but were unable to keep the flames from entering the town. There was, of course, no fire protection; therefore to control the fire after some of the buildings were ignited was out of the question, and it is said that about 80 buildings were burned in the little town. Arndt recalls that Leola presented a terrible and dramatic picture in the gathering dusk of that April day. Here and there women stood weeping over the loss of their homes and possessions. Others, under the heavy burden of extra clothing wrapped in sheets, had fled with their children to the south side of the newly built Soo Line Railroad grade, which offered safety from the flames. The Rev. W. G. Hickman stood near the lumber that had been piled beside the foundation for a new church building and saw it consumed by the flames. Later in his writings he paid tribute to the courageous people who bought more lumber and continued with the building of the church, as the town was rebuilt. He wrote of Aberdeen's aid to the stricken city: "Citizens vied with one another in making liberal contributions of all things needed to meet the immediate wants of a sorely afflicted, distressed and suffering community. It was not long until a veritable caravan of teams with heavily laden wagons was wending its way across an expanse of forty miles of prairie in the direction of Leola to overwhelm an entire community in great distress and dire need with the fruits of human kindness and spontaneous generosity." On the second day following the fire, nearly 150 Aberdeen businessmen met at the city hall at 4 p.m., in response to the call of the mayor. Within an hour over $1,000 had been subscribed and many household articles and much food was pledged. Before sundown the contribution headquarters which had been established in the North Western Bank Building, Aberdeen, were "filled with groceries, hats, caps, clothing of all kinds, stoves, beds and bedding, dishes, chairs, etc." . . . . At least four wagon loads of goods were sent to Leola the next day. Jewett Bros. filled one wagon, the Red Front Grocery another, and the other grocery houses, the meat markets, and the feed stores heaped the remaining ones with the choicest articles of food. For many days after the fire, unfortunate people were sheltered in the courthouse and in Moultan's store. Several left the city permanently after this catastrophe. Arndt's loss was one cow and his cap. He had broken a strip 40 rods wide and 160 rods long north of his house. This checked the fire. The cow would have been safe had she not stampeded into the flames. The cap which he had drawn low over his ears was ripped open by the wind and torn from his head. He found the cap unburned about a year after the fire, on another section some distance from his place. On the following day, April 3, there was an aftermath of the fire when the wind changed and blowing from the southwest started a new conflagration on its way northeastward from the Arena Valley. There was no town in its path but the wind blew a gale and some burning cow chips were blown across a "firebreak," and rolled against the banking of the John Weber home. Charles F. Hargitt saw the fire and went to assist Weber. He arrived just in time to see the roof fall in. Dust and smoke became so thick he could not see his home. When a blazing barrel rolled away from the Weber yard scattering fire over the prairie for a half mile or so, Hargitt hurried homeward. A fire guard had saved his home and possessions. This second fire was less disastrous, since it swept over a more sparsely settled region, but it was a new threat to human life and property that brought another day long to be remembered in McPherson County. AROUND THE BANQUET TABLE N JUNE, 1934, the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Leola, the town celebrated its first half-century with a faint nostalgia for the heady, eager days of its youth and a steadfast faith in the years to come. The three-day Golden Jubilee Celebration featured the gathering of all the pioneers on June 12 for a last great dinner together. From California to Connecticut, from Texas to Minnesota, and from all over the State members of the clan gathered. The clan that had been present at the birth of a frontier town, that had helped and directed its first unsteady steps, the pioneer clan that had developed McPherson County was well represented. By 5:30 in the afternoon the banquet registration book contained 338 names, some of them written by hands knarled and shaking with age, and some in a foreign script. These hands had crept over the white, lined sheets writing names of people who were young when Leola was young, and whose names were now about to become memories and legends. A great number of the guests wore oldfashioned costumes. Some had donned their mothers' wedding dresses, and here and there were the hats and bonnets of a lavender and crinoline age. Waitresses in costume, and table decorations of log cabins, covered wagons, and a stagecoach completed the picture. On the Old Settlers' table, covered with hand-woven, 100-year old linen, gleamed the gold of antique candlesticks and an antique coffee service. The dishes were trimmed in gold and at one end of this table stood pictures of three pioneer couples. C. A. Merkle, a lawyer who since became a member of the State Utilities Commission, was the official toastmaster, but he shifted part of the responsibility to James Clayton, a pioneer blacksmith, who introduced a representative group of pioneer men and women who talked briefly of the old times and achievements in McPherson County. The last speaker, the late W. C. Allen, publisher of the _Dakota Farmer_ and a candidate for the governorship of South Dakota, was the guest of honor. When the toastmaster asked those to rise who had come to McPherson County before 1884, 49 men and women stood up, one for almost every year of the county's existence. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. _Aberdeen Daily News,_ Aberdeen, South Dakota, 1889. 2. Clayton, James, Abstract Records, Leola, South Dakota. 3. _Commissioners' Proceedings,_ Vol. I, 1884, Leola, South Dakota. 4. _Eureka 1887-1937,_ Eureka Golden Jubilee Organization, Eureka, South Dakota, 1937. 5. Hickman, George, Early correspondence, on file at the McPherson County Abstract Company's office, Leola, South Dakota. 6. "Historical Essays," Unpublished Manuscript on file at the McPherson County Abstract Company's office, Leola, South Dakota. 7. Hoffman, Amos, "Historical Essays," _Daily Argus Leader,_ Nov. 1, 1939, Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 8. Petersen, E. Frank, (ed.), _Illustrated Historical Atlas of South Dakota,_ S. Wangersheim, Chicago, 1904.