History of Wall, Pennington Co., SD This chapter is from "Eastern Pennington County Memories", published by The American Legion Auxilliary, Carrol McDonald Unit, Wall, South Dakota And is uploaded with their kind permission. Pages 9-16 Scan, OCR and editing by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net, 1999. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. 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 History of the Town of Wall by Mrs. Leo Foster Mrs. Chris Willuweit Mr. Leonel Jensen Beginning of the Town of Wall In the spring of 1907 a town began to form at Wall, adjacent to the nearly completed Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. The name of the new town was taken because of an abrupt break from the flat prairie land to the rough badlands formations just east of the Townsite. This break forms an eight-mile barrier that had been known as the "Wall" by the cattlemen for many years. The first building there was a sod shanty, built by Harry Fuller. Though not intended as a cafe, so many persons stopped there that the men put up a table outside the building and served meals. On July 10, 1907, the Hendrickson Land Company opened the sale of town lots on the homesteads of Gene and Bill Mackrill. This date was taken as the birthday of the town and has been celebrated annually ever since. On that day, the first lots sold were on the west side of Main Street in Block 3. Lot No. 1 was sold to Walt Babcock who built a restaurant and hotel, Lot 8 in the center of the block was sold to Charles M. Lewis who built a store, and Lot 16 on the south end of the block was sold to Bill Becker who built a store. The lumber for these buildings was hauled from Wasta as the Railroad was built to there but there was no bridge across the Cheyenne. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad was completed between Pierre and Rapid City in 1907. Sometime in May, the two crews, one from Pierre and one from Rapid City, joined the railroad grade. This completed the roadbed work just west of Wall. Art Galbraith tells of the excitement created by this event. Art says that quite a few people were present when the roadbed was finished and that the workmen threw away their shovels. A number of homesteaders picked them up and Art says he still has his. The rail-laying crews completed their work and the rails were joined from east to west some distance west of Philip on July 10, 1907. An item in the Rapid City Daily Journal describes the event by saying that the last rail was laid at about 4:30 P.M. but that the traditional golden spike was not driven until ten minutes after five. The first through-train from Pierre to Rapid City was on July 14th when a train load of railroad officials made the trip between the two points in twelve hours. Originally the Depot for the C&NW Railroad was planned on the east side of the railroad tracks on Mackrill land, but a disagreement between Mackrills and the Railroad Company ended in the depot being placed west of the tracks on the Pogendorf homestead. Williams, the first railroad agent, had his office in a box-car. He was succeeded by Briggs, then by F. M. Noe, then by H. M. Hatton, and finally by K. A. Broyles, the present agent. Joe Wall, the original section foreman, gave way to Joe Herink in 1912, in 1941 he was followed by Severt Hoveland, the present foreman. Other businesses in Wall date back to the beginning of the town. The first blacksmith, Harry Wiley, established himself in 1907, selling that fall to Joe Lynn, who quickly disposed of the business to Herman Schone. Except the four years spent farming his homestead, Schone conducted the business until 1930. The first Lumber Company was started by Peter Mintner in 1907. This business was taken over by A. C. Kingsbury in 1911. J. H. LeCocq came from Iowa in 1906 and homesteaded but he soon began working for lumber companies, and for many years ran the Kingsbury Hardware and Lumber Company. Ted Whaley also worked in the store for many years. Fred Van Vleck started a second lumber yard in 1932. This business is still active as the Van Vleck Lumber Company, and is operated by Gilbert Van Vleck and son, Gene. Baldwin and Fallon, were the first Drug Store owners in Wall. In 1907 a drug store was built and operated by Schulz who sold to Charles Nippell. Vern Turner was the next proprietor, the Rovaart, Heine Sebade, and finally T. E. Hustead, who, with his son, Bill, owns the business at the present time. The first medical man to practice in Wall was Dr. Hutter. Others were Doctors Clark, Standeven, McLaurin, Meissrow, Toon, Adair, and Jernstrom. Dr. G. W. Mills, the present practitioner, opened his office in August of 1919. The first garage was opened by Joe Knapp in 1915. L. J. (Lee) Dixon, who had worked for Joe Knapp, opened a garage in 1920. Stanley Beck opened a farm implement store on the east side of Main Street, which he ran for many years moving to Rapid City when he was elected Pennington County Clerk of Courts. The Chiak Brothers were also early garage owners. Present garage owners are Szarkowski, Evenden and Stone. Present filling stations are operated by Kennedy, Hoffman, Hustead and Foster. O. C. Marshall built and operated the first livery barn. Frank Conway was the first Star-route mail carrier out of Wall. He carried the mail from Wall to Pedro in 1907. He lived at Pedro. Other carriers on this route were: Sam Jones, O. C. Marshall (who carried the mail for a time between Wall and Pedro in a Model T. Ford). The low gear clutch band burned out on the Ford one time while he was climbing up the Pedro Hill so he stopped, took off the oil pan, cut a strip of leather from the top of his boot, inserted it as a clutch band, replaced the oil pan and came on into Wall without further trouble. Henry Heutzenroeder, Martin Overholt, Himmelhaun, Frank Richards, Harry Johnson, Carl Pritchard, Fred Lewis, Don Mendenhall, Nick Feller, and Otto Eisenbraun, who is the present carrier. A new Star-route was established between, Wall and Scenic in 1952 at which time it was taken by Edward Hanewinckel who was succeeded by Bryce Kennedy in 1953. The Wall Post Office was established in 1907 and Dock Shappell appointed as first postmaster, opening up his first office in a small tar papered shack on the west side of Main Street, which later burned with all mail and equipment. Mr. Shappell immediately built a building on the other side of the street for an office, and postmasters followed in this order: J. W. Casselman in 1910, J. E. Witten in 1914, Chas. M. Lewis in 1918, Paul Pulvany in 1920, Mrs. C. A. VanZant in 1921 (Mrs. VanZant died while in the office and Mr. VanZant took over the duties until 1922 when I. D. Winter was appointed. He held the position until 1935 when Lysle Dartt was appointed. He was given Military leave-of - absence during World War II and Mrs. Anna Sebade was named acting- Postmaster, with Marie Dartt as assistant, while he was gone. In 1947 Dayton Sebade was appointed Postmaster and is still serving in that capacity. In 1908, J. A. Galbraith, one of the 1906 homesteaders north of Wall, petitioned the U.S. Postal Department for two rural mail routes, the one north of town, was established in June 1909, and Mr. Galbraith was appointed carrier. The other route was not established until 1921 and was operated by Herman Sebade, Jr. During World War II Herman took War-leave to work in a Defense plant and John Bielmaier substituted. In 1943 the two routes were consolidated and Art Galbraith retired. Herman Sebade took over both routes. Following Herman's death in 1960, Deane Joyce was appointed and is serving the route now. The first mail service in Wall was of a peculiar kind. When anyone from this section was in Dakota City (the post office address of most of the people near Wall) he would gather together all of the mail for this section and bring it in a grain sack to Wall where it was dumped into a large box in the grocery store and everybody looked through it, picking out his own mail. Wall's mail route was the first in the Western half of South Dakota. In 1908, the first school, a frame building, was erected. Before that time, school classes had been held in a personal dwelling. In 1928, there was a 3 story brick building erected a block east of mainstreet with a wing added to the North side in 1959 and a south wing added in 1963. There are over twenty-five people employed by the school system at this time. The first Church, a Methodist, was organized on July 11, 1907, on a bowery floor where a dance had been held the night before. Rev. Ross, a first Congregational Minister, who had a homestead near Conata, walked more than 20 miles each Sunday to conduct services. He was killed in a train accident near Conata and was one of the first people buried in Wall Cemetery. Wall now has three churches Methodist, Lutheran and Catholic. In 1908 E. S. Johnston purchased a struggling newspaper, the Wall Record, from an editor whose name has been forgotten. Successive editors were Charlie Burnham, Joe Whitten, Paul Viney, Brenner, and Gladwin Hansen. After some years Hansen allowed the paper to die. E. S. Johnston again gave the town newspaper, moving his plant from Quinn and publishing under the title "The Eastern Pennington County Courant". Later the "Eastern" was dropped from the title. "Courant" is a Dutch word meaning paper. The present owner, R. F. Lewis, purchased the paper in 1930. In 1909 the Cheyenne Valley Electric Company was organized with C. E. Dowling of Sioux Falls, Elmer Hawks, and E. A. Brown, building the original telephone line from Wall to Pedro. About 20 people subscribed to this new telephone service. In 1917 the company was taken over by Mrs. Ethel Herink. In 1918 the Lake Flat Mutual Telephone Company that had been organized in 1908 was purchased by Mrs. Herink and added to her line. In 1954 the Golden West Telephone Cooperative bought the line and added it to an extensive telephone system covering a large area. In 1907 the Security State Bank was opened. In 1910 the First State Bank was opened. In the fall of that year they united, continuing as the First State Bank. This changed to the Farmers State Bank in 1926. This changed to the Underwood State Bank in 1940, and the First Western Bank in 1962. Among those who have been in charge of the bank have been Kneeland, Kiddoo, Green, Thompson, Witten, John Thoma, Gail Lewis, A. S. Nystrom, Leonel Jensen, Warren Joyce, and Delbert Sebade who is at present the President of the Bank. It is one of the three banks in the county that kept their doors open throughout the banking panic from 1924 to 1932. An early landmark was the Babcock Hotel built in 1909 after fire had destroyed a smaller hotel built in 1907. It included 40 guest rooms, a barbershop, bowling room, pool room and general store in a twostory frome building. This building was also destroyed by fire in 1918. After the Babcock Hotel burned, Mrs. Hulda Miller started a cafe and ran a hotel in connection with her grocery and dry-goods store. In 1930 the Gypsy Oil Company of Tulsa, Oklahoma, leased 115,000 acres of land north of Wall for oil-drilling purposes. On May 3, 1931, a well was spudded in with quite a ceremony. Some 10,000 people gathered to see the test well started. Governor Green gave the main address and the Wall Commercial Club handed out barbecued-beef sandwiches. Three steers had been barbecued the night before. During the summer the well was drilled to nearly 6000 feet. A complete log of their operations was kept and filed with the Geology Department of the University of South Dakota. It was capped and abandoned. The first elevator in Wall was built in 1910 by the Tri-State Milling Company. It was operated for many years by John Harnden, later by Joe Wilson, then Earl Johnson was manager, later on Lynden Bansey, then Han Hamann took over, and still later Edward Hanewinckel. Its present manager is Dwight Norman. In 1930 the farmers around Wall organized a company and built an elevator. They sold this to E. C. Smoot in 1931 and he in turn sold it to Ralph Ivins. In 1962 Ivins sold his elevator to the Tri-State, so both elevators operate under one management. Other businesses of the early days were: A dray line operated by R. A. Scheer, who had homesteaded earlier; a harness and repair shop operated by homesteaders Frank Patterson and Eric Gorseth; later on shoe shops were run by Mike Hawley, Frank Kruse and Joe Larson: Barber shops were run by Safken, Shorty Wilmus, Bill Thompson, Sam Johnson, Cotton Johnson, and Lynn Williams is the present barber. Joe Bielmaier was the Fire Chief and handy man about town for many years. He was manager of the town water-pumping station for many years, walking each day to the old town-dam where the water pumps were located and he never let the water supply tank get low. Howard Connolly took over Joe's job as Fire Chief in 1932 and held it until 1964. During Howard's last year as Fire Chief, a new Fire Hall was built and dedicated "Howard Connolly Fire Hall", at which time Howard retired and Max Hauk became present Chief. Dave Whitwer and Gene Miller began short and long distance trucking about 1930 and Dave is still trucking. The town had some early attorneys. Both E. S. Johnston and Judge Thomas Conniff were in Wall about 1908. [Photo - Wall, July 10, 1907] [Photo - Etta and Ella Mutchler in center of picture in front of Blair's store, 1909] [Photo - Second store in Wall, 1909, J. W. Blair, prop. Mrs. Blair behind counter and Ella Mutchler at end of counter without hat.] [Photo - Main Street in Wall - 1908] [Photo - Wall Anniversary Celebration - 1909] J. F. Street owned the Street Hardware on Main Street; Carl Lurz owned a Hardware Store on Main Street. Jim LeCocq and Vern Kingsbury, Lysle and Norris Dartt were some other hardware store owners and the present day owners are Bud Estes and Dick Van Vleck. The business name, W. H. and H. E. Miller was familiar to everyone in the early history of Wall. W. H. Miller, a Civil War Veteran sent his son, Frank, to the territory in 1903. Frank took a Soldier's Declaration for his father, a procedure somewhat similar to filing a claim, and in 1906 Mr. Miller came to the country and filed a claim on a quarter section adjoining the town on the northeast. Mrs. Miller joined him in 1907 and for a time they tried their hands at farming. It was on this place that one of the first wells in town was drilled. It was 110 foot bored well two and one-half feet in diameter and dug with a horse drilling rig by Louis Jenson. In 1909 Mrs. Miller opened a small millinery shop. In 1912 the Millers leased their farm to R. A. Scheer and went into the store and hotel business. They expanded this business into the well-known Miller Hotel with accommodations for 43 guests. This building now houses Beaches Cactus Cafe and Lounge. For years Fred Lewis owned and operated the Minneapolis Moline Farm Machinery business, selling to Martin and Erhard Eisenbraun. Some of the early stores were owned by: C. M. Lewis, L. H. Hansen, Clayton Babcock, Al Strandell, Mrs. Martinson, and Frank Martin, Butler, Lanam, Mutchlers, Bradley, Galbraith, Long, La Roche, Fosness, Horst, and Fred Lewis. The two grocery stores at the present time are Smith's Jack and Jill Market and Clark's Wall Lockers. Galbraiths started a dry goods and notions store and Minnie Dartt had a dry goods store called the Style Shop. Early in 1920 the Galbraiths opened a funeral establishment known as the Galbraith Mortuary. They sold this business to Bill Walsh in 1952, and Bill still operates it. Having added a chapel in 1965. In 1935 the Wall Commercial Club sponsored a number of free movies to try and induce someone to come to town to build a theatre. When it was determined that there was enough interest to justify a business, the Raeburns built the present theatre which they sold to Earl Neumister in 1937. Since Wall has become a popular tourist town, many motel and cabin courts have sprung up. Best, Buckstads, Harvey, Campbell, Dora Welsh were some of the early owners. Followed by R. Paulsen, L. Dartt, Werd, Knapp, J. Paulsen, Irene Schmidt, Estes, Jensen, Hauk, Geigle, H & W Welsh & Mills. Also Crown and Paulsen's Red Arrow Camp. Tourist trade also makes Cafe business good. Some owners were: Millers, Johnsons, Connolly, Smoot, Schone, Briley, Wilkinson, Parr, B. Babcock, Doyle, Peterson, Land, Todd, Fischer; with the present owners of Wall Cafes being: Fosness, Beach, Pederson and Hustead. There have been many pool halls, bars, and liquor stores in town owned by Johnson, Parr, Babcock, Doyle, Wilsey, Crawford, Beach, Byerly and Haefs. Some other interesting dates in Wall's history: In 1922 the old town dam was built. In 1923 the first water system was built. Pipe lines were laid and a water tower erected. The water was not used for drinking but it was good fire protection. The water filtration plant was built in 1942, and a new town dam in 1947. In 1951 a sewer system was installed. Two deep wells were dug in 1961 and 1962, giving the town an ample supply of pure water. The Stone Community Hut was built with W.P.A. labor and federal funds in 1936. The West River Electric Association energized their lines in December of 1940, replacing the old direct-current electric lighting system owned by Chiak Brothers. A portion of the Badlands area south of Wall was designated a National Monument in 1939. On August 9, 1960, Wall became headquarters for a SAC Radio Beacon Site. In 1961 Wall became one of the centers for a Minute-man Complex which has 150 launching pads for intercontinental missiles. The Committee realizes this history is far from complete and regret any business or name we may have omitted. [Photo - Wall Main Street looking North] [Photo - July 10, 1916 where Hustead house now stands.] [Photo - Wall's 1910 Celebration] [Photo - 1911 Wall Anniversary] [Photo - Wall Band - 1914. First row, l. to r., A. M. McDonald, Jim LeCoucqe, Earl Lewis, Gary Dean, Carl Wroole, Emil Engstrom, Irwin Frickie and Charlie Napell. Back row, Lee Dixon, Ralph Overholt, Glen Hendrickson, Henry Sebade, Bill Goode, Sudry Overholt, Glen Overholt, Dr. Standenen and Jim Shay.] [Photo - West Main Street, Wall, 1910] [Photo - Wall Anniversary, July 10, 1913] [Photo - Baseball Field in Wall - 1910] [Photo - An early baseball team in Wall. Among names listed were Patterson, Kneeland, E. Nilsson, Green, Jess Benson, Overholt, Nilsson, O'Donnell.] [Photos - Top left and right - Main Street about 1917.] [Photo - Left: Burned ruins of the second Babcock Hotel in 1918. Present site of the American Legion Hall.] [Photo - Peter and Emil Muller and a friend with their 1921 Buick touring car in front of the Wall Depot.] [Photo - Above: Jack Welch home - now Joe Knapp home; Muller home - now Hustead Dorm; Joe Bielmaier, Sr. home - now Frank Hindman home, and Henry Schone home - now Lutheran Church.] [Photo - Aerial photo of Wall about 1929] [Photo - Wall Depot] [Photo - Wall - First church of Methodists] [Photo - Typical Homestead Shack] [Photo - Skating party at Pete Mullers. How many can you identify?] [Photo - Skating party] [Photo - Schulz Drug Company] [Photo - The Hut - 1936] [Photo - Joe Knapp's Livery Stable. Charlie Villbrandt on horse.] [Photo - Wall Main Street - 1947] [Photo - The Hut] [Photo - Home talent play cast. Held in old hall which is now Wall Repair. Herman Sebade, Eva Sebade and Leonel Jensen were included in the cast.] [Photo - Wall Main Street - 1937]