A look back: Water Rights in Lawrence County

(NOTE:  The following article was included in the 1981 book Some History of Lawrence County, published by the Lawrence County Historical Society.  Authored by Don Chastain, the story is found on pages 656-658 of the publication.  Some History of Lawrence County may be found in Lawrence County libraries and other libraries across the region.) 

The following is an incomplete sketch of how water was valued by the residents of Lawrence County.  The account, which focuses on one community, is thought to be representative of the County at large. Each community and major industry viewed water as its lifeblood, and each secured, preserved and at times fought for this precious fluid with the same conviction and determination as the one depicted below.

Water has been vital to the people of Spearfish since the area was first settled.  The 1885 City Charter states the intent "to construct and preserve reservoirs, cisterns, wells, pumps, and other waterworks, and to regulate the use thereof..."

The water, which came primarily from Spearfish Creek, was fiercely protected by the Spearfish residents.  An October 18, 1897 article from the Queen City Mail captioned "Spearfish Will Protest," announced the intentions of Deadwood to draw 200 inches of water from the Spearfish Creek for domestic use.  The Mail bitterly attacked what its editor interpreted as a flagrant disregard for legal rights established by early Spearfish settlers.  The paper stated that "as self-preservation is the first law of water it is but natural that our people should interpose a strong objection."  The attack then widened to include Homestake by suggesting that the company should have been enjoined years before from diverting water from Spearfish Creek.  "Because our people have allowed one corporation to rob them," the article proclaimed, "it is no indication that we will tamely submit to a repetition of the dose."

In December of 1897, Belle Fourche entered the protest, first with a letter to the Queen City Mail referring to the large sums often paid for water rights and the length of time many of these rights had been held.  Then, under the caption "We All Kick," the Belle Fourche Bee indicated that everyone in the valley would be "injuriously affected" by any reduction in the water supply.

In one December 15, 1897 article, a Spearfish man was quoted as saying "It strikes me that a man who had to use a Winchester in locating a ranch would use one to protect his right after twenty years' labor and occupancy in making it a home."  On the twenty-second of that month, the Mail again blamed Homestake for instigating the water diversion issue.

1897 had been a dry year, and there would be others.  Climate plus the growing needs of industry and expanding communities would again ignite the water issue flames of hostility.  In February of 1899 Homestake announced its intention to invest one million dollars to construct a system which would divert water from Spearfish Creek to supply water for its mills and for domestic use in Lead, Deadwood, Central and Terraville.  The Queen City Mail related on January 17, 1900 that the Cascade Water Power and Electric Transmission Company had started injunction proceeding against Homestake and the Black Hills Canal and Water Company to prevent them from diverting water from Spearfish Creek.  The following month the J. D. Hardin Syndicate with property along the Redwater and in Spearfish Valley joined the fight to protect Spearfish water.

The battle over water rights existed not only between Spearfish and other communities, but within the Spearfish community itself.  As parties settled in the Spearfish Valley, some established homes along the Spearfish Creek and claimed water rights.  Several neighbors then cooperated to establish a ditch which would supply water needed to irrigate their contiguous farm lands.  As a result, by 1914 eight such ditches existed.  That year saw an unusually dry summer, and as some ditch owners drew more water for their lands, owners of other ditches received little water or, in some cases, none at all.

Joseph Cook and thirteen others brought suit against two hundred and seventy-three defendants, including the Cattle Feeders Loan Association, the Congregational Church Society, the Episcopal Church Society, the Homestake Mining Company, and the Board of Education South Dakota Regents.

The trial, held in Lawrence County circuit court, lasted seven weeks.  The plaintiffs sued to obtain adequate water but, in effect, lost the case.  The Eighth Circuit Court established a priority for each claimant and further allotted varying amounts of water for each.  The Court stated that when water is not in sufficient supply for all, those rights established first and ranked highest will use their allotment even if others ranked lower are left with no water.

Cook was ranked eighth in priority behind (1) Evans, (2) Ramsdell, (3) Spring Ranch, (4) Evans, Ryan, Gay, Joseph Ramsdell, Smith and Riedrich Cooperative, (5) Walton, (6) Homestake Mining Company, (7) the Brady, Bronson, Jones and Rosenbaun Cooperative.  Several of these claimants were allotted more water than Cook.

The decision was appealed, and in 1921 it reached the South Dakota Supreme Court which reversed the decisions made in lower courts.  The Supreme Court ruled that rank could not be established chronologically.  The Spearfish Valley belonged to the Sioux Indians prior to February 28, 1877, and homesteaders had no legal claim.  On March 3, 1877, just a few days after the Indians had ceded their rights to the Government, the Desert Land Act prohibited future reparation claims.  No one had claimed reparation rights during those few days;  therefore, the lower court's "first come - first served" position was declared in error.

The Supreme Court further claimed that one man should not suffer because another man's land won't hold water.  Nor should large tracts of land receive more water per acre than small tracts.  Therefore the Court ruled that each claimant was to receive one quarter inch of water for each acre, regardless of when the claim was filed, the size of the claim, or the condition of the soil.

The November 16, 1921 issue of the Queen City Mail contended that Cook had won his case.  The paper, calling the decision "revolutionary," claimed that "the Cook ditch owners...will receive ample water for the irrigation of every acre of their lands, ...and they feel amply repaid for the effort, patience and trouble required to attain the end."

The City of Spearfish has its scars from water battles.   In November of 1899 the City was served notice by Joseph Ramsdell that it would be held for damages if water was diverted from the spring branch of Spearfish Creek.

Such action slowed city water use, but in 1930, Spearfihs was granted the right to take approximately 150 inches (2.94 second feet) of water from Spearfish Creek, and in 1954 Spearfish constructed a 550,000 gallon reservoir for its 6000 residents.

While the dust has settled somewhat, the water rights issue may not have forever slipped into obscurity.  In 1975 an article appeared in the Denver Post with the caption, "U. S. Claims Imperial State Water Rights."  You can imagine how that set with folks around here.

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An update: Ice Skating in old Central City

It may not have drawn the crowds that fill the ice rink at  Rockefeller Center in New York City, but the American Legion Ice Skating Rink in Central City, South Dakota was once a popular place!  That's the big building in the center of this photograph. (Thanks to the Homestake Adams Research and Cultural Center [HARCC] in Deadwood) 

We're not quite sure exactly when the Homestake Mine closed Cyanide Sand Plant #2, between Deadwood and Lead (probably in the mid 1930s) but we've talked to many folks who remember visiting the spacious facility after it became home to a popular ice skating rink.

Documents at the Homestake Adams Research and Cultural Center (HARCC) in Deadwood reveal that the rink measured 60 feet by 360 feet.  According to information contained in the August 1963 edition of Sharp Bits, published by Homestake Mine, the rink was operated for many years by a local American Legion post.  What do you remember about this rink?  Drop us an e-Mail!   And you can take a closer look at the structure in our LCHS Photo Gallery.

Editor's Note:    In November 2013, a kind reader e-mailed us and provided more information about the rink.  She noted that it was "…naturally 'cooled' by the outdoor temp, and the snow would blow in on wintry days, but who really cared?  It remained open each season from the time it was cold enough for the ice to be laid, and sprayed to 'even out' the surface until the outdoor temps became too warm.  Huge hoses were used to lay down each layer of ice, and Mother Nature would take over each night.  Cecil Stoner operated the rink for several years, and then Tom Thoresen took over management for many years thereafter.  Skating was from 1:00-4:00 each Sunday; 7:00-9:00 on Wednesday and Friday nights, and two sessions on Saturdays (1:00-4:00 and 7:00 to 9:00)."

LCHS moves in to the HARCC....home at last!

New home for the Lawrence County Historical Society.

About 20 members of the Lawrence County Historical Society braved sub-zero temperatures today (1/31/11) for a bit of celebrating, as the society held its first-ever meeting in the new Homestake Adams Research and Cultural Center (HARCC)  building in Deadwood.

The group enjoyed cake, coffee and punch, followed by a tour of the HARCC, which is located at 150 Sherman Street.

LCHS president Jerry Bryant and Adams House and Museum Director Mary Kopco signed an agreement some weeks ago that gives the society a home in perpetuity – or  at least as long as Adams Museum & House, Inc. “remains the custodian” of HARCC.  While a room there is named the Lawrence County Historical Society Room, it will be used for a variety of other functions as well.  It will, however, serve as a site for LCHS meetings and research.

The HARCC staff have outfitted the LCHS Room with a marvelous conference table and several side chairs – furniture that came from the old Homestake Mining Company.  “We’ll have the table top smoothed up a bit for you,” said Mary Kopco, who indicated that they’ll also place a desk in the room for society use, augmenting an existing filing cabinet.

A spacious kitchen lies adjacent to the LCHS room. 

Kopco and Assistant Adams H&M Director Carolyn Weber led the group on a tour through both the upstairs and downstairs of the building.  For most members, it was the first time they’d been in the 17,000 square foot structure, which is designed to protect over 10,000 cubic feet of original documents in a climate-controlled and secure environment.

In 2005, Barrick Gold Corporation, successor to the Homestake Mining Company, donated the Homestake archival records to the Adams House.  The Adams board of directors realized that a new building was necessary to care for the materials – and offer public accessibility to the records.  The City of Deadwood bought the building to serve as the Homestake Adams Research and Cultural Center.

Ed Furois outside the Fassbender
vault during the LCHS tour.

The facility is the repository for extensive collections, including 126 years of maps and drawings of the Black Hills region, 45,000 historic photographs, slides and glass plate negatives; and a wide array of assay ledgers, diaries, scrapbooks, correspondence, blueprints, archaeological drawings, and much more.

The much-heralded Fassbender collection is also archived at the HARCC.  Comprised of more than 800,000 photographs, negatives, slides and motion picture footage from over nearly 100 years, the collection is now at the HARCC.  Josef Fassbender owned and operated Black Hills Studios for many decades.  His son, George, took over the business in 1958 and operated it until the late 1980s.  When George Fassbender died in 1998, he willed the collection to Ed Furois and Johnny Sumners of Spearfish. 

Lawrence County Historical Society helped facilitate preservation of the collection, which was purchased last year by the cities of Deadwood, Lead and Spearfish.  The publicly-owned collection was then moved to the HARCC, where it is secured in a climate-controlled vault.

LCHS treasurer Jacke Mitchell (right) presents a first
installment check to Adams H&M Director Mary Kopco.

The HARCC hopes to provide easy access to a multitude of documents never before available to the public – and to host classes for secondary and post-secondary students on topics ranging from geology and astronomy to engineering and archaeology. 

We've placed a few HARCC tour photographs in the the LCHS Gallery.  There are some others there, too, that you might enjoy seeing.

While health issues prevented LCHS president Jerry Bryant from attending this special gathering, treasurer Jacke Mitchell took on the task of presenting Mary Kopco with the first of three $5,000 payments that the society will make over the next several months.

Another bit of good news for the society – South Dakota Secretary of State Jason Gant last week (1/24/11) signed the Articles of Incorporation documents for the Lawrence County Historical Society.  Revisions to society bylaws will be recommended to the LCHS board of directors when they meet at 3:00 p.m., on Friday, February 25^th at the HARCC in Deadwood.

Homestake -- it's not over

Long an economic powerhouse for the region, Homestake Mine operated for more than 125 years and was the deepest – and most productive – gold mine in North America. It closed its doors in 2002. With the people of South Dakota as new owners and an eye on science, the once prolific gold mine has started a transformation that – if and when completed – promises to make it a top-flight international research laboratory.

“The game isn’t over,” says Dr. Jose Alonso, a nuclear astrophysicist who spent 30 years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California before heading up the Sanford Underground Laboratory at Homestake. He is now director emeritus.

“One should be aware that the game isn’t over yet. The fine print on the selection was…IF the underground lab is going to be built in the United States, it will be built at Homestake.”

Alonso said the $15 million set aside to prepare a Preliminary Design Report isn’t nearly enough. Some $500 million will be needed to actually build the lab, with about half of that amount going for infrastructure – the rest for experiments. It’ll likely be some three years before we know if Congress will actually appropriate the funds for the project.

But that point didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of a couple of dozen folks who filled a downstairs room at the Adams Museum in Deadwood last Thursday (11/19/09). The museum strutted its stuff by hosting a terrific double-barreled presentation that focused on both the past and the future of Homestake. Author Steven Mitchell and scientist Dr. Jose Alonso teamed up with The Adams, the Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission, and Black Hills State University to present an all-afternoon presentation called “Homestake: Its Past and Its Future.”

With an impressive array of incisive historical research and compelling photographic images, Mitchell set the stage with a journey into both the history of the peoples and the geology of the Black Hills region. A life-long resident of the Black Hills, Mitchell holds degrees from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, but he belied his academic training and career as a mining engineer by demonstrating a gift for storytelling based on well-documented facts.

Reaching back to the Treaty of 1851 that sought to settle tribal territorial disputes and stabilize the precarious relations between the American Indians and westward-migrating settlers, Mitchell also shared details about the Great Reconnaissance Act of 1853 to explore the west, primarily in search of routes for expanding rail transportation. With the discovery of gold in the Black Hills in 1874 came an onslaught of entrepreneurs, many of whom became the stuff of legends.

Homestake Mine is the focus of Mitchell’s new book, Nuggets to Neutrinos: The Homestake Story. From early mining claims and extraction techniques to wily business strategies and modern technology, Mitchell seemed to cover all bases right up to the closure of the mine. He discussed several significant reclamation projects that have occurred in recent years, laying the groundwork for development of a deep underground science and engineering laboratory.

After a short intermission, the focus moved from the past to the future. Dr. Jose Alonso talked about the transition of Homestake, providing a chronology of the scientific and political maneuvering that have occurred in the last few years. Once a director of the Sanford Underground Laboratory at Homestake, he remains a champion for the project and serves as emeritus director.

Alonso walked the audience step-by-step through the “bureaucratic” solicitation process that proponents of the underground lab have followed in seeking approval for funding from the National Science Foundation.

In 2006, between the political advocacy of Governor Mike Rounds and a $70 million gift from the deep pockets of T. Denny Sanford, Homestake had “stacked the deck” against its challenger, Henderson Mine in Colorado. Barrick donated the mine – 186 surface acres – to the State of South Dakota, and Homestake had secured a $120 million war chest that could be spent to get things going early. This was an enormous advantage for Homestake – giving them a three or four year head start. It was a very enviable position in the pursuit of a world-class underground laboratory. And Alonso said there was something else that made Homestake more attractive to scientists.

“Henderson is an operating molybdenum mine… and continues to operate…and it’s very clear when you are there, even as a guest, their first interest – bottom line – is mining. So you are really a second class citizen there. You have certain case times, you have certain things you can do, certain things you cannot do. You have little control over schedule, resources, or anything else.”

“Over here (Homestake), science owns the mine. And that is huge.”

By July of 2007, the National Science Foundation endorsed a recommendation from a 22-member independent panel that tapped Homestake as the site for a University of California-Berkeley design proposal for a DUSEL (Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory).

Alonso laid out the NSF timetable for awarding the $500 million to actually build the underground laboratory, noting that much more than $15 million is needed for the preliminary design phase – to be completed next year – probably something on the order of $75 million. With a final approval from NSF expected in May 2011, the $500 million project would have to be funded by Congress, and it would likely be a part of the federal FY 2013 budget request. That would require Congressional approval by about October of 2012.

If the costly and somewhat complicated funding process is a bit confusing – it pales compared to the esoteric but significant science projects on the drawing boards. In fact, early science projects are already being planned or are underway. Dr. Alonso’s animated enthusiasm for the projects may not have been enough to keep a few of us luddites in the audience on the edge of our seats, but many of the late afternoon hangers-on were themselves scientists or budding researchers, anxious to talk science with the dynamic Doctor Alonso.

Even using lay terminology, Alonso’s efforts to shine a light of nuclear astrophysics knowledge into the dark recesses of a few unscientific minds in the audience was probably fruitless. But his unrestricted enthusiasm and lively exchanges with tekkies in the audience was almost mesmerizing. “Fuzzy science” took on a somewhat different meaning as the good doctor covered the scientific landscape all the way from the “Coulomb Barrier” and “Gamow Peak” (which are not remote holiday getaways) all the way to “Neutrino Double Beta Decay!” And we’re still in the dark regarding planned “Dark Matter” experiments.

Nonetheless, this was a rare afternoon of enlightenment – even if much of the scientific gobbledy-gook flew over the head of this History major.

We’d gladly camp out on the doorstep of the Adams Museum for the opportunity to participate in another such session. For Mary Kopco and the folks at The Adams Museum and House, it was another excellent event – helping to inform and inspire area residents about the wealth of history and resources in the Black Hills. Resources that will one day likely include a fully-operational, world class deep underground laboratory.

And then it really won’t be over. It’ll be just the beginning.

A look back at hydro-electric power

With much emphasis upon wind energy across the country these days -- and other ways of furthering a "green environment" -- we thought it might be interesting to reach back a few decades to see what was going on with power generation in Lawrence County.

Of course, Homestake Mine was still going strong, and they were producing their own electricity at two hydro-electric plants along Spearfish Creek.

The first one built was #1, located adjacent to the City Campground on the edge of Spearfish, and it still is generating electricity for the City of Spearfish.

The other plant, #2, was farther up Spearfish Canyon. This is a recent picture of the dormant facility, which still attracts curious travelers as they sojourn up and down the canyon.

Here is a link to "Hydro-Electric Plants #1 and #2" written by Bob Parker and Tom Mayer. It was included in the 1981 tome Some History of Lawrence County, which was produced by the Lawrence County Historical Society and is now out of print. Copies of the book are available in area public libraries.