Old footage of downtown Spearfish

From the intersection of Main & Hudson, looking north..  The old American National Bank is in the distance at left; the Matthews Block is on the right.

Black Hills floods revisited…

Hydrologist Dan Driscoll of Rapid City shares research
about historical floods in the Black Hills region 

There was standing room only Tuesday night (2/5/13) as more than 100 people sandwiched themselves inside the Senior Citizen's Center in Spearfish to hear Dan Driscoll talk about flooding.

It's a topic all too familiar to many residents of the northern Black Hills, and memories of the devastating Rapid City flood of 1972 came back with little prompting as Driscoll gave the group an hour-long overview of historic floods in the Black Hills region.

An hydrologist with the U. S. Geological Survey in Rapid City, Driscoll has been very involved with studies relating to flood-frequency analysis.  Well rooted in science, he provided our friends at the Spearfish Area Historical Society with a thumbnail sketch of how scientists go about measuring size and frequency of flooding -- underscoring the importance of historical data, while conceding that there's still a lot of uncertainty about flow estimates in flooding rivers.

Driscoll's presentation -- including links to historic flood photographs and information -- is reported on the web site of the Spearfish Area Historical Society.  Read more...

Spearfish Park Pavilion

Early in the last century, probably around 1920 or so, a new park pavilion was built in the Spearfish City Park, located near the mouth of Spearfish Canyon.

The frame structure has seen a wide variety of community events over its nearly century-long history. From chili feeds and boxing matches to roller skating and wedding receptions. But it’s probably best known throughout Lawrence County and across the region as a really hot spot for dancing. Henry Phillips and the Ambassadors out of Lead were among the more popular local groups playing at the pavilion during the Big Band era.

In the 1960s it was Rock ‘n Roll that stole the limelight. The Spearfish Park Pavilion – now named Tretheway Pavilion for former Mayor Wilbur Tretheway, who helped save the structure – attracted a long list of top-notch national performers.

Read more about the Spearfish Park Pavilion.

Barns of Lawrence County

“The Barns of Lawrence County” will be featured Tuesday evening (12/1/09) at the December meeting of the Spearfish Area Historical Society. The presentation, which is open to the public, begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Spearfish Senior Citizen’s Center.

The barn shown here belongs to Ralph and Becky Crago and is located just north of Spearfish near the Red Water River. It is one of 37 barns featured in the program.

Long-time Spearfish resident Leo Orme will resurrect select images from more than 2,000 barn photographs collected as part of a display at the High Plains Western Heritage Center nearly a decade ago. It was originally prepared to complement a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution.

A native of Colorado, Orme came to South Dakota in 1969 to lead a U.S. Fish and Wildlife project at the McNenny Fish Hatchery west of Spearfish. As a 4-H leader and later as an SDSU Extension Agent in Lawrence County, he became well acquainted with agricultural interests in the region – including barns. Orme, who worked with Bob and Ann Matheney to assemble the original exhibit, says an updated book on Lawrence County barns will be published in the near future.