South Dakota - Day 18 - Aberdeen museum

Fisher Grove State Park, Redfield

Wednesday, 18 August 2021

On our first early morning walk, I solved a small mystery I’ve wondered about most of my life.  Do you remember the lyrics to the old old Connie Francis song: “I hear the cottonwoods whispering above”?  I’ve always wondered what that sounded like.  I grew up with cottonwoods and never thought a thing about them, but I never grew up in a grove of cottonwoods, which is where this campground was.  And when we walked in the dark, with the wind blowing through the trees, I suddenly realized that’s what those lyrics were about.  It was a nice sound.  But then, I’m not allergic to cottonwood as I know many people are.

Before our second walk, Dexter noticed a skunk.  I didn’t know what he was alerting to in the cabin but I guess the skunk either saw him through the screen door or heard him growl, because he gave us a warning.  And it was that warning that I noticed, which is how I knew it was a skunk outside, and I kept us all inside for a while longer, to give the skunk a chance to go somewhere else.  Which he must have done because Dext didn’t make any signs about wildlife when we finally went out again.  Close call.

today's route

On the road

Soon into today’s drive I came across this odd historical marker.

The whole story in this marker seemed odd to me.  It didn't say much about prairie fires in general, just one specific fire.  And it focused on what it calls “hardships” and the “tribulation and deprivation” of settlers (well, duh) and ignored what I think is interesting, which is that this is a story of 2 women and their children who set out without a man (imagine!) in 1884 to make a life for themselves in this sparsely populated area.  And they succeeded brilliantly, only to be killed and maimed by the stupidity of a (male) neighbor.  I’m not trying to be offensively feminist about this – it’s just that that period was pretty patriarchal in most ways, which is why I think the real point of this story went completely over the heads of whoever wrote this marker.  Actually, I'm not sure they knew what their point was - labeling it "Prairie Fires" and then writing this saga.  Odd, like I said.  But interesting.

I guess that red stain on the marker is from cleaning off graffiti – I saw it on several historical markers and can’t think of any other reason for it, because it made the text harder to read.

The town of Roslyn, which I passed the turn for, is home to the International Vinegar Museum.  I really wanted to visit - after all, I've been to the National Mustard Museum in Wisconsin.  I'm sorry to report that the Vinegar Museum is open only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and only from 10-6.  I'm guessing it's a personal labor of love, which explains the limited hours.  Today being a Wednesday, I was just out of luck.  But if you're interested, here's their website.   https://www.internationalvinegarmuseum.com

As I drove this morning, I saw lots of pelicans, egrets and cormorants and lots of duckies.  I saw a dead fox in the road.  Twice.  I saw bee boxes and cows, cropfields and grazing land, curves and hills, lots of lakes and ponds.

I also passed several facilities labeled Agtegra Cooperative Services.  Apparently this co-op has plants all over the state, based on what I’ve been seeing.  I looked them up and learned about “our devotion to superior service, relentless innovation and member success.”  (I dunno – that relentlessness is a little intimidating.)  They “give members access to the best products, services and in-field assistance to maximize their production.”  They say they focus on grain and soil sciences.  They’re certainly the dominant presence I’ve seen in SD agriculture.

Then I came to a series of towns with an interesting trend in names: Andover, pop. 91 (it looks much bigger than the population indicates), Groton, pop. 1,458 (“Traditional Values – New Opportunities”), Stratford (turn to the left), Bath (turn to the right), and then to Aberdeen.

Groton, by the way, is proud of a couple of things: it has the POET Biorefining facility (an ethanol plant mostly, for vehicle fuel, but also produces vegetable (corn) oil and dried distillers grain used mostly in feedlot diets); and it has the Granary Sculpture Park, which is a series of sculptures associated with the Dacotah Prairie Museum in Aberdeen.

I also crossed the James River again, and this time I looked it up.  It’s 710 miles long and is the only river other than the Missouri that crosses the entire state of South Dakota.  And I learned I’d been wrong when I speculated that Jamestown in North Dakota was named for the river.  It was actually named for Jamestown, Virginia, where the town’s founder had grown up.  See, I should have looked it up instead of assuming things.

Aberdeen

With a population of 26,091, Aberdeen is the 3rd largest city in the state. Of course it’s the county seat.

Brown County Courthouse

The courthouse is just across the street from the museum I wanted to see.

Dacotah Prairie Museum

This museum has 2 floors, but it was a hot day and I’d left the critters a block away with the generator running in the RV so they could have air conditioning, so I didn’t want to be gone too long.  Still, I learned some things I hadn’t known before.  These are just a few of the exhibits they had on the 1st floor.  Many had captions that were clearly geared for younger people and seemed intended to spark further inquiry by these kids into the various subjects.  I still found them interesting.

What’s a prairie?

This map shows where prairies are - or used to be - in many states.
I'm guessing this same map defines where the Great Plains are.

Early inhabitants: Indians and dinosaurs and early settlers

I've never heard of a Mosasaurus.

The people who came . . .

Family Scene #1

Family Scene #2

. . . and what brought them.

A farming timeline

Each section of this timeline has to be read from right to left for chronological order.

Mimeograph

The forerunner of the machine our teachers used
to produce those blue papers they handed out.

Telegraph

Telephone

Aberdeen's first telephone switchboard, ca. 1886

a later model

closer view of photo above left

Who knew Montgomery Ward covered this much ground?

There was a great deal more to this museum besides just these exhibits, and I didn't even get to the 2nd floor where they had more recent history.  But I just felt I shouldn't leave the critters very long in this heat, even with the AC running.

Before leaving town, we stopped at a park so the dogs could take a walk and found another piece of history across the street.

Bill Spellman Painters
since 1935
The sign in its lower right-hand corner is enlarged below.

The painters found a nice historic building for themselves,
although in 1935, this building was just old, not historic.

Back on the road

As we turned south on US-281, the crosswind I’d been fighting all morning became a headwind.  A few times it actually made the RV’s engine rev, trying to drive into it up hills.

Along this road what I saw was mostly corn – many acres on both sides of the road.

We got to Redfield, pop. 2,333 – “Pheasant Capital of the World,” they claim – and turned east on another piece of US-212 (the one that runs through Watertown).

Tonight’s campground was again not staffed and again didn’t have any campground maps.  This might not have seemed necessary because it was very small – only 22 campsites – and arranged mostly in a circle.  But it was smack up against a golf course and at first I couldn’t figure out which roads went to the club and which to the campground.  Then I also found an offshoot road labeled as leading to a fishing area, but it was unpaved and rutted and seemed to keep going and going – the dogs and I walked down there a way, but I finally got worried about just how far it went and turned back.  A map would have helped clarify these things.