South Dakota - Day 27 - Hoven cathedral and Sitting Bull memorial

Indian Creek Recreational Area, Mobridge

Friday, 27 August 2021

In a rare example of perfect timing, when we went on our 4 AM walk we got sprinkled on a few minutes after we started, and it continued until we got back in the RV.  Then the heavens opened up and we got HEAVY rain and lightning and thunder for the next 3 or 4 hours.  Itmade me decide I wouldn't be going to visit Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge today either.  Sorry to have missed it, but traveling year-round in this RV has meant several such weather-related changes of plan.

On a different topic, according to South Dakota's Department of Transportation, 525,768 vehicles visited Sturgis over the 10 days of the annual Sturgis biker event.  Health officials reported that 38% of Meade County (of which Sturgis is a part) is vaccinated against COVID.  Neighboring counties are even less protected with 37% and 26%.  Over the last 3 weeks, the 7-day average number of cases in this area increased 3400%.  (Yes, that's three thousand four hundred percent.)  And I wonder how many of those visiting bikers carried the virus back to their homes in other states - I saw license plates from as far away as Vermont and Florida on bikes that stayed in the campgrounds I was in.

today's route

On the road

I saw 3 calves running full out towards a barn, with an adult also running right behind them.  Good thing I don't have to make my living raising cows, because I'd waste all my time watching them.

Heading west on US-12 toward Ipswich, I passed 2 large plants - one was Glacial Lakes Energy (it owns 4 ethanol plants) and the other was another Agtegra plant.  I wouldn't have thought enough people lived in this area to provide a workforce for these 2 large facilities.

The town of Ipswich (pop. 954 in 2010) has a sign proclaiming it to be the "Home of the Yellowstone Trail" which I hadn't heard of before but now have learned that it's a coast-to-coast road, established beginning in 1912 - in the early days of automobiles.  In that era, a trail was meant to imply a long-distance auto route, they say.  Over time, this road became a leading route for promoting tourism to the Pacific Northwest and for moving goods to market.  I wonder how useful it was in a South Dakota winter.

On its website, Ipswich claims to be "a community of progressive forward-thinking citizens."  So there.

We passed the town of Roscoe, pop. 329, which has a large plant for Adee Honey Farms - remember?  In Bruce, north of Brookings?

I passed many mostly-shallow ponds, filled with lots of wading birds both large and small and a lot of duckies.  I passed huge fields of corn, also some soybeans.  I passed fields where hay had been harvested and the bales were still lying in the fields.  I passed a field where corn had recently been harvested and cows were feeding and lying there.  I passed large cattle operations.

I passed the town of Bowdle, which advertises the state's tallest water tower.  And it is tall - 150' they say.  The town explains the water tower was supposed to have been delivered to another town but showed up here instead.  It would have cost too much money to move it, so Bowdle kept it.  I didn't see a sign for Bowdle but Wikipedia says the town had 502 residents in 2010 but only 63 residents in 2018.  If those numbers are accurate, something strange must have happened there to have nearly 90% resident loss in 8 years.

I turned south on SD-47 and decided it must be an old road, because the joints in the road were so prominent the road almost became a washboard road.

Hoven's Cathedral

I was taking this detour to see the church that's called "Cathedral of the Prairie."  It was clearly visible 4 miles away, meaning either (1) the land is really flat or (2) this church is tall or (3) both.  I'm opting for #3.

St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church

view from the rear

The only website I could find that seemed to have much information about this church is a Facebook page, which I can't access.  So if you want to know the size of the church or height of the steeples or even its age, you might check Facebook - and then let me know so I can add it here.  The church has celebrated its "125th," which I guess means the 125th anniversary, though they didn't say, and I'm not sure if that celebration happened this year or when.  How can there be so little findable information about this impressive and probably old church?

I understand that the stained glass windows make the inside stunning.

The town of Hoven has 522 residents and claims to be the "Home of 2018 SD Junior Snow Queen, April Simon."  The sign has a picture of her, and she is indeed very pretty.  Hoven looks like a nice little town, and it's clearly a town centered around agriculture.

Back on the road

I passed a sign telling me to turn left for "#1 Dams of Distinction," and I think there was a date on it that I didn't read.  I figured it meant a dam that holds back water and that some dam in the vicinity was built in some special way.  And maybe it does but I can't find any mention of it online.  Instead what I found was that the American Hereford Association has a Dams of Distinction program that "recognizes superior cows in the breed" because "efficient, fertile and productive females are the foundation of the most successful cow herds."  In light of Texas's newly passed anti-abortion law, this concept is resonating with me in a personal way.

A sign told me that 16 miles to the left I'd come to the town of Gettysburg, "Where the Battle Wasn't" (they really say that).  It's a sister city to Gettysburg, PA, and claims that, with 1,152 residents, it's "the epitome of small town living."

I passed the town of Selby, pop. 642, "Friendly City Where Highways Meet."  I really like seeing how towns conceive of themselves.  The highways Selby's referring to are US-83, which heads north to North Dakota, and US-12, which heads west through the Standing Rock Indian Reservation and eventually north into North Dakota also.

I passed the turn for the town of Java, and it's a wonder it has 129 residents because all but one road leading there are unpaved.  One of its early names was Coffee Town because railroad crews used to stop there for coffee in the early 1900s.  Clearly things were more casual then.

I passed through even smaller Glenham, with a population of 105, and then on into Mobridge, with 3,465 residents the largest town since Aberdeen, 100 miles to the east.  I didn't stop in town then because I was heading farther west.

I crossed the Missouri River on what seemed like a very lo-o-ong bridge.  And I was right - I now know it's only 200' short of a mile long.  It was only 2 narrow lanes wide and I hated it.  I should have expected a bridge here, because I knew I'd be crossing one of this continent's major rivers, but of course I wasn't and the bridge took me by surprise.  It crossed not only the Missouri but also Lake Oahe, and I now understand where the name Oahe Downstream Recreation Area (near Pierre, where I stayed a couple of weeks ago) came from.

Memorials

My aim was a memorial to Sitting Bull.  I didn't realize the same area has a separate memorial to Sakakawea.

Sakakawea Memorial

the medallion in the monolith at left

This tablet is visible in the background
of the monolith above left.
Text is enlarged below.

part 1

part 2

Less than a quarter-mile away is the memorial to Sitting Bull.  I'll show you what's there first, and then give an explanation for the circumstances.

The plaque reads:
Tatanka Iyotake
Sitting Bull
1831 - 1890

Nearby is another memorial.

The heading reads:
1834 - 1890
Sitting Bull
Tatanka Iyotake
(Note the difference in his birthdate from on the statue above.)
The text is enlarged below right.

from the memorial above left

And this is where these memorials stand:

That's the Sitting Bull Memorial in the photo.
The one for Sakakawea is off to the right a short distance.
And that's the Missouri River/Lake Oahe he's facing.

You can see that this area is completely undeveloped, and I found myself dismayed that both these people - who were so important in the history of our country - should be in such an unremarked setting, however wonderful the view.  But then I read the history of the Sitting Bull Memorial and it changed my mind.  Here's the link.   https://www.mobridge.org/sitting-bull-monument  He does have a wonderful view for his final resting place.

Back on the road

Tonight's campground was back on the Mobridge side of the Missouri, so back across that bridge I had to go.

This time there was someone at the entrance gate of the campground, who was willing to give me a partial map of the area, but only one for the camping section I'd be staying in.  The dogs and I had to explore the rest without benefit of knowing where we were going.  I'd planned to stay here 3 nights and assumed I'd be able to pick up a decent internet signal, being only a few miles from Mobridge - a false assumption, as it turned out.

The campsite I'd originally picked out had us on a fairly steep incline, and I really didn't want to spend 3 nights there.  It was the middle of the afternoon when we got in and there were only 2 other sites being used, so I thought I might be able to move to another one.  I drove around for a while, trying to find one that was both level and easy to access for the dogs.  We drove back to the entrance, where the staff person said sure, that site's available.  So we were finally settled for the weekend and the dogs were ready for a walk.