Spring has sprung early! I can spend my Sunday mornings in two-wheeled bliss again. This morning led me east to the hills of Crook City, then north through Whitewood, and on to that Francophone paradise, St. Onge.
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And on the north corner of town, right on Highway 34, I found the St. Onge Bar. Their sign makes me think maybe Lee Schoenbeck and Stace Nelson could get together here and buy each other the drinks they have coming:
A properly used accent aigu and prime rib Fridays? Now that's class worth driving for! Alas, they weren't open this morning, so I had to settle for water and the two Pop-Tarts I'd packed. (Forget PowerBars: did you know one Pop-Tart has 200 calories? Plus you get sprinkles! Zoom!)
The S.O.B. sits out on the highway. St. Onge Livestock on the east side of town is a going affair. In between, Main Street is commercially dead.
This 1910 sandstone building stands empty. Evidently the hot tub wasn't a good idea.
The 1902 Furois (more French!) general store is also a memory in sandstone. See that second-story door? Imagine a nice balcony, a porch over the sidewalk, with summer tourists enjoying the view south toward the Black Hills. Any chance the Bakken boom could drive more tourist dollars this way and give St. Onge a reason to hook up that hot tub again?
The St. Onge Post Office is up just a block from Main Street, on the edge of town. 57779 is one of the rural ZIPs that the Postal Service listed last summer as facing closure. USPS declared a five-month moratorium on post office closings last December.
Whether or not St. Onge can keep its post office, Les Saint-Ongiens enjoy a certain freedom Rapid City residents and other oppressed urbanites do not: chickens!
I heard clucking and cock-a-doodle-dooing in at least a couple St. Onge yards. This nice lady had chickens in her yard... plus guineas, goats, and a couple small burros. You can take the girl off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of St. Onge.
It has been said that: "April is the cruelest month." Looks like it is coming early to Madville Times.
Woodman Hall, in the Italianate style, was built in 1910-11; and it was mine for two years. It is a long story so I will put up a post at ip.
Woodman Hall -- is that the building east of the Furois?
Yes, the Furois brothers built them both.
The locals say that you have to know someone to live in St. Onge.
It was home to The Rancher for at least two decades: very famous to the locals. Have you seen "Rancher-style" beef tips all over the Hills? The original recipe is owned by the operator, Marcille Butts (true story).
The restaurant was built in the '60s by Maurice Hoffman but the roof failed and Marcille used to place buckets all around the dining room where rainwater and snowmelt would filter through the pigeon poop on the second floor.
She closed it in the early 80s.
I bought it after my vision in 1997 after the roof had been replaced by realtor Bud Tetrault who sold it to me.
St. Onge Sewer and Water Company is the government; the county supervisor for the unincorporated community is a figurehead. Only 100 permits exist and they are handed down like heirlooms.
Woodman Hall lost its permit and I exposed the families that control them. The basement fills with water every Spring and has caused some weakening of the spans that support the locally quarried sandstone envelope.
The Company gave me a permit but when I lost the building they took it back so the current owner is in court in an attempt to get water.
The VFD fills trucks out of False Bottom Creek or Redwater River because the system is inadequate to pump at emergency capacity.
Thanks for the stories Larry. I'm always intrigued by the histories of those little Hills towns. Actually, I'm intrigued by the stories of any little towns. I like to imagine them in their heyday - bustling and prosperous. Of course, some of them never had a heyday.
The second floor has two rooms where meetings and dances were held. The first floor housed the First National Bank of Deadwood and a mercantile.
I bought it intending to rent it out to bikers for the Rally, gutted the second floor, and lived on the first.
Found this site googling the St. Onge Bar to find their winter hours, and was impressed by your photos and commentaries. Too bad you missed the food at the SOB - it's actually pretty good. I moved here a couple of years ago due to its location - almost equal distances to Spearfish, Deadwood, Belle Fourche and Sturgis (11-15 miles) - and really like the town. Did you know that it was one of the first, if not THE first, place in the Black Hills inhabited by white folks? There is evidence of French trappers that lived here in the early 1800s. Please visit again!
Is this evidence the Thoen Stone? I say some gnarly old prankster Ree carved that for laughs before being run out of the Hills by the Lakota.
One of the locals, now deceased and whose daughter owns the Furois, used to work for the building crew that built locally for decades.
He told the story of how the workers would put nails in their mouths that caused blisters and lesions; so, when the casks came into town on the train, one of the brothers would pee on the nails before them in an effort to deter them.
If memory serves, the sandstone was cut from the local Opitz Quarry while the Minnekahta Quarry west of Hot Springs brought stock into Deadwood on the train.
A brick factory also operated in Belle Fourche for many years supplying the needs of the area: the limestone accents on the cornice of the Furois likely came from the Centennial Quarry.
Clay in the form of bentonite lines your cat's litter box and absorbs oil from your garage floor goes through Belle every day because rail rights supersede your rights to water in parts of the Hills and downstream.
One of the great mysteries remaining to solve in this lifetime is to determine why Kevin Schieffer and the DM&E didn't try to acquire the few miles to the coal fields that they owned from Colony, Wyoming and connecting to the West.
ok, other than constructing the perfect sentence, learning why Kevin Schieffer and the DM&E didn't try to acquire the few miles from what they owned from Colony, Wyoming to the coal fields and giving their system connections to the West, yet another enigma eludes this poor old sot.
looking up a dead horse's assets:
http://rapidcityjournal.com/article_10b29beb-04a6-54b4-a3d4-91d763314647.html
ok, i'm over it.
almost:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F89xIqQhkGE
I heard that the early 1800s evidence was found in an old in-ground cellar with names and dates etched on old wood. I don't know if it's true, but some local ladies in their 80s told me about it and seemed like they thought it was true. Maybe they were pulling my leg.
Kathy, thanks for the note! If those old ladies can help us track down those old wood etchings, we should get them to the Adams Museum pronto!
1830.