history of Buffalo Gap South Dakota
The handful of white explorers penetrating the Black Hills country prior to 1874 generated rumors of gold in the mountains of the vast Lakota (Sioux) reservation established by treaty in 1868. These rumors were confirmed by geologists accompanying a large government-sponsored exploratory expedition to the Black Hills in 1874, under the command of General George A. Custer. Within months of Custer's return to Fort Abraham Lincoln, gold seekers began to arrive in what is now Custer County. For a few months, military contingents attempted to stop the trespass onto reservation lands; however, the government forces abandoned their efforts as a full-fledged gold rush developed around the rich strikes at Custer City and Deadwood.
A gap in the high sandstone ridges surrounding the Black Hills known by the Lakotas as the Buffalo Gate formed a natural passageway from the eastern plains into the interior Black Hills. Trails to the gold strikes followed the old Indian and bison route through the gap. The settlement of Buffalo Gap, lying just east of the feature of the same name, grew rapidly as a stage stop and connection point on one of three stage and freight routes to the Black Hills, the Sidney
(Nebraska)-Deadwood line. While the town of Buffalo Gap lay some 20 miles from the gold camps, it prospered as the local transportation hub and supply station. For many settlers, freight hauling proved more lucrative than prospecting. Freighters supplied dry goods and foodstuffs to the burgeoning mining communities. Ranches such as the Streeter Ranch were established along early freight trails from Buffalo Gap to Custer City.
Although nothing remains of the original Buffalo Gap settlement, it was the first real town in eastern Custer County. In contrast to the gold camps, Buffalo Gap had a relatively stable population base and was able to maintain its size and commercial success throughout the gold rush period.
A combination of events ensured Buffalo Gap's prosperity for the next decade. The Sioux and Cheyenne war to drive the white interlopers out of the Black Hills and Powder River county climaxed in the battle of the Little Bighorn in the summer of 1876. While the battle was a resounding victory for the Indians, it spelled their eventual defeat. White prospectors and settlers continued to pour into the area, despite the ever-present danger of Indian attack. With the bison herds nearly decimated, the combined forces of hunger, cold, disease, and relentless harassment by U.S. military forces soon brought the Sioux and their northern Cheyenne allies to surrender. In 1876, a handful of reservation chiefs were coerced under threat of their people's starvation into signing over the Black Hills (Hyde 1937) . Congress ratified this agreement and opened the area to white settlement the following year. With the Indian threat removed, the rich resources of the Black Hills country were there for the taking.
The coming of the railroad further increased the attractiveness of the area to large cattle operators. In December of 1885 a branch of the Chicago and North Western Railroad known as the Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley line reached the freshly platted town site of Buffalo Gap, providing the first rail service to the Black Hills. Other towns, including Fairburn and Hermosa were also platted by the Western Town Lot Company as it followed the tracks slowly making their way north toward Rapid City,- however, Buffalo Gap remained the principal shipping point and connecting point to the interior Black Hills until the Elkhorn line reached Rapid City seven months later. Rapid City would soon out-pace Buffalo Gap, but connecting lines were built from the latter town to Hot Springs, thus sustaining its importance as a local transportation hub.
In its heyday in the mid-1880s, Buffalo Gap was one of the busiest cattle shipping points in the nation and was as wild a cow town as any in the Wild West. According to one account, the town boasted four blacksmith shops, 23 saloons, 17 hotels and eating places, "two large sporting houses and a whole row of small ones," four general stores, two drug stores, four Chinese laundries, three livery barns, one big hardware store, a dry-goods store, and a furniture store. Another accounts states that of 142 businesses, 32 were saloons and honky-tonks.
In the Buffalo Gap area prior to the turn of the century, foreign capital established horse-breeding as an important local industry. The French-owned Fleur de Lis Ranch at Buffalo Gap was famous both for its Pencheron and Arabian horses and for its racetrack, polo matches, and visits by French nobility. After the French owners of the Fleur de Lis sold out, smaller ranches in the Buffalo Gap area continued to raise polo horses and breeding stock until the open range was closed. These included the Martin Valley Ranch (the 777) and the Streeter Ranch. Tents and shanties gave way to churches, schools, fraternal lodges, and community centers that were now housed in permanent structures. The community gained a more peaceful atmosphere as the cattle drives of the open range era gave way to family ranching and farming. Two other industries-- quarrying the local "calico" sandstone and mining Puller's earth--had developed at Buffalo Gap providing another source of jobs and outside revenue. By 1896, the following activities were available to Buffalo Gap residents: IOOF (sponsoring "masquerade balls"), Black Hills Improvement Association, Black Hills Irrigation Association, spelling bees, Sons of Rest, a performance by a "colored troupe," ladies aide (dinners and balls), Modern Woodmen of America (picnic and excursion), organized wolf hunts, "historical and current events society," GAR (cemetery decoration), croquet, chautauquas, baseball, ice-cream socials, Independence Day picnics, a school sociable, many dances, and several cattle round-ups.
In 1895, most of the commercial buildings constructed during Buffalo Gap's initial boom burned. While the town never recovered its previous size, by 1908 a substantial commercial district was in existence in Buffalo Gap. This contained the railroad depot, Alexander Hotel, Stabler 's saloon, two churches, a drug store, Marty's grocery, Busteed's dry goods store, Balou's newspaper and print shop (combined with the Post Office), a community building, two banks, a pool hall, several rooming houses, Wilson Hotel, a flour mill and feed store, Smith's grocery and butcher shop, a lumber and coal store, a fraternal lodge, and an auditorium. The public school was housed in a stone building constructed in 1897, replacing the former dance hall that was used for classes in the early 1890s. Stone buildings were constructed in 1910 for Citizens Bank and the Alexander Hotel annex. Buffalo Gap continued to prosper into the 1920s. A high school opened in 1923. The Nolan Elevator was built in 1926 to accommodate the shift toward grain farming. Cement side-walks were installed to replace the old board walks and a gas light was installed at the corner of Main and 2nd streets .
As automobiles and highways replaced wagons and railroad tracks, the towns of eastern Custer County lost their remaining economic base. Like other western towns, Buffalo Gap was transformed from a booming frontier hub to a virtual ghost town by three factors the town builders could not have foreseen: the automobile, the mail-order house, and the replacement of labor by capital in agriculture. The homesteading boom west of the Missouri had created a landscape of railroad towns, small ranches, and reservations. Now the railroad towns began to disappear. The dwindling population associated with the town found it easier and cheaper to shop in Rapid City or Hot Springs. While Buffalo Gap still supports a tiny handful of retail businesses, the town has transformed from a booming frontier and ranch town to a bedroom community.
Extracted From:
Economic Change in Eastern Custer County, South Dakota, 1880-1939
Dated: 12/30/94
