Bob Lee (1) (1920–)

Bob Lee is reliable historian of South Dakota history, particularly the Black Hills area. In 1948, he was even dubbed Owa-tonla-wawa ("Writes Straight") by the Oglala Lakota Tribal Council. for his writing on Indians.

I suspect this book may have started as a booster project for the area. Norwest Bank seems to have sponsored it. That company gets a whole paragraph in a section on recent business history in the Hills. The final paragraph seems aimed at a non-local audience: "Readers may be surprised to find themselves as captivated by this truly special section of South Dakota as the Black Hillers themselves!"

Nonetheless, it's a decent introduction to the area, particularly on the years immediately before and after the 1874 expedition of Custer and how the Black Hills went from Indian to white hands. Of course, unlike his worthwhile Fort Meade and the Black Hills, Lee can't go into a lot of detail. Still, he gets in murders and mining, presidents and veterans' hospitals, stagecoaches and ranchers and covers the period from 1874 to 1997, the ground from Belle Fourche to Hot Springs, Rapid City to Sundance.

The book is also heavily illustrated with many photos I have not seen in other books of local history and few repeats of famous photos.

Still, I think the book probably would have more appeal for locals. For instance, I'm fairly familiar with the Northern Hills but the not Southern Hills, and Lee doesn't skimp on covering any area. And, while I certainly knew about Poker Alice and Sturgis, I had not heard of Scooptown and "Grasshopper Jim" Fredricks.

This book is almost 20 years old, but I'd argue only one big change has hit the area since its writing: the closing of the Homestake Gold Mine in Lead in 2001. I also suspect, after September 11th, that the Black Hills has continued its tradition of supplying more than its share of military members.… (mer)

My reaction to reading this book in 1996.

Though a lot of this book consisted of Army administrative detail as to what regiment was stationed at Fort Meade and when and what companies it consisted of, there was a lot of interesting detail here about Fort Meade’s history till it closed 1944. I found the stories of black soldiers in Sturgis interesting – particularly the black businessmen and black prostitutes who catered to them and the lynching of Hallon (not entirely racial since white Fiddler was lynched a year earlier but Sturgis was not unhappy to see them go).

I had never heard of the experiment of recruiting Indian soldiers (including some Indian survivors of Wounded Knee serving in the 7th Calvary which was also at that battle) for the Army in 1891-1897. Of course, the troubles of the 1890 Sioux uprising made recruiting difficult. The experiment was deemed a failure, but some of the Indian units worked well depending on whom their white officers were. I had also never heard of the flight of the Utes in 1906. Lee deals with Wounded Knee (though of course in not as much detail as his source James Mooney in The Ghost Dance Religion and Sioux Outbreak of 1890), but he also has a section on the murder trials resulting from killings apart from Wounded Knee and the attempted arrest of Sitting Bull. The trial of Plenty Horses for the killing of a cavalry officer was interesting on several counts. The sympathy shown him by eastern South Dakotans (including General Miles who was sympathetic to his plight and Lt. Colonel Sumter who arranged for his self-defense), the interest shown in his trial, and his defense (killing Lt. Casey was an act of war – the US had to allow a state of war had existed in the area; otherwise it had acted illegally at Wounded Knee), and the effect on the trial of those who killed Few Tails. Black Hills juries were notorious in their hostility towards Indians and the prosecuting attorney in the case realized that after Plenty Horses was acquitted there was no way they would be convicted.

I liked reading about German prisoners of war being held at Ft Meade (mostly Africa Corps members and their letter upon repatriation stating how much they liked the Black Hills) and the 620th Engineer General Service Company – a collection of soldiers under suspicion of subversion or disloyalty (these units were few and secret in WWII) who wore uniforms similar to POWS (without the initials) and worked in non-sensitive jobs. There were also blemishes to be found in this history. Sturgis comes off as persistent grubbers for federal welfare in the form of defense and, later, VA dollars. It was kind of disturbing to learn the Black Hills were a hotbed for 1920s Klan activity (presumably targeting Catholics given the scarcity of non-whites). Soldiers at Ft Meade even illegally fired on a Klan burning cross.

The book also covered the court martial that got Major Reno kicked out of the Army.… (mer)