SECTION 3 - New Times Media Corporation

Section 3
All Wyoming Area Codes are 307
creek. The mill’s location is also identified by a
pipe on the site marker.
Along with dimension lumber, the mill
undoubtedly produced wooden lath, those thin
wood strips used to hold plaster to the walls in the
days before metal lath or sheetrock. As you drove
here, you probably didn’t notice a large hole on the
right hand side of the road. It is all that remains of
a kiln where the area’s limestone was burned to
produce the lime used in mixing plaster.
This lime also had a mundane, but important,
daily use: It was a common practice for every
home or business to keep a small bucket of lime
handy in their outhouse. Thoughtful users would
throw a scoopfull down the seat hole to speed
decomposition and control odors.
Between here and Site 11 drive slowly and
watch for wildlife. Watch the meadows. Any
turkeys you see are not some farmer’s flock—they
are wild. In the spring, you might just see them
strutting and displaying. During the winter, Bald
Eagles may be observed along the creek, as can
other raptors in the summer. The Great Blue
Heron is also around in the summer, drawn no
doubt by the fish hatchery.
Site 8—Sweet School—is located one mile
north on the right.
8. Sweet School
The memories stirred by this dying building
are those of isolated rural communities and
country schools. The building is actually two
buildings. On the right is the original building
on the site, the Sweet School. In the 1940s, the
men of the Beaver Creek community moved the
LAK School eight miles and built a kitchen
between the two buildings so it could serve as a
community center, as well as a school. For many
who drive by today, the building sparks pleasant
memories of parties, dances, meetings,
romance—to say nothing of the “readin’, writin’
and ‘rithmetic” of one room schools with as
many as 32 students in eight grades.
The Sweet School remained open until 1959.
After that, students were bussed to Newcastle.
Community activities continued, but became
fewer, until they finally died out in the 1970s—
improved roads, the loss of activities associated
with country schools, off-ranch jobs all took their
toll and changed the fabric of rural community life.
While one of the earlier schools in the county,
the Sweet School was not the oldest; that
honor went to the Beaver Creek School located
up the road. It opened in 1888 with six or eight
books with the floor serving as its blackboard. In
the early years, country school teachers usually
found their room and board with a nearby family.
Like the students, they sometimes had a ways
to go by foot or horseback to the school. In winter,
it was not at all unusual to find the inside
walls of the school covered with frost when they
arrived in the morning.
The Sweet School wasn’t always located here.
The moving of a school building was not at all
uncommon. School board politics, large families
moving in or out, a neighborhood feud, or a land
dispute (whatever, sometimes it didn’t take much)
and the school would be on the road again. The
building would be jacked up, put on log rollers
or skids and hauled off to its new location by a
team of 8 to 10 horses.
If you look 360 degrees you might conclude
Colonel Dodge was describing the view from this
spot when he wrote:
“The scenery is very grand and beautiful. The
valley, owing to the number of streams, is a rich
green. On each side rise ranges from one to two
190
thousand feet, their tops covered with the dark,
thick growth of pine which gives the name ‘Black’
to the ‘Hills.’ The face of these ranges shows near
their tops a stratum of several hundred feet of red
sandstone; below this, a belt of very uniform thickness
of white limestone; below this, a greenish formation,
which the geologists pronounce ‘Jurassic;’
near the bottom are beds of great thickness, of a
stiff red clay; and against the base of these are
immense dirty-white beds of gypsum; below all
this is the green valley, graceful with trees and
shrubbery. The combination and variety of colors,
the towering precipices and broken crags, make a
picture as delightful to the eye as may be found.”
Site 9—Grist Mill—is located 0.6 of a mile
north on the right.
9. Harper Grist Mill
Up until the 1940s when it was torn down, a
large two storied, rather plain Victorian building
occupied the area next to the old shed which
leans against the rock. The shed was the ranch’s
blacksmith shop and the larger building was used
to house the hired hands working on the place.
When the building was built is unknown, but the
main ranch house across the road did have a parlor,
dining room and three bedrooms added to
what had been a kitchen in 1902.
This building was more than a little unique. It
had a water wheel under the first floor—a wheel
which reflected ingenuity, constructed as it was
from the wheel of a horsedrawn hay mowing
machine with cups attached. Water to move the
wheel and drive the grinders of its attached grist
mill came through a wooden flume from a spring
located higher on the hill and some distance
away. The spring is still there, but its water is
diverted and now used for irrigation of fields
down the creek.
The ranch was blessed with springs, as were
many ranches along Beaver Creek. They provided
good water for livestock and gardens, but they also
created swamps and a bumper crop of brush that
the rancher burnt out each year. It took (and still
takes) a lot of hard work and a great deal of sweat
to get ahead of Mother Nature to create and keep
up the meadows you see along the creek today.
It would be an odd ranch that didn’t have a
large garden to provide for its own needs—
enough to eat fresh in season and enough to can
or store for the long winter months. The soil and
water on Beaver Creek were productive and some
early ranchers, in addition to their cattle, carried
on market garden operations to supply the area’s
growing needs.
On your way to the next site, take note of the
yellow Victorian house 0.6 of a mile up the road.
The owner of this ranch purchased it in 1883,
but didn’t move on to it until 1900. He replaced
the original log cabin with this house in 1904.
Along its south side there was a long utility room
through which ran a very small stream fed by a
spring up the hill. This boxed-in stream served as
the family’s refrigerator, keeping milk and other
perishables cool and unspoiled. Undoubtedly, the
family also had an ice house where ice for warm
weather use was kept. This ice was cut in winter
from ponds and stored under sawdust for insulation.
The ice lasted the summer. This system continued
in use until the late 1940s when rural
electrification was undertaken seriously.
Site 10—Fish Hatchery—is located 1.2 miles
north on the left.
10. Fish Hatchery
The Cedar Ridge Hatchery takes advantage of
spring water to raise Rainbow, Brook and German
Brown trout. At any one time, about 20,000 to
150,000 are in residence. Of course, any beyond
25,000 are small fry. Some end up stocking
streams, some end up on a dinner plate and some
stick around to make sure that there are more
next year.
The spring is a strong one, a million and a
half gallons of pure mountain water per day. Its
temperature is about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The
source of this water is the same as that of the
fountain in Newcastle—the Paha Sapa (Madison)
Formation. Here, however, the formation has
been thrust far closer to the surface of the
Limestone Plateau and, as you may have noticed
as you drove the road, many springs exist. It is
their flow which makes Beaver Creek the strong
stream it is. Farther up the road, particularly at
the point where the road crosses Beaver Creek
there is no water. The natural flow of the creek
disappears, going underground to reappear later.
This is not an unusual occurrence in the Black
Hills given its geology. The entrance to the hatchery
is 0.2 of a mile from here. If the gate is open,
you are welcome to drive in and see some very
nice trout.
Site 11—Wooden Waterline—is 1.0 miles
north on the right.
11. Wooden Waterline
For many years Newcastle received part of its
water supply through a wooden waterline that
had its start some twelve miles north of here on
the EVA Ranch. Built in 1920, the line continued
in use until the early 1950s when Newcastle
drilled its wells into the Paha Sapa Formation.
Constructed of oak planks and bound with spirals
of heavy gauge wire, the line crossed hill and
dale. You can still see from here where part of
that line ran if you look through the pipe on the
sign. You can only marvel at the skill of the surveyor
who laid out the route for this gravity fed
system unaided by modern maps or today’s satellite
surveying technology.
Relics of the line continue to exist. At one
spot there is a manhole cover that even today
when lifted reveals cold, clear water rushing
through the pipe. Within hangs an old tin dipper,
a clear invitation to drink. But, as good and plentiful
as the water was, the line was not without its
troubles. Simply, it was a maintenance nightmare
and more than one Newcastle resident remembers
water restrictions being enforced because the line
was down. One of the jokes often repeated ran,
“How do you fix a leak in a wooden water line?”
Answer: “Just dump a couple of gunny sacks of
sawdust into the line and pray some of it will
catch in the holes, swell and stop the leak.”
Even after drilling its wells, Newcastle did not
relinquish its water rights to this source until
sometime in the 1970s. It did so then only after
some considerable thought and discussion. That
it took some twenty years is not surprising when
you consider how water is valued in this country.
As you leave this stop begin to watch for elk.
A small herd resides in the area and you just
might see them on the high meadows early in the
morning or later in the afternoon or evening.
Site 12—Thomson Canyon—is 1.7 miles up
the road on the left.
12. Thomson Canyon
The Thomson Ranch homesteaded by Ed
Thomson was located on the left side of the road.
The canyon is off to the right. His grandson,
Keith, distinguished himself in World War II and
was later elected to serve Wyoming in both the
U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
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