By james art 
DE SMET, SD (SDPB and South Dakota News Watch) – Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit places associated with South Dakota’s pioneer and Wild West history each year, and cemeteries are among the historic sites that bring the past alive for those visitors.
Jim Hagen, South Dakota’s tourism secretary, said history buffs are one of the department’s primary audiences. “Whether it’s Native American history and culture, pioneers, the Old West … an interest in South Dakota history, but also American history. We have a ton of that in the state.
A prime example is the Ingalls homestead in De Smet, where much of the Little House on the Prairie book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder is set. The series has been translated into dozens of languages and is the basis of a still-popular television series from the 1970s and 1980s. Hagen said that no matter where he travels around the world, he sees an enduring interest in Ingalls Wilder’s stories.
“To take that pioneering story and be able to share it in a marketing aspect to visitors to say, ‘Did you know you can come and walk in Laura’s footsteps and experience this at the Ingalls Homestead?’ Or go to the town of De Smet and go through Mom and Dad’s house, go through the museum and see where they lived and see where they’re buried?” I mean, it’s huge.”
De Smet’s Little Cemetery on the Prairie
This summer marked the 53rd anniversary of the annual Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant at De Smet. Local actors act out scenes from Little House on the Prairie on an outdoor stage for visitors from around the country.
Ann Lesh, Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant board member and Ingalls Homestead operations manager, said this year’s pageant has a new script, the first of three that will be performed over the next few summers.
“For many years, we told the stories that were straight from the books,” Lesh said. “But what we’ve done with these scripts is tell those same stories, but through Laura’s eyes as she writes them and edits the books with her daughter Rose. And their relationship as writer and editor, mother, daughter is quite unique in American history, to have such a relationship in literature.
In addition to updating the competition itself, the De Smet community has developed other programs during the competition weekends.
Tours of De Smet Cemetery – where Charles and Caroline Ingalls, three of their daughters and Laura and Almanzo Wilder’s young son are buried – began as part of the pageant’s 50th anniversary celebrations. Actors from the community read summaries of the lives of some of the residents.
Cemetery tours resonate with visitors, Lesch said.
“This allows us to highlight the Ingalls family. We always choose one or two of the Ingalls family members,” she said. “But it also allows us to highlight some of the other members of the community who have either been featured in the books but very little, or haven’t been featured in the books because of the way Laura has written the books, where she’s brought the characters together . “
One such resident of De Smet is Aubrey Sherwood, whose father founded the local paper.
Sherwood took over the paper in 1929 and was an early advocate of preserving the history presented in Ingalls Wilder’s stories. He was also an early tour guide, offering walks around the community to visitors who arrived at his newsroom wanting to learn more about De Smet.
“So we always include Aubrey on our cemetery tours as well so we can honor what he did for our community to help preserve our history,” Lesh said.
Celebrity death is for sale in Deadwood
Across the state, in the Black Hills, Deadwood is home to one of the most famous cemeteries in the West, thanks to several VIPs buried there.
Kevin Kuchenbecker, who works in Deadwood’s city planning, zoning and historic preservation office, said Mount Moriah Cemetery was established in 1876, two years after the town, although the original was on a lower, more level place.
“They needed it for development and moved some of the bodies here,” he said, “including one of the most famous in Deadwood history, if not the Wild West, Wild Bill Hickok. He is buried in this cemetery right next to Calamity Jane who died in 1903. And here we have Preacher Smith and Seth Bullock and various other legends.
Mount Moriah Cemetery has been closed to new burials for 75 years. A $2 entry fee supports ongoing maintenance of the grounds.
“It’s just beautiful, sacred ground. But it is a tourist attraction. We get about 100,000 to 120,000 visitors a year who come and pay their respects to our legends of the Old West,” Kuchenbecker said. “People are drawn to these historic celebrity graves, and Wild Bill Hickok is and was a celebrity.”
Deadwood’s connection to this Old West works in tandem with another industry: gambling.
“The most famous poker game in history was on Aug. 2, 1876, when Wild Bill was shot and had the dead man’s hand,” Kuchenbecker said, referring to the hand of aces and eights Hickok held when he was killed by Jack McCall .
More than a century later, city leaders proposed low-stakes gambling as a funding mechanism to support the preservation of Deadwood’s historic buildings. Kuchenbecker sees the value of the relationship between the two industries in attracting visitors year after year.
“The story is the lure, and then what are these distractions while they’re here? They can dine, they can shop, they can play, they can relax.”
Since its legalization in 1989, the Deadwood Gaming Association has reported approximately $2.6 billion in gross revenue for the Deadwood industry. It also funds grants for paint, window and siding repairs on historic buildings.
“Wild Bill Hickok, who was shot while playing poker in Deadwood, basically made the town,” said George Milos, executive director of the Deadwood Gaming Association.
Events like the annual Wild Bill Hickok Days in Deadwood, which celebrated 40 years this summer, daily reenactments during the summer months and continued interest in the story make the town a unique destination, he said.
“You can go anywhere and bet. You can’t go anywhere and watch Wild Bill get shot three times a day,” Milosz said.
How to Watch South Dakota Focus
The next episode of South Dakota Focus airs Thursday, October 31 at 8:00 PM Central / 7:00 PM Mountain Time. It can be viewed on SDPB-TV1, Facebook, YouTube and SD.net.
The episode includes:
- How De Smet keeps visitors engaged with the enduring legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder
- The relationship between historic preservation and the gaming industry in Deadwood
- A Deadwood tour guide invites visitors to learn the gruesome history of the mining town and shares a few ghost stories along the way
Editor’s note: This story is part of a series that Jackie Hendryhost and producer of South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s “South Dakota Focus,” will write a preview of the upcoming show for South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit news organization. Read more in-depth stories at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for email every few days to receive stories as soon as they are published. Contact us at [email protected].
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