National Trust Blog

For all the tech-savvy preservationists out there, the planners for the 2007 National Trust Conference have established a blog to document their work. They are giving all the conference sessions a dry-run and posting their adventures online. The conference will be held in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in October, and features some pretty interesting architecture including a bank building designed by Louis Sullivan and a gas station designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (no, I'm not kidding, it is a fully functioning gas station). They've got some great photos posted on the blog, including a photo featuring one of the most beautiful rooms ever constructed--the breakfast room at Glensheen Mansion (definitely worth a trip to Duluth).

Deadwood Trail

After the Custer expedition discovered gold in the Black Hills in 1874, a booming freighting and passenger service was built up between Bismarck (in modern North Dakota), and Deadwood (in modern South Dakota). By 1877, the Northwestern Express and Transportation Company had obtained a contract for a mail route between Bismarck and Deadwood, and the company soon established 10 stage stations along the 210 mile route. They used 12 Concord stages and 150 horses to haul passengers, and had Studebaker freight wagons with 150 mule and ox teams (more than 300 head of stock). The first stagecoaches left Bismarck on April 11, 1877 with 68 passengers, and by May they had established a regular schedule leaving Bismarck 3 times a week. Stage fare from Bismarck to Deadwood was $26.

By June the company was using 26 Concord coaches to haul passengers; used 200 ox teams to haul freight; had 175 men on the payroll; and had invested $100,000 in the route. In October of 1879 the company reported a 10 day period where they moved 300,000 tons of freight and 72 passengers from Bismarck to Deadwood. This route was abandoned in 1880 after a shorter route developed between Pierre (South Dakota) and Deadwood.

After the railroad reached Dickinson in 1881, a new attempt was made to haul freight to the Black Hills from this area. Local business man and politician, A.C. McGillivray, served as a local forwarding agent for the Black Hills freight line in the late 1880s. McGillivray had extensive business interests including property in Missouri; a hotel and bank interests in Michigan; a fruit farm in California; and the Indian Springs Ranch, consisting of 32 sections of land, northwest of Dickinson. The ranch ran 485 riding horses, 100 work and draft horses, and 1650 head of purebred Aberdeen-Angus cattle. The Dickinson freight route was faced by competition in 1883 from the Marquis de Mores in the Badlands, who sought to develop a stage and freight line between Deadwood and Medora (North Dakota). The Marquis had 150 horses, 4 Concord coaches, and 15 stations. However, the Marquis gave up the Medora-Deadwood stage in 1885, and the following year he abandoned his other business enterprises in the Badlands as well.

Portions of the Bismarck-to-Deadwood Trail have been marked, and the wagon wheel ruts are still visilbe in some sections.

Your always less than 22 miles from a road.

Discovery News reports on a new study published by Raymond Watts, a scientist at the Rocky Mountain Geographic Science Center and USGS Fort Collins Science Center in Colorado. The study determined that any point in the continental United States is within 22 miles or less of a road. They take some liberty in defining what qualifies as a road, however. Anything from a jeep trail to an interstate road system is included in their research. The densest road network is in Brooklyn, New York, while the fewest roads are found in Hinsdale County, in southern Colorado. Not surprisingly, deserts and mountains have few roads, as well as areas with abundant water--such as the Louisiana Bayous and the Florida Everglades. The researchers concluded that the amount of roads available is often mismatched with the population so that some areas have more roads to maintain than they need.