Pactola, Silver City and Camp Wanzer
The bed is a welcome place after the mountain climbing. Somehow the
meals and rest afterward add to the satisfaction of these invigorating
and inspirational tramps.
After three enjoyable nights at Pine Crest we leave for the central part
of the Hills. We take S. D. 85 to the left, just before entering
Deadwood. The road is an excellent, improved highway, bordered by
interesting scenery.
[Illustration: Lights and Shadows Among the Pines
Canedy Photo]
We start the trip with an upward climb of six and a half miles. This has
a tendency somehow to warm up the motor a bit. Now we follow a mountain
top trail. The scenery is beautiful as we skim along over good roads
with gentle grades. In places the trees are thick, in other places thin.
There are pines, cottonwood, aspen, spruce, and others. In places forest
fires have left a devastated appearance. These sights leave with one a
feeling of sadness, that carelessness and destruction must claim these
great potentialities of usefulness and beauty. They leave with us a
deeper resolve to “Put out campfires before leaving them.”
It is thirty-one miles to Pactola on Rapid Creek. Just after we cross
the creek and before crossing the railroad we turn to the right,
following the creek, and drive up to Silver City. As near as we can find
out they do not mine silver here. The place is a group of log cabins and
is used for a summer resort. It is a beautiful little place.
[Illustration: A Log Cabin
Canedy Photo]
Going up the creek we take a winding road, almost a path. Along this
road are many church and other camps. We come to Camp Wanzer a few miles
beyond Silver City in Bear Canyon.
Camp Wanzer is not a tuberculosis camp. It is a camp for building up
physically run-down children. No one with tuberculosis or other
communicable disease is admitted. The plan is to have the children live
out here away from vices and irregularities of city life, where proper
hours, food, exercise and supervision may build up their run-down
bodies. The records show remarkable results. Children are required to
rise at a certain time, observe exercise periods, rest periods, to eat
wholesome meals at regular times and to sleep enough each night. They
have a nice swimming hole, too. The children enjoy the vacation. They
are kept for three to six weeks, and in practically every case leave
there stronger and happier than when they came. A person is highly
impressed with what this camp means to these children. There were
fifty-five there in 1928. Children come from all parts of the state.
Parents pay for it where they can and the Christmas seals sale pays for
the rest. After seeing where our Christmas seal proceeds go we are ever
so much more willing and even anxious to contribute to the fund.
We again follow a beautiful mountain stream, Spring Creek, through
Sheridan and down to Hill City. Along the road we find some real rock
cliffs running up several hundred feet and we can here see the plan of
the rock layers, thrown in, tilted on edge, the formation which is
general throughout the Black Hills. At Sheridan there is a good looking
tourist camp, including cabins.