INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION: HOW IT ALL BEGAN – A PERSONAL JOURNEY THROUGH DISCOVERY AND AN EXPLANATION OF MY OWN HISTORY

FOR USE BY ALL TO KEEP THE MEMORIES OF THOSE TOWNS, PEOPLE AND THINGS, SO THEY DARE NOT FADE COMPLETELY AWAY.

This journey began one night as I found myself bored, but the complete history of my interest in ghost towns, mines and such,  and the people who made these areas alive began as a young child.

I have always been interested in the history, not just the famous battles, etc.  but also the interesting stories of the people, the stories of these lives that made these things come alive.

I have always been drawn to abandoned buildings such as the Montana Theater in Butte, Montana, now gone but during my high school years, I wanted to break in, to see it from the inside.

I didn’t. I wasn’t that much of a rebel but there I stood outside its massive hulk and wondered what was inside.

Famous stars that we know even to this day like Lucille Ball and such were part of the history of The Montana Theater, some were reportedly born back stage.  But there the theater, a shell of her former self, stood abandoned, stripped by corrupted men, allowed by city men in “attempts to save history”.

I watched in tears as she was tore down, too far gone to be saved as declared by the same city men.

My father, Rudy Giecek, owned the historic Dumas Brothel in Butte Montana from 1990 until 2012.

He saved it from the same fate.  

It was not a history some wanted saved, but covered up and hidden.  But without the women of the line, the miners probably would not have stayed. 

I know some folks hate this part of history but it should not be lost; it is important to remember.

The Dumas was designed and built as a brothel in 1890 and ran as such until 1982.

It was the start of my love of sitting in dusty archives, reading through volumes of newspapers and such, discovering the people which made the history of not just the Dumas but the red-light district of Butte as well as Butte itself come alive.

The Internet definitely makes the research easier but I will admit to missing those days of sitting there, for hours, in the Butte Archives, reliving lives through the media, court documents and such, like I had my own time machine.

The Dumas deserves its own book and maybe someday I will sit down and try to write that.

My dad did publish a book called Venus Alley; a historical based novel with a bit of paranormal help.

In another book, I’ll dive into the history of Montana but for now, I will start with the current state I find myself; South Dakota, a state with so much history it could fill a library of books on its own and has. 

One night, I found the Wikipedia section for the ghost towns of South Dakota.  It was definitely incomplete, not just in the information for each town but even missing many of the towns.

Not the fault of the user generated information site.

A lot of these towns were forgotten, lost to the memories of time.

Mining towns, just a blip of a few short years.  Rail road villages, stops mostly, beginnings of stage coach lines, farming communities with a post office, now just a field, territorial post offices in the wild frontier or “Indian Country” there for a year or two, even before the frontier men came for gold, furs or other fame. Homesteader villages, those hardy men and women out on the frontier trying to make a home.

Some towns try to speculate and win the railroads’ favor, but failed and soon would be faded memories, shells of their former glories, or for some not even a foundation in the field.

Con men and snake oil dealers tried to build up those who wanted a new life, attracting them to tracts of land, which, in a few years would turn into nothing, another addition to the many ghost towns and legends that fill South Dakota.

The Black Hills of Western South Dakota attracted the miners, many a town grew as the mines that gave their names to the gathered town and many a town faded just as quickly as they came; the mines were mined out or even the water did not flow anymore.

Some of the towns grew and still exist today; famous towns like Deadwood, gunfights and all.  

Lost treasure stories fill libraries and books themselves; some of these treasure troves are now unobtainable as they lie under hundreds of feet under water; not there when the trove began but humans need water and their way to get a good source is to dam rivers and streams and flood the valleys the miner, the trapper, whatever stayed and hid their fortunes away from the robbers who also called this state home.

I live in the Black Hills; Rapid City, a city with its own history worthy of ten thousand volumes of tomes and books alone, a city where you can feel the history.  

I am a recent transplant here; living here at the time of this writing for over three years. 

I love it.

It has access to the hills, the mountains and the plains.

The history calls out as I sit on the front step and look out, imagining what it was like to be here, that first settler, frontiersmen, whatever, even that first man who stepped into the area and said, “This is our God’s home!”

It is beauty beyond  beauty.

I think most states are, each having their own distinct beauty and charm.

I was born in Washington State (Spokane), moved to Hamilton, Montana then to Anaconda Montana and my adopted home town of Butte, Montana. I lived in New Albany, Indiana (across the mighty Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky) where I worked for a riverboat casino owned by Caesars. I even crossed the Ohio and lived in Louisville, Kentucky which I called my second home town.

I know some people need church but my church is the wide open spaces of the west and even the east, where finding these places is tough as the people grow close together but they still have their own charm.

Some of these stories were gathered on websites and through government documents, I will try to chronicle them here, to keep their memories alive, to make it easier for people to find and maybe start them on their own journey to discovery.

Come and discover!