......... GETTYSBURG .......... .........SOUTH DAKOTA.........

AWARD WINNING 'BURGERS

2011-08-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

Pat Everson was named Citizen of the Year.
Tracy Daly Wright earned the Young Dietitian of the Year Award.
Potter County Library Director, Peg Bohnenkamp Williams, is this year's winner of The Distinguished Service Award, the South Dakota Library Association's highest award.
Mary Quiett, GHS-GES school librarian, was inducted into South Dakota Honored Women Educators.

Requests

2010-09-07T09:15:00.000-07:00

Michael James Lofberg, McGinity son of Bea McGinity, grandson of Mae McGinity, is interested in stories of the 1909-1950's that anyone is willing to share.

The Potter County Library needs donations of GHS yearbooks -- 1979 through 2009.

Genealogist wants to buy a copy of the book THE SUN RISES ON THE HOVENS.

Prairie Living

2010-09-04T17:45:00.000-07:00

Information
* City of Gettysburg
* Potter County News
* Gettysburg weather
* Potter County Library Website for genealogy / family history information

*Churches: Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Mormon, Episcopal, Mennonite

*Medical Facilities: Hospital, Clinic, Nursing Home, Apartments with optional assistance, Dental Clinic, Vision Care Clinic, Chiropractor

*Emergency Services: Volunteer Fire Department, Volunteer Ambulance Service with certified EMTs

Hidden Treasures

> Specialty nut rolls at the Gettysburg Bakery. They mail them all over the USA.
South Dakota coffees at The Coffee Bean.
> World class steak dinners.
> Medical services - apartments, clinic, lab, x-ray, nursing home, & hospital -- all under one roof.

ENTERTAINMENT OF INFINITE VARIETY
City Parks - 2 city parks with play areas, basketball courts, lighted tennis courts, picnic areas, restrooms & showers

State Park - West Whitlock State Park has camping sites, restrooms with showers, swimming beach, fish cleaning stations, & a boat ramp

Bowling

Hunting - pheasant, deer, geese, ducks, grouse, partridge, antelope. Guides available.

Golf - 9-hole city golf course with beautiful grass greens and watered fairways

Fishing - walleye, salmon, catfish, northern pike, and more. Guides available.

Water sports - nearby Lake Oahe and in-town swimming pools

Free Camping at Gettysburg's main city park

Fee Campsites - some with laundry facilities

Library - The Potter County Library has books, magazines, videos, audios and wireless Internet access: Potter County Library Website

WITHIN 80 MILES OF GETTYSBURG, SD.

Tour the Dakota Sunset Museum, home of the sacred Lakota Medicine Rock, and showcase for the history of Gettysburg and Potter County. A special treat is a cannon from the Battle of Gettysburg. Dakota Sunset Museum Website
View the inspiring Veterans' Memorial and artillery exhibit on the grounds of the historic Potter County courthouse in Gettysburg.
Cool off in South Dakota’s first swimming pool at Lebanon, SD, 9 miles east of Gettysburg .
See the historic round barn that sits a few miles off the main road north of Gettysburg.
Tour the magnificent Cathedral of the Prairies at Hoven, SD, twenty miles away - crowns the landscape with its twin spires.
See the Bactrian (double-humped) camels and reindeer at the Tip Top Camel and Reindeer Ranch 12 miles west of Bowdle.
Tour bandleader Lawrence Welk’s family home at Strasburg, ND.
View Oscar Howe’s ten murals painted on the walls of Mobridge’s city auditorium as a WPA project in 1942.
Tour the Railroad Museum at Faith, SD.
Travel scenic Highway 1804.
Enjoy Aberdeen's Storybook Land built in remembrance of Aberdonian L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Fish for walleye all year long on Lake Oahe from G’Burg to Mobridge - the Walleye Capital of the World.

EDUCATION
Gettysburg has a K-12 school system with top-notch teachers and supportive parents.

** The system supports an excellent school library, Internet parent portal, an online encyclopedia, and a delicious lunch and breakfast program.

** It is rated a Distinguished School
** Gettysburg School Website

GETTYSBURG'S GREAT HISTORY

2010-09-02T16:40:00.000-07:00

RICH IN HISTORY

Interested in the origins of Gettysburg and Potter County? For Sale: Gettysburg's 75th Anniversary Book - 1883-1958 -- $5 each from the Potter County Library.
100th Anniversary Book is for sale at the Dakota Sunset Museum.
The Dakota Sunset Museum showcases area history and houses 125 yrs. of obituaries. Museum Website: Dakota Sunset Museum Website
The Potter County Library in downtown Gettysburg is the home of Potter County genealogy records and obituaries as well as the Heritage Quest and Ancestry.com databases. Potter County Library Website
Virtual Wall of all those lost during the Vietnam War http://www.virtualwall.org/iStates.htm Click on your State.Scroll down to your city.Soldiers’ names are listed beneath the city name.Click on a name to see a picture of the soldier, his medals, and the link to the database for his military and casualty info.

GETTYSBURG - Past and Present
Veterans of the Civil War founded Gettysburg in 1883. The group sought to name the new town Meade in honor of General Meade, renowned for his leadership in the Battle of Gettysburg. When the Post Office rejected that name because it was already too popular, Captain John W. Kennedy, a member of Gen. Howard’s 11^th Corps during the Battle of Gettysburg, submitted the name Gettysburg instead. That was accepted. One hundred eight years later, Gettysburg, SD, and Gettysburg, PA, became “sister-cities” because of their shared heritage.

The founding veterans laid claim to the area through the government program of scripping. History relates that in the very beginning the town was made up of two tents, one called a wedge tent just large enough to shelter one person, the other a wall tent, being 8x10 and considered a great luxury, and a covered wagon known as the Prairie Schooner. What water they had was hauled from the now dry creek bed of Artichoke.

But all did not go well. Personal differences interrupted the deal the founding men had made. After some months, Captain Bryson stepped in and offered free lots to anyone who would move his buildings from the old town site into Bryson’s addition. By the spring of 1884, the problems had been licked and the entire business block had been moved.

The first church service was held in a tent the second week after the men arrived. The first church building in Gettysburg was located above a tin shop on Main Street. The first school was organized in 1885 above that same tin shop. For a long time the Buffalo House, a frontier hotel and boarding house, was the recreational center for the little settlement. The first saloon is said to have sported a sign that read, “Who enters here leaves hope behind.”

The Post Office was established in 1883, as was the first newspaper. The first bank was established in 1884. Telephone service arrived in 1906 and the first volunteer fire department was organized in 1909.

Although the first physician, Dr. M.H. Willy, came in 1883 and drug store services in 1885, hospital services had to wait until 1952.

Legal services were here before Gettysburg existed. Samuel Cosand, a lawyer from Indiana, came to this area of Dakota Territory in 1881 and stayed the rest of his life.

The town has survived prairie fires, a Typhoid epidemic, blizzards, an Indian scare, and a devastating tornado.

There are 11 cemeteries in the area, some dating back to the 1800s. Most of the Civil War veterans are buried in the Gettysburg Cemetery and are marked by the traditional white military stones.

From 1955-1968, Eagle Peak, a high point near Gettysburg, was home to the 903rd Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, locally known as the Air Force Radar Base. Today the Federal Communication Commission operates a facility on the site.

Gettysburg is the county seat for Potter County, but it wasn’t always so. The county, created in 1875 and organized in 1883, was first named Ashmore County in honor of a territorial legislator. In 1877 it was renamed for Dr. Joel Potter, a member of that year’s Territorial Legislature.

The county commissioners held their first meeting Dec. 27, 1883, at the temporary county seat in Forest City. In April of 1884, an election was held to establish a permanent county seat, and Gettysburg won by overwhelming majority. A fierce struggle ensued. Finally 100 men forcibly took the documents from the temporary courthouse in Forest City and moved them to Gettysburg.

The Oahe Reservoir bounds Potter County on the west. Most of the Indian village sites, Forest City, and the headquarters for the Cheyenne Indian Reservation located in that area were covered by waters from the Oahe in 1957. [Some local farmers and ranchers have noted that they didn't relocate until 1959.]

No one thing in Gettysburg has attracted greater attention than the famed Medicine Rock. It is reported that Lewis and Clark considered it unusual enough to mention in their journals. This 10’x20’ limestone rock was originally located on a bluff fifteen miles west of Gettysburg. Its significance is attributed to the imprint in the hard rock of five tracks of bare human feet. When first discovered, the heel marks were 2.5 in. deep. The early Sioux Indians believed these were the footprints of the Great Spirit, Medicine Rock. In addition to the footprints, there are two depressions at the lower end that resemble the claws of a large animal. The Medicine Rock currently holds a place of prominence at the Dakota Sunset Museum in downtown Gettysburg.

In 2011 Gettysburg is a friendly community of 1100 people and 200 licensed businesses including a medical center with a variety of services. Farming and ranching provide the economic base; however, recreational activities including hunting, fishing, and golf are beginning to play a larger role.

Potter County Trivia

2010-09-01T18:16:00.000-07:00

Murder caused the demise of old LeBeau. While not exactly in Potter County, LeBeau was close by in Walworth County....
On December 11, 1909, a bartender, "Bud" Stephens, in DuFran's saloon shot David G. "Dode" Mackenzie twice in the chest. Mackenzie was the son of Murdo Mackenzie, the legendary cattle baron and general manager of the Matador. As Dode staggered out the door of the saloon, the bartender pumped another two bullets into Dode's back. Bud was tried for murder. Murdo Mackenzie hired one of the highest priced lawyers available to prosecute Stephens. Saloonkeeper DuFran could only afford a young, still wet-behind-the-ears, 23 year-old attorney to defend Stephens. The jury was composed of homesteaders who had no use for the Matador. In March, Stephens was acquitted -- self defense. An angry Murdo MacKenzie never shipped another load of cattle out of LeBeau. About two months following the acquittal, a major portion of the town burned down -- arson by persons unknown. With no cattle to ship, the railroad pulled up its tracks. The town has not exactly dried up -- it is now under the waters of the Oahe Reservoir.

More Potter County Trivia:
The First Non-Native Settler in Potter County was Eli Bacon Vincent, who was born in Ohio in 1850 and graduated from Michigan University Law School in 1873. Starting a law practice proved to be too slow for him, so he pulled up stakes and moved west. He landed at Fort Sully, and afterwards at Fort Bennett across the Missouri River from Fort Sully. The year was 1875.

For four years after that he worked for the US government as the Boss Farmer at the Cheyenne River Agency. The native people nicknamed him Enochenee which meant “Hurry up” because hurrying to get things done was his principle of life.

He then bought 700 acres on the Missouri River bottom and tried his hand at ranching, but by 1884 he had sold out & returned to his hometown in Ohio where he married and raised his children. He died there in 1939.

MORE POTTER COUNTY TRIVIA
The story of Potter County's petrified man is told in Stanley Vestal's book THE MISSOURI. Briefly, the petrified man was a hoax concocted by bored locals who created a petrified body and buried it near Forest City. So successful was the hoax that the locals took the body to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, exhibiting it all along the way for a dollar a viewing. The hoax wasn't exposed until after the turn of the century when they repeated the stunt and tried to sell the next body. The buyer and his wife got into such a terrible fight over the purchase that the buyer murdered his wife and then killed himself. Details are on file at the Potter County Library.

Gettysburg's Air Force Radar Station

2010-09-01T17:30:00.000-07:00

Manned by the 903rd AC&W Squadron, Gettysburg became operational in 1956. The Air Force deactivated the 903rd Radar Squadron (SAGE) on 18 June 1968. The FAA continues to operate long-range radar there today using an AN/FPS-67B search radar atop the old AN/FPS-27 radar tower.

Click one of the links below to find:
Documents relating to 903rd Gettysburg AFS, SD
Gettysburg History, c. 1958
First Mess Hall Meal, Arctic Towers, Other 1956 News
FAA Radar article - 1999
Building Gettysburg AFS, 1955
Winter Scenes
Gettysburg AFS "Only A Legend" - 1999
FUDS Findings of Fact
Site Closing Newspaper Article
Work Progressing Rapidly, Sept. 1955 News
Site Roster
Photographs
Recent photos
Main Site Aerial Photos
Housing Area Aerial Photos
Offsite (Local) GATR Aerial Photos
Main Site Topographic Map
Housing Area Topographic Map
Site History (brief, official history)
Aerial Images
OR
Click this link: RADAR SITES
Input this data: Unit - 903; Site ID - M-99; SAGE ID - Z-99; Location - Gettysburg, SD.