Accommodations in principal towns.
US 12 cuts across the southwestern corner of North Dakota through an area where herds of cattle and flocks of sheep graze on the hardy prairie grasses that grow in the small valleys between high, rough, brown mesa-topped buttes. The day of the pioneer homesteader and rancher is barely in the past here, and only within recent years has diversified farming gradually been adopted. Near its western end the route passes through the southern part of the Badlands, a strange land of fantastic enchantment where ever-changing combinations of color and shadow form a background of weird beauty (see Tour 8).
US 12 crosses the South Dakota Line at 0.0 m. on a railroad overpass at White Butte, S. Dak. (see S. Dak. Tour 2).
At 1 m. the route passes through a level area adjacent to HIDDEN WOOD CREEK (L), also called Flat Creek. Along its course, approximately a mile apart and covered with brush, are two cutbanks known as BRUSHY BANKS, near which the Custer Black Hills expedition camped on the way from Fort Abraham Lincoln in 1874.
On Hidden Wood Creek in this vicinity in 1882 was situated the main camp of the Indians from the Standing Rock Reservation who took part in the last big buffalo hunt of the Sioux tribe, said to be the last large hunt in the United States, held under the direction of Maj. James McLaughlin, then Indian agent at Fort Yates (see Side Tour 8C).
In the years following the Custer episode in 1876 (see History and Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park) many of the Sioux, except the faithful few who accompanied Sitting Bull into exile in Canada (see Side Tours 6B and 8C), returned to the reservations to assimilate the white man's civilization. Before the white man's restrictions had been placed upon them the Plains Indians had been trained from childhood to the pursuit of the buffalo, for the buffalo was the staff of the Indian's life, providing food, shelter, and clothing. The hunt in 1882 caused much rejoicing among the tribesmen, offering them a temporary respite from the humdrum reservation life, and a brief return to the activity which had once existed in this land that was rightfully theirs.
Long and extensive preparations were made for this hunt. Strict religious ceremonies invoked the blessing of the Great Mystery. Running Antelope, whose picture was on the old five-dollar Treasury notes, was generalissimo of the affair, while under him, leading the different bands, were such famed Indians as Gall, Rain-in-the-Face, John Grass, Fire Heart, Kill Eagle, Crazy Walking, Spotted Horn Bull, Gray Eagle, and Charging Thunder.
Approximately 2,000 men, women, and children, including a few white men, made the 100-mile journey from Fort Yates to the scene of the hunt, and McLaughlin estimated that more than 600 mounted red men took part in the actual killing. The herd, said to number 50,000 head, was first sighted near White Butte, 10 m. S. of the present South Dakota town of the same name, and covered the valley from that point to Haynes (see below). On the first day of the hunt 2,000 buffalo were killed, and the second day was given to skinning and cutting up the dead animals. The third day found the Indians again on the chase, and this time 3,000 bison were killed. The Hidden Wood Creek camp was maintained until all the meat was cured and ready to take back to the reservation. Years later when the railroad was built, many of the settlers made a nice profit shipping the bones of the buffalo carcasses left from this hunt.
HAYNES, 3 m. (2,540 alt., 167 pop.), was named for George B. Haynes, general passenger agent of the Milwaukee R. R. when it constructed its main line in 1907.