At 5 m. are the junctions with ND 8, a graveled highway, and with an unimproved county dirt road. US 12 turns L.
1. Right from the junction on the unimproved road to the rammed-earth home and garage of the SCORIA LILY RANCH, 5 m. The owner, Col. Paul S. Bliss, naturalist and author of three books of North Dakota verse, has had the two buildings erected as an example of the practical use of earth for permanent, low-cost farm buildings. In the building process earth is packed into plank forms. After "setting" it forms a durable, heat-and cold-resisting wall.
2. Straight ahead on ND 8 to the abandoned workings of the STATE MINE, 0.5 m. (R), an underground lignite mine once owned and used for experimental purposes by the South Dakota School of Mines. The mine was abandoned several years ago when the coal vein caught fire. The coal is still burning, and occasionally at night the red glow of this earthly furnace is visible where the tunnel timbering and earth have caved in, leaving the hillsides pockmarked and scarred. Nearby on two short rails is a rusty railroad steam engine, its gears fast in the grip of rust and its wooden cab nearly eaten away by wind and rain. Deserted, it stands where it was last stopped before the rails of the spur from Haynes to the mine were taken up.
At 9 m. on US 12 is the junction with an unimproved county dirt road.
Left on this road to PRAIRIE SPHINX BUTTE (R), 2.5 m., where the steep sandstone outcroppings at the top of the formation resemble the features of the Gizeh Sphinx.
HETTINGER, 13 m. (2,668 alt., 1,292 pop.), seat of Adams County, is at the foot of a high hill rising from the valley of Hidden Wood Creek. Adams County was formerly part of Hettinger County, named for Mathias Hettinger, a Freeport, Ill., banker. When the counties were separated in 1907 each wished to retain the original name, and a compromise was finally effected whereby the new county could use the old name for its county seat. The new brick COURTHOUSE (R) was built in 1929.
Hettinger's first newspaper editor was a man of unusual enterprise. As he hauled his press overland from Dickinson, he stopped everyone he met to tell them about his forthcoming publication, and by the time he reached Hettinger he had procured nearly 100 subscriptions. In 1908 this paper, the Adams County Record, was appointed official paper for Hettinger, and in one of the first resolutions it published citizens were instructed to remove their buildings from the streets, where, in the rush of locating, they had built with little regard for the town site plat.
BUCYRUS, 22 m. (2,778 alt., 124 pop.), was first known as Dolan, in honor of the contractor for the Milwaukee R. R. grade there. During the grading a new name was sought for the town, however, and Bucyrus, the trade name of one of the huge steam shovels in use, was suggested and adopted.
REEDER, 31 m. (2,810 alt., 395 pop.), was named for E. O. Reeder, who at the time of the founding of the town was chief engineer for the Milwaukee R. R. Alden Scott Boyer, now a well-known American and French cosmetics manufacturer, operated a drug store here in 1909-13.