The last event is an exhibition by one of the girls riding a bucking horse. The horse throws the young lady before leaving the corral shute. Accidents occasionally occur in this rough play, though they are rarely fatal. All in all, the performance is very good.
U. and I. Sugar Plant, Belle Fourche, South DakotaO’Neill Photo
This is one of the large plants for making sugar from beets located in the midwestern states. This plant is supplied with beets from the Belle Fourche Valley, irrigated from the great irrigation project administered by the United States Government, and located north of Belle Fourche. Needless to say this is one of the major industries of this part of the state.
After the program there are twenty thousand people trying to leave the grounds at once and soon after the roads from Belle Fourche receive a goodly share of these people. We follow the southbound stream as far as the tourist camp, a mile or two out.
Belle Fourche has a modern camp, although it is just in the process of construction and not yet as complete as some of the others. They have an outdoor dance floor, which is very popular on the night of the Fourth.
The morning of the fifth we drive back through Belle Fourche and east over U. S. Highway 212 to the “U. and I.” sugar plant. This is another of the Black Hills industries. We are given a pamphlet telling us that: the plant covers eight acres; the main building is five stories high; the length of the factory and warehouse is 587 feet; the capacity is fifteen hundred tons of beets each twenty-four hours, and the output 3600 hundred pound bags of sugar every day. Three hundred men are employed during refining season.
A guide takes us through. We first see six 400 horsepower boilers and two 1200 horsepower generators. These are enormous affairs. They develop the power for the plant. We proceed to the place where the beets are unloaded and conveyed through an open flume, through a trash catcher to the washer.
Spillway, Orman Dam