CHAPTER XVI
Custer
We go off to the left a few miles to the State Game Lodge. This is the famous Summer White House of President Coolidge. Before we reach it we see a fine group of elk along the road and another of deer. The latter bound gracefully into a thicket when we stop to watch them. Along this road are several tourist camps. Galena and the Game Lodge are the larger ones.
The Switchback on the Needles RoadRise Photo
One of the Tunnels
We will leave the game lodge and zoo, however, and take them in our return from Hot Springs. Accordingly we take trail 36 back to Custer, about twenty miles. A few miles before we come to Custer we find a tall stone shaft rising beside the road. A bronze plate attached to it tells us that this is a monument erected to the memory of Mrs. Anna D. Tallent, the first white woman in the Hills. To the right, down a lane a few rods is a reconstructed replica of the old Gordon Stockade. The saplings are driven into the ground, spiked on top, just as the old fort had been. Within the inclosure are a couple of buildings, one where the Tallents lived and one where other folks of the party had lived. French Creek flows just south of the stockade.
Just when gold was discovered in the Hills is a question. Probably it was before 1850, or shortly thereafter. One tale runs that a party of sixteen left the California Trail at Fort Laramie in 1852 because friendly Indians reported gold in the Black Hills.
Restoration of the old Gordon Stockade built to protect the people from the Indians