Charles Nolin

Charles Nolin's grave plaque and the state bronze where he died disagree about when he came here. This 1978 casting, by the Sturgis centennial committee, says local citizens reburied him on June 7, 1889; the 1976 bronze a mile away says his remains were moved in 1880, and no record found settles it. He was a twenty-four-year-old mail rider on the Sidney-Deadwood trail, killed in August 1876 while the war for the Black Hills, land the 1868 treaty had guaranteed the Lakota, went on around him.

What the plaque says

Charles Nolin 1876 This youthful pony mail carrier on the Sidney-Deadwood gold trail was ambushed, killed, and scalped in what is now South Sturgis on August 19, 1876. He was buried, next morning, by passing pioneers. On June 7, 1889, local citizens re-interred him here. Sturgis-Ft. Meade Centennial 1978 Sturgis Senior Citizens and Chamber of Commerce Centennial Committee

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bear Butte — 4.9 mi
  Mato Paha to the Lakota and Noahvose to the Cheyenne, a lone mountain off the plains where both nations still come to fast and pray.
• Mount Moriah Cemetery — 12 mi
  The hillside where Deadwood moved its dead: Wild Bill and Calamity Jane side by side, Seth Bullock looking at his friend's tower, and the Chinese burner of 1908.
• Deadwood Historic District — 12 mi
  A gold-rush town on treaty land, rebuilt in brick after the 1879 fire and rescued a century later by a vote to let casinos pay for its preservation.
• Homestake Open Cut & Sanford Lab Visitor Center — 14 mi
  A 1,250-foot pit on Lead's Main Street, the visible top of a gold mine that went down 8,000 feet in 125 years and is a physics laboratory now.

More markers nearby

• Civilian Conservation Corps Camp - Ft. Meade — 0.6 mi
• Bear Butte (Mato Paha) Indian Camp — 0.6 mi
• Charles Nolin, Pony Mail Carrier — 0.9 mi
• It Started Here — 1.1 mi