Whitewood's Cattle Industry

The first face of this two-sided 2016 bronze starts too early. No cattle drives reached the Whitewood country in the 1860s; the Black Hills then lay inside the Great Sioux Reservation that the 1868 treaty set aside. Longhorns came in 1876 behind the gold rush, to feed the miners, and the herds spread after the Hills were taken in 1877. The reverse stands on surer ground: the Black Hills Sales Pavilion, built here in 1921 on shares sold to townspeople and stockmen.

What the plaque says

Whitewood's Cattle Industry Cattle began arriving in the 1860s when the cattle drives came up from the south bringing the large herds of long horned cattle, and in the 1870s homesteaders brought small herds to the Whitewood area. The natural tall prairie grass of the High Plains enabled cattle to thrive. Buyers from the Omaha and Sioux City stockyards came to Whitewood to buy this prime beef. (Continued on other side) Dedicated in 2016 by the City of Whitewood and Outside Deadwood Grant Whitewood's Cattle Industry (Continued from other side) 1921—Black Hills Sales Pavilion, one of the first livestock sales barns West of the Missouri River in WY, MT, ND, and SD, was built in Whitewood with capital stock of $10.000 raised by selling $50.00 shares and local stockmen buying $100 shares. In 1922 the Black Hills Purebred Livestock Breeders held their annual meeting at this Pavilion. Dedicated in 2016 by the City of Whitewood and Outside Deadwood Grant

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mount Moriah Cemetery — 7.4 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 — 7.4 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 — 9.8 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.
• Bear Butte — 11 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.

More markers nearby

• Whitewood's Railroad History — steps away
• 1940 DAR Penny Pines Forest — 4.5 mi
• Henry Weston Smith — 5.6 mi
• Preacher Smith of Deadwood Gulch — 5.7 mi