History of Custer

Although there were French fur trappers and traders in the Custer area by 1796, there was no town of Custer until August 10, 1875. On that date General George Cook persuaded the minors illegally in the area to leave until the Black Hills became opened to white settlement. Cook allowed the assembled minors to lay out and name a town and allowed seven men to remain in the area to protect their mining claims.

Thomas Hooper laid out the town one mile square with a picket rope and a pocket compass. Lots were numbered and the miners present drew for the lot they could claim when the area would be opened for settlement.

When it came to naming the town, veterans of the Civil War who had served in the Union Army suggested the name of Custer to honor the general who had made a reputation for himself. Veterans of the Confederate Army suggested the town to be named Stonewall in honor of their Civil War hero, Stonewall Jackson. A vote was taken to decide the matter. There being more Union veterans than Confederate veterans--although the number was close to half and half--the name of Custer won.

The exodus of miners in August of 1875 was short-lived. Many of them returned to the area before it was officially opened to settlement by the government. They had been lured to the area by reports from the 1874 expedition to the Black Hills and Custer's report of the finding of gold on French Creek. Custer was followed within four months by the Collins-Witcher-Gordon party of pioneers who settled near Custer's former "permanent" camp. The Gordon Stockade was built by that party and it was the magnet that drew the miners to the area in 1875. The Gordon party was evicted from their stockade in April of 1875.

Rows of ramshackle cabins mostly made from green lumber soon appeared in Custer valley at the site of the present City of Custer. The city was thriving with an estimated 10,000 population by May of 1876, when a gold strike in Deadwood Gulch caused the miners to flock to that location, there were only fourteen people left in Custer--Sam Shankland, Mr. and Mrs. H.A. Albien, Mrs. S.M. Booth, General Scott, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Wright, Mrs. Charles Hayward, Frank Peterson, William Kraus, A.B. Hughes, Abram Yerkes, Joseph Reynolds and Bob Pugh. By the end of 1876, the town's population had increased to 123 people.

Merchandise was freighted to Custer from 1876 until 1890 when the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad reached the town. Ox teams pulling covered freight wagons--the reason for Custer's 100-foot wide streets designed so that teams could make U-turns--gave way to the railroad which gave way to truckers in the 1940s. Early businesses by December of 1876 included the Western Stage Line (Sidney, Nebraska to Deadwood, fares $10 to $20); a hotel, the Custer House; Lee, Turner & Company, grocers; Joseph T. Bliss, general second hand store; S.M. Booth, wholesale and retail commission merchant; Harlow & Co., clothiers, hardware, grain, feed, liquors and cigars; Dr. D.W. Flick and Dr. J.W.C White, physician and surgeon.

The first baby born in Custer was a girl born May 11, 1876 to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Sasse. They moved to Deadwood and the child died in November. Sasse freighted liquor to the Black Hills. The Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage began regular runs to Custer in July of 1876. Custer's first school was taught in the summer of 1876 by Miss Carrie Scott, daughter of C.A. Scott who made the first coffin in Custer. The Scotts moved to Spearfish. The Rev. Henry Weston Smith gave the first sermon in Custer--in a saloon. He was killed that summer while on his way from Deadwood to Crook City to deliver a sermon.

By 1915 W.R. Woods had completed a telephone line in Custer, connecting eventually with the Deadwood line. Up to that time communcition was by telegraph, pony express, or horse and buggy.

Electricity was generated by the Dakota Power Company in the 1920s.

Sanitary Sewer plants replaced the gutters into which refuse, solid and liquid, was thrown into the streets prior to about 1920. Septic tanks were used by individual households. The city water mains were first of routed out logs joined with fitted ends, later with metal pipes that rusted and now with plastic pipes. Water comes from deep wells.

The city police force progressed from a lone constable to a force of four or five men until it was combined with county law enforcement in the 1970s.

Dirt was replaced by gravel on city streets by the 1915s when main street was levelled and boardwalks gave way to concrete sidewalks. Paving began in the 1940s. An airport was built in the 1940s and has steadily increased in services and facilities.

Two city parks evolved from a need for a place for farmers to have picnics when they brought produce to town in the 1930s, the removal of a feed and grain store that was falling to ruins, rerouting of French Creek, and a donation of land for the present Harbach park.

Since the 1880s Custer has had a volunteer fire department, first with hose cart and runners, then with wagon and teams and finally with hose trucks, smoke estractors, etc. For years, Leo Harbach as fire chief, guided the destiny of the department which included constant training and upgrading of methods and equipment.

Custer's early Commercial Club was replaced by the Custer County Chamber of Commerce, now the Custer Area Chamber of Commerce which promotes tourism in the city. Custer is the county seat of Custer County. Its 1881 courthouse has housed many famous trials and incidents over the past 92 years. Twenty seven years ago a new courthouse was constructed at the south side of Way Park, a legacy of a Custer County official and former miner.

Custer's population is of about 1,800. The town is a friendly place to do business in the midst of spectacular Black Hills scenery.