Hearing a great amount of gunfire coming from the Pilgrim’s village, Ousamequin (Massasoit), the Pokanoket Wampanoag leader, and 90 of his warriors rushed to their aide. Instead of a battle though, the Wampanoag came upon a festival, as the Pilgrims were celebrating the harvest of their first crops. What wouldRead More →
Samuel Carpenter may not be a man widely known, but for Marines, his establishment, the Tun Tavern, is legendary. With beer flowing, and promises of adventure, in Carpenter’s tavern the first five companies of Marine Corps would be formed. For 248 years, their fight and sacrifice continue to live. CreatedRead More →
There are many good reasons to get married. Love is one that is on top of that list. And if the marriage is based on good reasons, then it has a higher chance of lasting. Being forced to be married because you started a relationship with your bunkmate, probably isn’tRead More →
There are many reasons why a wedding may be called off. Finding out that your beautiful wife to be is actually a man, that would be one of those reasons. That is the situation Roscoe Billman found himself in in March of 1907. But Roscoe wouldn’t have to call theRead More →
Upon his death, the city of Lead mourned the passing of one of its most esteemed citizens. He, along with his wife, were known to be some of the most charitable residents of the town. Yet today, they have largely been regulated to the past, a brief memory only tracesRead More →
What’s the quickest way to obtain a large number of wolf pelts? Stealing them, or at least that was the tactic used by South Dakota’s champion wolfer, William B. Werd. The fraud Werd committed would stretch across two states, multiple counties, and even got the Meade County Bank involved. Werd’sRead More →
As winter approached, the Yanktonai and Hunkpatina bands of Dakota were busy hunting buffalo and preparing the meat for the coming season. Around them, the United States was split in Civil War, as the Union divided themselves between a war in the south, as well as on their western frontier.Read More →
“I don’t care whether you shoot me or hang me. I have done my work.” Those are quite possibly the last words of Richard Stoll, a man who would end his own life after having killed the mayor of Sturgis. The news of this “distressing tragedy” would spread throughout theRead More →
One of the big pushes we’ve done here at Historical Sturgis is to seek to produce a definitive history of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. In doing that, we’ve discovered history that is relatively unknown. With history that is relatively unknown, or that goes against public perceptions, it is important toRead More →
When thinking about the Sturgis Rally, a family fun event may not be what you think of first. Yet, when the Rally began in 1938, that’s exactly what it was, and for the next few decades, that is how it would continue. So how did we go from family funRead More →