These pictures opened a floodgate of memories, thank you for posting them along with your fascinating research.
When I got out of the Navy in 78 I wanted to get as far away from the sea as possible. Dupree SD, while being on the reservation, was interesting but flat. I wandered over to Sturgis for bike week and worked my way down to Lead & Deadwood.
I worked for a little while in the Homestake mine but did not like being a mile under ground so looked around for some thing else. One of my friends worked in the exploration department and knew of some claim surveying coming up and set me up with an interview.
To this point in my life I had worked many jobs from farming, ranching, lumber mills to machine shops, restaurants and what-not.
Now I was gonna survey. I had seen a couple of surveyors traverse across a neighbors field when i was 7 years old and the memory stayed with me some where in the back of my mind.
I found myself, early one morning, loading the truck for the days work. I must admit that I was too ignorant to realize what all those 4×4 posts would mean to me as low man on the totem pole. Claimco was the name of the outfit, from somewhere in Arizona. They had a lot of claims to stake all over the Black Hills and I enjoyed almost every minute of it. Admittedly it is a little different from boundary surveying. Each claim was 320’x640′. They were clustered but each claim was monumented with 6 posts that I humped in on a pack frame. Some posts were dug in but many stood in stone cairns. A lot of work but the satisfying kind. A compass, quad sheet and 300′ fiberglass tape were all we needed.
It is hard to match the beauty of the Black Hills. My friend in exploration was a geologist/surveyor and we would hike all over the place to see geological features and old mines. The Black Hills are special on many levels, I didn’t miss them so much till I saw your photos.
Thanks.