Postby mrj » Thu Jun 04, 2015 5:54 pm
We have had some good showers since the earlier post, and got over one inch this morning. Quite a few areas in western SD may have had some flooding from that line of storms coming from WY, but so far, we are getting just about the right amounts. Many of the dams are full, and grass and hay are coming along pretty well. Still has been mostly cooler than 'normal', if there is such a thing. Midland is starting our MHS 'old timers' class reunions (in that you are supposed to have graduated 30 years ago to come to this one), and the town is 115 years old this year.
The town of Midland was started by a man who saw a future as a trade center, with trails going through a particular place where the Bad River had a fair sized valley between the higher hills along it, with Mitchell Creek coming in from the north, and Ash Creek coming from the south, and Brave Bull Creek (originally called the Ree River) with maybe two or three miles between all three creeks. That would seem to assure a dependable water supply. Dependable? Not totally, but the water table under the ground was fairly accessible and dependable. Good, or even safe, not so much if alkali was troublesome to your digestion. In good rainfall years, it isn't too bad, and is probably better than no water.
The trails went between the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation to the north, and the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations to the southwest, and southeast. Of course, the river was a route to Ft. Pierre to the east, and the Badlands Wall to the west, eventually on to the Black Hills, Rapid City, and other towns. It looked good to a trader and he established a store which did quite well, as did the town until politics intervened and it lost the bid for county seat. That was the beginning of the decline of most towns west of the Missouri River that were not county seat towns. Not many still survive, however Midland does have tenacious people and good businesses serving a wide ag trade area.
And the people in the area get high quality water mostly from the Missouri River rural water systems! We aren't dependent on the creeks and rivers for our household water today!
mrj