Diary of a Dakota Gold Prospector

 

The Professor and I attended the 1st Tri-State museum lecture of the new year and heard exerpts from the diaries of a Mr. Joseph Kitt King.

Entrance to the Tri-State Museum

 

 Mr. King evidently was bit with the gold bug back in 1875 o so - he bought a book, 'Curly's Guide to the Black Hills' to plan his trip and in the spring left his pregnant wife and extended family back in Iowa and followed his dream to be a gold miner in South Dakota. I think Curly's guide came in quite handy since it detailed how to make the trip but I think where it went wrong was recommending looking for gold along Rapid Creek instead of further up the towards Deadwood (Mr. Curly had never actually mined anything!). But Mr. King was a believer along with being an an extreme optimist - the most gold he ever found was worth $20 that had to be divided up amongst 6 partners.

He occasionally received money from home - sometimes $10 sometimes $50 but with no regularity and the sums were often gone very quickly with having to pay back money he had borrowed or to pay his tab at the local trading post or he used it to buy up abandoned claims. 

Mr. King suffered from lack of food, lack of warmth, lack of everything except what appears to have been an outrageous amount of optimism and his strong belief that hitting the jackpot was only the next day away. He valiently struggled against the odds for 3 years before succumbing to  pneumonia in Hill City.

 It was a fascinating story with far more questions raised than answers given ,but Mr. King's story is one of  hundreds if not thousands from the days of the Dakota gold rush.

Til Later,

We Spaniards know a sickness of the heart that only gold can cure

- Hernan Cortez

A little fan of the old west checking out the wolf exhibit. The long fur coat behind the wolf is made from buffalo hides