Belle Fourche

History

Belle Fourche, French for "beautiful fork", was named by French explorers from New France, referring to the confluence of what is now known as the Belle Fourche and Redwater Rivers and the Hay Creek. Beaver trappers worked these rivers until the mid-19th century, and Belle Fourche became a well-known fur-trading rendezvous point. During and after the gold rush of 1876, farmers and ranchers settled in the fertile valleys, growing food for the miners and their animals. At the time, the open plains for hundred of miles in all directions were also being filled with huge herds of Texas and Kansas cattle. Towns sprang up to serve the ever-changing needs of the farmers and ranchers. In 1884, the Marquis de Mores, a French nobleman and contemporary of Theodore Roosevelt, established a stagecoach line between Medora, North Dakota and Deadwood, South Dakota. The Belle Fourche way station included a stage barn and a saloon. Knowing the cattle barons and the railroad would need a place to load cattle onto freight cars for shipment to packing plants in the Midwest, Seth Bullock effectively founded the city of Belle Fourche. After serving in the Montana legislature in 1871–1873 (and being instrumental in the establishment of a National Park at Yellowstone), he had come to the Black Hills to sell supplies to the Deadwood miners. He arrived there August 2, 1876, the day Wild Bill Hickok was murdered. During the next 14 years, Bullock acquired land as homesteaders along the Belle Fourche River "proved up" and sold out. When the railroad came to the Hills and refused to pay the prices demanded by the nearby township of Minnesela, he was ready. He offered the railroad free right-of-way and offered to build the terminal if the railroad placed it on his land, near the present Belle…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (0.82%) is water. Belle Fourche has a climate lying on the boundary between humid continental (Köppen Dfa) and cool semi-arid (BSk). It is characterized, like most of South Dakota, by summers with mild mornings giving way to very warm to hot and occasionally sweltering afternoons, and chilly, though extremely variable, winters. When cold arctic air masses move south from the Yukon unhindered by geographic obstacles, winter temperatures can fall below for prolonged periods: in the extremely cold month of January 1950 all but six mornings fell below . Contrariwise, when warm chinook winds descend from the Rocky Mountains and the Black Hills, winter temperatures can become extremely warm given the latitude and far inland location. On average, twenty afternoons in the three winter months top but in the record warm February 1954 23 of 28 afternoons topped that maximum and was reached on the 8th. The extreme warming effect of the chinook winds can be seen in – the hottest winter temperature recorded in the city – being reached on December 18, 1979 only two days after the minimum had been . The coldest month has been January 1937 with a mean of and the coldest temperature on record on December 22, 1989 – following which a chinook drove temperatures up to the following afternoon, or an increase of in less than 48 hours. Spring warms up in fits and starts, with the first maximum of expected on March 24, and the first of expected on April 17; however, the last frost is not expected to have passed until May 10. Owing to frequent thunderstorms, the spring season is the wettest part of the year, and the wettest months since records began in 1908 has been May 1982 with of…

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