Library presents Black Hills cemeteries program

Crook County Library is hosting the program “They Passed Here: Lost and Historical Cemeteries of the Black Hills” by Hugh and Linda O’Gara on Fri., May 21 at the library meeting room in Sundance. The program will begin at 7 p.m. and is free to the public.

When General George Custer’s 1874 expedition confirmed there was gold in the Black Hills, miners flocked to the area. Camps sprang up by Custer City in the south and spread north with each new discovery, moving as quickly as the easy, placer gold in the streams was exhausted or if prospects looked brighter just ahead. Often, all they left was their dead.

Over a period of nearly seven years, the O’Garas researched and located more than 30 cemeteries and lone graves in the Black Hills, ranging from near Hot Springs and Custer State Park north to Crook City and Terry outside Deadwood.

Many of these camps vanished once the gold did. Other camps survived and exist today in drastically altered incarnations. But all of these communities left the graves marking the end of the pursuit of whatever particular dreams the inhabitants brought to the Black Hills.

Hugh and Linda O’Gara have lived in the Hill City/Keystone area for more than 40 years. During her career, Linda worked as an accountant, waitress, Hill City business owner and the town’s finance officer. Hugh worked as a reporter on daily newspapers in South Dakota from the mid-1970s until 2000.

For more information, please contact Jill Mackey at Crook County Library, 283-1006 or [email protected]