Military headstone mystery solved

There was significant response from the public to news that a mysterious pile of military tombstones had been found on the hill next to Beulah, says Vernon Davis of the Society of Black Hills Pioneers. Initially, there was concern that the eight stones had been stolen, but the mystery has now been solved and the ending is a happy one.

“It was a pretty simple story actually,” Davis says. “When the Sheriff’s Office took the stones over to the National Cemetery, they discovered they were damaged stones.”

It’s unlikely that we’ll ever discover how they came all the way from Sturgis to be piled up under a billboard in Beulah, however.

“They never did know who took them,” he says. “They’re not sure how they got out of there.”

At some point in the recent past, new stones were needed for those individuals at the National Cemetery. It would appear, Davis says, that they were replaced because a change was made to incorporate family members on the back of a serviceman’s memorial, instead of adding new stones.

Also, one of the stones also contained mistakes on the dates and name.

“The new stones are all in place in the cemetery,” he says. The old ones are to be destroyed.

Davis thanks those members of the community who contacted him with possible information about the origin of the headstones.