listing for all programs for the 2025-2026 season is under the program tab

October 7, 2025   7pm  gathering at the Spearfish Senior Citizen Center is presented by Nancy Davis

 PROGRAM  :    What's in the Names?  For Wood Place and Besant Park Road Stagecoaches and Trains

Travel with Nancy Davis as she shares her ancestral history of the Bessant (correct spelling) and Wood

families.  The Bessant family story is one of tragedy, survival and eventual success.  Samuel Bessant

(her great great grandfather) built the Besant Park stage stop the connected Cheyenne with the Northern

hills.  The Homestake Mine and gold brought the development of railroad lines throughout the Black Hills

and the demise of stagecoach travel.  One narrow gauge line bordered the Wood family homestead just

north of Besant Park Road.  Nancy's great grandfather Archie Wood a dynamic entrepreneur, ran the 

Dumont section house, the store and post office among many other pursuits.  The ease of travel by

train found a unique friendship between Archie and Gerty (a midwife) Wood and three historical figures:

Deadwood Dick, Calamity Jane, and Poker Alice.

 

                                                               WE'RE BACK

First meeting of the September-May Spearfish Area Historical Society will be

SEPTEMBER 2, 2025   at  Spearfish  Senior Center  1306 Tenth St   7:00 pm

 Program will be:

                                ROSEHILL CEMETERY WALK REVISITED

 

                        with re-enactors of historic persons from the summer program

This program is open to the public,  with membership to the Society available for $15.00

 

photos from Kim Callahan, Vermillion taken Aug 1929 

                                                               perhaps a train wreck or derailment.  

 

 

Summer break

 Spearfish Historical Society is on summer break.  See you in September.  Meetings are 1st

Tuesday of the month at the Spearfish Senior Center.  Get out and enjoy your summer.

Remember History Matters.

October Meeting

 October 1, 2024

"The Black Hills Through Photos"  

presented by Meg English

Tuesday October 1st, 2024

This program begins at 7pm at the 

Spearfish Senior Center,

1306 Tenth Street, Spearfish, SD

Please join us as the public is invited. 

March 5   "The History of Case No  1

the First National Timber Sales"

     Tom Troxel

7pm  Spearfish Senior Center

1306 10th Street

The Public is Welcome

February Monthly meeting

"Frank Thomson, 93 Years of Adventures" 

presented by Paul Higbee

Tuesday February 6, 2024 7pm MST

 held at the Spearfish Senior Center

 1306 Tenth St, Spearfish, South Dakota

THE PUBLIC IS WELCOME                            

Great opportunity