March 11, 1908
Huron, South Dakota
March 3, 1908
STARK COUNTY NEWS: We are very well pleased with both country and climate. If some of you were to breathe the pure air of South Dakota, you would find it a great deal healthier than the damp chilly fog of Illinois. While you are either riding over two foot bumps or hub deep in mud, we are enjoying the excellent roads which are almost as smooth as pavements. We have never had over two inches of mud since we have lived here. Rumors reach us quite frequently from Illinois stating that a South Dakota blizzard and cold wave had struck them, so they read in the papers. It is a false report, because we have had a very mild and pretty winter so far. No snowdrift has been found yet to measure over two feet deep and we have never read of anyone freezing to death either. We have not had more than four inches of snow at one time, and that came during the holidays. It was a gentle even snow all over, which left no drifts. The summers are cool and quite pleasant, while the winters will have to be considerable colder than this one to beat yours.
Huron is a very neat and prosperous town of over six thousand inhabitants, the last census taken. It is the county seat. The state fair is located here. They have some very nice buildings. We attended last summer and they had a very fine display of grain, stock, machinery, poultry, flowers, etc. We also have a three-story college building, which is a magnificent structure. A ladies' three-story dormitory is built on one side of the college building, and a gents' dormitory is to be erected this summer. They have their own power house and a very nice pond, which I presume is fed by the artesian well. Besides the college we have two three-story high schools and kindergarten. It was claimed last summer that there were over one hundred buildings in construction at one time.
There are two railroads, namely: Chicago & Northwestern and the Great Northern. The latter railroad out to the Black Hills was completed some months ago, which will make coal somewhat cheaper in the near future. We have to pay $7.50 a ton for it now, but it seems to burn longer and ashes are as fine as wood ashes. The C. & N.W. railroad is having a new steel bridge made across the James river, which will rest on six large cement piers.
Huron also has electric lights, gas and water works, a three-story hotel just built recently, and several other two-story hotels, a flour mill, brewery, two slaughter houses, one lard rendering factory, four banks, several creameries and cheese factories, and many other buildings too numerous to mention.
Markets have been pretty fair considering. Present markets are: Wheat $1.08, oats 48 cents, speltz $1.25 a hundred, flax $1.20, corn 60 cents, eggs and butter 25 cents. They had no trouble delivering their grain, as the roads and weather were very favorable. Owing to the backward spring and dry weather, the crops were light. One man can handle as much ground here as two men can back there, in the same length of time. We raised one hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes on less than an acre of ground and with little work. A few others weighed over a pound each. There is also an abundance of hay, red clover, timothy, alfalfa and the prairie hay. There is as much goes to waste as we ever saw before. One man sold $140 worth of clover seed off six acres of ground which he threshed after sun down. The men folks put up over two hundred tons of hay with a very little additional help.
The lay of the country through here is as pretty a scope of land as eye ever witnessed. The small grain grows so tall. The wheat fields just before cutting were absolutely a picturesque beauty.
As our place was rented this year, we lived on Mr. Addis' place, but expect to move as soon as the buildings are completed. We have built a new horse stable and are remodeling the house. The men were doing carpenter work while you folks were having your blizzards, imagining we were having worse.
We are milking three cows and sell about twenty-five pounds of butter a week. One of our neighbors milked ten or twelve cows last summer and hauled his cream to the creamery. He received $9 for one can of cream. There is a creamery one mile south of us.
We have a mail route right past our house, which started March 2; we expect to have a telephone soon.
If any of you happen near Huron next summer, call on us and we will show you what kind of a country this is.
Sincerely yours,
Mrs. William Addis
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