from "Dakota", 1885, Compiled by O. H. Holt

transcribed and submitted by Karen Seeman

HAND COUNTY.

 

This county lies in the central part of Southern Dakota, and comprises forty-eight townships. It is forty-eight miles long, north to south, and thirty miles wide.

The northern half is a gently undulating prairie, unbroken by high knolls or bluffs, save at the north boundary, where the foot-hills of the Bald Mountains and Garfield Peak are reached. The central southern half is generally of a similar formation, the only difference being that it presents more of the characteristics of the true valley. On the southwestern side are the great Ree Hills, covering the greater part of five townships, and reaching at many points a height of fully 800 feet. In the extreme southeastern corner is another range of handsome bluffs, known as the Wessington Hills.

Throughont the whole valley the soil is a black, rich, vegetable loam, varying in depth from one to three feet, with a substratum, quite generally, of yellow clay, impregnated to a considerable extent with lime and magnesia. With cultivation the surface soil becomes mellow. Unlike lands In heavy clay countries, it never bakes, even in seasons of the most protracted drouth and heat. While the hills are too broken for general cultivation, they yet contain large tracts of tillable land. This is especially so with the Ree Hills, where are found numerous fine valleys with a soil as deep and rich as that of tbe main valley.

Although there are few lakes or running streams in the county, the water supply is very liberal and of good quality. North and northeast of the centre are the Turtle and Big and Little Wolf creeks, in which water is found the year round. The south-east part is watered by Pearl creek, which rises in the Wesslngton Hills and flows in a northwesterly course into the Turtle. Near the southern centre is a handsome little sheet of water, known as Walled Lake; and the southwest has its Elm creek, heading in the Ree Hills and flowing south, through a beautiful little valley of its own, into Crow creek in Buffalo county. In both the Wessington and Ree Hills fine springs abound, many of which furnish mineral waters of rare medicinal virtue. Besides these, the country is traversed In all directions by little ravines—or, as they are termed here, "draws"—which form a natural and perfect system of irrigation, and at the same time serve as drains for low, flat-lying tracts.

The Chicago & North-Western Railway extends through the county near the centre, running east and west.

Miller, St. Lawrence and Ree Heights are the most important towns, the first-named being the county seat. They are situated on the railroad and surrounded by splendid agricultural lands.