Sundance, 1890's
Sundance, forty-five miles north of Newcastle, is the County seat of Crook County.
The County was organized in 1875 and Sundance established
in 1879 during the Black Hill Gold Rush. The building toward the center background with the
tower is the Courthouse. See next photo.
Sundance, undated.
The Courthouse is the large building to the left of center. Behind the main part of the
building is the jail. To the right and across the street, the oblong building with the
false front facing the Courthouse yard is Zane's hotel and Dining Room. Today, many associate Sundance with Harry Longabough, aka, the Sundance Kid. Indeed,
Longabough, in fact, took his name from the small town in the Black Hills of Wyoming.
Longabough, born in New York State, found himself down on his luck near Sundance and
stole a horse belong to the VVV Ranch. Captured by Crook County Sheriff Ryan near Miles City,
Montana, he served 18 months in the Sundance Jail. Following completion of his
sentence he wandered to Belle Fourche, S.D. There he bragged about his experiences in the jail with such bravado that
he earned the sobriquet "Sundance."
The Episcopal Mission Church of the Good Shepherd.
The Church of the Good Shepherd was constructed about 1889 under the leadership of the Reverend
Charles E. Snavely. The Reverend Snavely following the Spanish-American War was stationed
in Puerto Rico. The Church originally cost $1600.00 but fell on hard times. After the establishment of
Newcastle some 45 miles to the south, services were infrequent. The great distances in Wyoming made pastorial
visits difficult. In 1889, the American Baptish Home Mission
complained that Wyoming was "largely
terra incognita." Julian Ralph in his 1892 Our Great West forcast that the coming of the
railroad to northern Wyoming would "connect these farms with
Christendom." But if the Black Hills were separated from Christendom, the traveling
Episcopal bishops brought Christendom to the farms and ranches. The Right Reverend Anson Rogers Graves described in his 1911
autobiography, The Farmer Boy Who Became a Bishop, his pastorial trip to Horton, a small town midway between Newcastle and
Sundance consisting of a school house and a small general store:
"We drove on up the gorge and over a high divide in the
Black Hills. From there we descended what is aptly
termed Break-Neck Hill. The last time I was on this
steep, narrow road, a great boulder had rolled down
into the middle of the way, and it was with the greatest difficulty
that we got our buggy over and past the obstruction. On we drove
many miles to a lonely ranch nestled in the
edge of the hills. Here we stopped for dinner and found
refined, Church people, who most heartily welcomed us to their home. Again
we drove on northward over the undulating plains until
twetny miles from our starting point we came to a store and not far away a white
school-house in a grove of pines. Two miles farther on we
came to the home of Mr. Cleave, where we
were to say for the night."
The service was given in the school house. Unfortunately, there was no oil for the
lamps. One of the congregants rode out to a nearby ranch for oil. The owners were away and the
house was locked. Outside the small school house a thunderstorm raged. Thus, the service was given in the dark from
memory illuminated only by an occasional flash of lightning outside the windows.
The lightening would have given an eerie appearance to the Bishop who assures us in
his autobiograhy that he nevertheless made all the approriate signs.
Ferenc Morton Szasz, The Protestant Clergy in the Great Planes and Mountain West,
1865-1915, University of Nebraska Press, 2004, gives us the impression that the arrival of a Episcopal Bishop gave in the isolated
parts of the west:
Whenever an Episcopal bishop vistited in full vestments, he
was certain to draw a large crowd. On Daniel Tuttle's arrival in
Rocky Bar, Idaho, a small boy offered to get a bell and
ring it through the town to alert the people, as he had done for a previous
traveling road show the week before. When Episcopal Bishop John
F. Spalding spoke in Rico, Colorado, a miner named
Brownie Lee passed the plate, gun in hand. When one man
dropped in only a quarter, Lee announced,
"Take that back. This is a dollar show."
In Horton, the collection was taken in the dark. Bishop Graves does not tell us how much
was in the offering. At one point, the Church of the Good Shepherd was in danger of defaulting on
its mortgage and being auctioned on the courthouse steps. But in law of foreclosures as in religion there is always redemption. Thus,
the church was saved. Bishop Graves explained:
Here we have a church, which cost sixteen hundred
dollars. It was lost on the mortgage being sold to the
Romanists for one hundred and fifty dollars and finally
rescued from them by our people.
Repairs were then undertaken by the Reverend William Westover of Newcastle who would alternate services between
Newcastle and the hinterlands every other week.
hauling boilers to the Bear Lodge Mining District.
Unloading of boilers at Bear Lodge Gold Mine, Bear Lodge Mining District.
The Bear Lodge Mountains are approximately seven miles north of Sundance. There were two mining districts
in the area of Sundance, The Bear Lodge District in which there was one mine and the Hurricane Mining
District about ten miles north of Sundance in which there were three small placer mines. Gold mining
efforts in the area were less than stellar. The three mines in the Hurricane district, as an example, yielded in
1907 only $600.00 in gold and 9 fine ounces of silver. Other mines in the area included the
Independence mine operated by the Roenna Mining Company of
Tinton, The Copper Prince and the Hutchins Consolidated Gold Mining Company mine. The latter two were each
seven miles north of Sundance.
Sundance, 1950.
Music this page:
THE OLD RUGGED CROSS
Music and words by
The Reverend George Bennard
On a hill far away, stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suff'ring and shame;
And I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.
Oh, that old rugged cross so despised by the world
Has a wondrous attraction for me;
For the dear Lamb of God left his glory above,
To bear it to dark Calvary.
In the old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
A wondrous beauty I see;
For 'twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
To pardon and sanctify me.
To the old rugged cross I will ever be true,
Its shame and reproach gladly bear;
Then he'll call me some day to my home far away,
Where his glory forever I'll share.
So I'll cherish the rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down'
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a crown.
Next Page: Sundance continued.
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