Deadwood stagecoach. Courtesy Library of Congress.

My neighbor thought I was nuts when I offered to drive half way across the state of South Dakota to pick up a piece of equipment for him. After all, we had just made that four-hour drive a few days before when taking cattle to a sale. But I had discovered that about half the drive followed an historic stagecoach route, and I had a project there I wanted to do.

My neighbor has been making that drive for many years. It wasn’t until I was with him a few months ago, though, that he learned about the stage route connection. On that day, I noticed a white sign along the road that identified the stage route. And then I noticed another sign. And then another. My curiosity was piqued! I had already been studying a stage route near where we live: the Cheyenne to Deadwood Trail. This newly discovered (for us) trail was from Fort Pierre to Deadwood - Deadwood being a gold mining town beginning in the late 1800s. Fort Pierre, on the Missouri River, was the closest that boats could get to that gold mining district in the Black Hills. From Fort Pierre, stagecoaches took passengers and ox trains took cargo to Deadwood.

When we passed the first sign on that discovery trip, my neighbor asked how far it might be to the next sign. I guessed 8-12 miles since that’s the typical distance between stage stops, which was determined by the stamina of the horses pulling the stagecoach and the terrain over which they were traveling. But the distance this time was just 2 miles, which is unusual for markers of historic trails.

It turns out that the Fort Pierre to Deadwood trail was very fortunate to have some dedicated fans. In the 1970s, local ranchers Roy and Edith Norman took an interest in ensuring the trail’s history would be remembered. Roy had learned of the trail and its many significant features when riding horseback as a young man. So he and Edith created signs and placed them along the highway with the permission of the landowners. On the signs, they included GPS coordinates that they had surveyed, marking the exact location of the features described on the signs. Volunteers since then have maintained the signs. The signs all face east, for westbound traffic, reflecting the historic flow of people, animals, and goods.

On my equipment hauling day, my project was to photograph all the signs west of Fort Pierre along my route. As it turned out, I only managed to stop and photograph a third of the signs before I ran out of time; you can see them below. Since ranch errands often take us that way, I look forward to finishing the project in the future. A few of the signs that I did take pictures of indicate where the Black and Yellow Trail and the Deadwood Trail cross. The Black and Yellow Trail was a promotional trail inspired by the emerging popularity of the automobile in the early 20th century. The Black and Yellow Trail connected Chicago with the Black Hills and Yellowstone National Park .

I suspect I have my neighbor thinking differently about features along the route. On that first discovery trip, he asked about a town ahead, wondering if it was founded to support the railroad that paralleled the highway. I smiled and explained that, in my research of various historic trails, what are today highways often follow rail corridors, which often followed stagecoach trails, which sometimes followed Pony Express mail routes, both of which often followed native trails. So the town in question may well have pre-dated the railroad because it was a station on the stagecoach or Pony Express route.

Post offices are indicated by some signs, reflecting that an important early use of the trail was for mail delivery. In addition to the signs along the route marking the Deadwood and Black and Yellow Trails are other privately erected interpretive signs about Native American history. A rich route indeed!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

Ponies grazing near blowdown due to microburst six months before.

I came outside to do my last-of-the-day check on the ponies before dark. On the hillside to the southeast I noticed black spots up high, so after feeding my stallion, I headed towards the black spots thinking they were my mare herd. I got about two-thirds of the way to them, and it seemed strange that the black spots would be my ponies because they were in the prevailing wind. Usually the ponies seek areas that are sheltered from the wind. Then I realized that what I was seeing was cattle.

I climbed around a knoll, and sure enough, two ravines over on the top of a level spot out of the wind, I saw my ponies. By the time I got through those two ravines, only two ponies were close enough to me to say hello to. I couldn’t venture to the others up higher because impending darkness meant I needed to start heading down. As I called good night to the rest of the herd and headed down the hill instead of towards them, I heard a young pony cry out to me. It was Lettie, the two-month-old daughter of my heart pony, wondering why I wasn’t coming to say hello.

My pony herd has created or enhanced paths across the landscape: the obvious one on left and another on the right under red arrow

As I turned downhill, I realized that the approaching darkness was going to make my descent interesting. I was still favoring a sprained ankle, so I needed a route down as free of obstructions as possible. I also needed a route where I could see the ground in the failing light, since the grasses and shrubs easily obscured rocks and holes that my ankle would be quite unhappy encountering. Around me were numerous downed trees, the result of a microburst or mini-tornado in the spring, making the choice of route even more complicated than usual.

My ponies have now been on this pasture long enough that they have established paths across the landscape, in many cases using paths created by other, sometimes previous, four-legged inhabitants. I have learned by following them that the ponies typically choose routes that are relatively free of obstructions so can be trusted from that regard, and while they may not appear to go where I need to, they likely lead to another path that will indeed go where I want to go. So I looked about me in the failing light and was relieved to see that the ponies had not only made paths in the area but had rerouted them since the blowdown. A pony path was just what I needed when I couldn’t see very well.

Trees down over fence due to microburst

As I pondered which of the paths to use around the downed trees, I remembered a story in the histories I’ve been reading about this area. The story said that while Native Americans loved the Black Hills and considered them sacred, they also were afraid of them because they felt the Great Spirit grew angry often and caused wild wind storms. Having witnessed myself that microburst a few months before, I could totally relate to that mixed feeling of awe and fear. The cattle that had led me astray in my search for ponies were in the pony pasture because the microburst took out much of the fence on that end. The ponies have not ventured out, but the cattle have ventured in!

I am very aware that my presence in the Black Hills here in South Dakota has been made possible by a broken treaty in the 1800s. The US government had agreed with the local tribes that they could have the Black Hills, and the government would keep Americans out. But then gold was found in the Hills, and the US government reversed course and allowed miners and prospectors and supporting businesses to enter the Black Hills. I don’t like it when agreements I make with other people are broken, so I completely understand that the tribes felt violated and may still. Knowing that my presence here is due to a broken treaty makes every day here a gift.

It is easy to assume that things were the same in the past as they are in the present, but that’s usually not the case, just like the pony trails have changed over time to adapt to changing circumstances, and Euro-Americans now occupy land once occupied by native tribes. I read a story recently about two native American tribes that pushed a third tribe out of a region that they all occupied in the 1800s. Where the tribes were prior to being forced onto reservations isn’t necessarily where they were just a few decades before that.

Petroglyphs that researchers have chalked in to improve visibility.

Near where I live are petroglyphs, historic rock art created by ancient Americans. I have been told repeatedly that the art was done not by today’s native Americans but by people who lived here before them. The art has been dated to 3,000 to 6,000 years ago. Who lives in these Black Hills has obviously changed over time for a very long time indeed.

Maiden Castle (the pile of rocks on the mid horizon) on Burnmoor in the Lake District, Cumbria

It’s thanks to my ponies that I have an enhanced appreciation for how things change over time. It was on an historic packhorse track in the Lake District that I first appreciated that that area was settled by successive waves of humanity. On that trip it was the ruins known as Maiden Castle that I visited alongside two Fell Ponies that underscored for me that how a landscape is utilized today isn’t how it was utilized previously and that the people using it now aren’t the ones that used it before. The Lake District saw settlement by Romans and Vikings long before our time. There is evidence of Bronze Age and medieval settlement preceding more modern uses. Maiden Castle is considered Bronze Age by some and may also have been used as a communication beacon in the day. (1) For me, though, its importance is as a marker of changing circumstances, including how people steward land, what tools they bring to bear in that work, and how nothing ultimately stays the same. I am watching now with great interest as the Lake District’s humans struggle to figure out the way that stewardship of that landscape will look in the near-term future. Fell Pony stewards hope our ponies have a continuing opportunity to use the landscape as they have for centuries, while others want the use of the landscape to be different in the future. This struggle is at the same time current and ancient.

Here in the Black Hills, I’m aware of how this area has been used by successive waves of humanity, too. Of course I don’t know all the stories of humans in this place, but I know enough that each of us is here but transitorily. The Oglala Sioux tribe, former users of this landscape, now occupy a reservation to the southeast of these Hills, but it turns out they do own land here. I was fortunate to overlook a piece of their property, as American society currently defines it, on a summer venture into a nearby canyon. Perhaps the tribe will one day again make use of the Hills as they once did, but it’s also possible and maybe even more likely that it will be another wave of humanity that comes here to leave their own paths on the landscape that my ponies and I currently tread.

1) Fair, Mary C. “Some Notes on the Eskdale Twentyfour Book.” Read at Carlisle, April 7th, 1921. CWAAS Volume 22, #7.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

I am intrigued by how my Fell Ponies use the landscape where they live. Four are visible just above the lower trees.

The Fell Pony is in part a landscape-adapted breed. (1) As a Fell Pony steward, then, it’s not surprising that I am intrigued by how Fell Ponies use the landscape where they live. My best mornings are when I wake up and look out the window and see my herd of mares high on the hill that is their pasture, similar to how their ancestors have lived in England on the fells for centuries. The picture here shows one such view.

I am also intrigued by how people use landscapes. That’s why I’m currently writing a series of articles for Rural Heritage magazine on regenerative agriculture. And being so intrigued explains why I am enthralled with the workings of the cattle ranch where I live here in South Dakota.

So I suppose it’s no surprise that I’m especially intrigued by how humans and equines work on landscapes together. Orchard Hill Farm in Ontario, Canada features in several of my regenerative agriculture articles in part because they use their Suffolk Punch draft horses in their market garden. That Suffolks are a rare breed made the stories there even more of interest. (Click here to see pictures on Orchard Hill’s website.) Closer to home, I hope to get my ponies more involved on the cattle ranch where we live. The picture shows when Willowtrail Wild Rose and I encountered a hay trailer recently unloaded while out on a ride.

I am also intrigued by how people interact with landscapes, including on the cattle ranch where we live. A load of hay was recently unloaded from this semi.

I have been blessed to be writing articles for Rural Heritage for many years about draft horse use on farms and to compile an entire book about harness. And I have a series underway in my Fell Pony newsletter about how the ancestors of Fell Ponies participated in the industrial and agricultural past of the region they call home in England. (Click here to read some of the articles.)

A completely different interaction of humans and equines on landscapes was during the stagecoach era. Over the years, I have read about stage coach routes and practices and companies on this continent, in Britain and in Australia. You can imagine then my elation when I learned that an important stagecoach route went within just a few miles of where I now live. This area and places I regularly see when we travel nearby are rich with stage coach history. I made this discovery while researching my articles on regenerative agriculture!

Looking north towards Minnekahta along the Mickelson Trail , a Rails-to-Trails conversion in South Dakota. There is evidence nearby that this railroad followed an old native trail.

When we go to Custer, South Dakota, we go north from the Minnekahta Valley on Highway 89. Highway 89 follows roughly the route of the Mickelson Trail which is an old railroad bed converted to a trail under the Rails to Trails Act. When I heard that a stage route went nearby and north to Custer and on to Deadwood, I wasn’t surprised because over the years I’ve learned that often highways follow rail lines which follow old stage routes and pioneer wagon trails which often follow old native pathways. A picture shows Rose and I looking up the Mickelson Trail, and there is evidence of a native trail nearby. Pony Express routes often paralleled old stage routes, too. We found the marker shown in a photo along the North Platte River when investigating pioneer wagon train routes.

Pony Express routes often paralleled stage routes and pioneer trails. This marker is near a part of the Oregon Trail in Wyoming.

In the course of my education about this area, I had been told about the Metz massacre nearby. But it wasn’t until a Red Canyon resident told his version of the story to me that I realized just how close it was to where I live. So when I had company coming and we were headed to Red Canyon for reasons of regenerative agriculture, I decided to get informed to be a better tour guide. That’s when I learned that the context of the Metz massacre in Red Canyon involved stagecoaches and so much more. For about a year beginning in 1876, the Cheyenne to Black Hills Stage ran through Red Canyon on its way to Custer and Deadwood. The reason was gold fever. The Red Canyon route was eventually abandoned by the stage company, but the route was still used by hopeful migrants. Click here to see a picture of the location of the Metz Massacre taken in 1876, about six months after the tragic event. Rarely do we have photos from this period!

The topography in the area of Red Canyon, with the steep-sided and narrow canyon itself in the mid ground.

The stage company abandoned the route in part because of a shorter route to the west, but also because of Red Canyon’s topography. One passenger described its hair-raising character: “Red Canyon was like a cake cut in two and the pieces shoved back a little. You couldn’t see the sky unless you put your head out of the coach.” (2) A picture here shows the topography of the area with the narrow slot of Red Canyon in the midground. Anyone intent on harming through-traffic had ample places to hide and advantageous positions up on the canyon walls from which to shoot or even just throw rocks to spook stock.

It was the massacre of the Metz family that eventually helped bring military attention to the area. Those responsible for the murders were never found. Some blamed it on Native Americans who certainly had ample reason to be hostile. More on that in the next story. Others say that it was likely the road agents who were active along the route. Just as Border Reivers wreaked havoc in the Fell Pony homeland in their day, road agents did similarly in their day, close to where my ponies now live.

I am grateful to my ponies for teaching me to look at landscapes with new eyes, appreciating how humans and equines have worked together in the past and can still.

1. The Fell Pony also has a breed description that breeders use in selection of breeding stock, so the breed is also in part a standardized one.

2. Spring, Agnes Wright. The Cheyenne & Black Hills Stage and Express Routes, p. 138. 2016 abridged and edited edition of the 1949 original.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

“There’s lots of laminitis in the Black Hills.”  My stomach dropped when I was told this, shortly after moving myself and my pony herd to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  My ponies of course are considered easy-keepers, so I always worry about them developing any of the diseases of over-indulgence.  And my first spring here has certainly made me feel how incredibly fertile this environment is compared to the high elevation landscape where we all lived in Colorado. 

In Colorado, I had pony metabolic management well in hand.  By that I mean that I managed them in a way that respected their natural cycle of fattening in the summer and slimming in the winter.  Coming into spring each year, I had the herd in the moderate range of the Henneke Body Condition Score, where “ribs cannot be visually distinguished but can be easily felt.” (1)  Through twenty years of pony ownership, I never had to deal with laminitis or the other health problems of over indulgence.

This spring I am recognizing some errors in management that I made during the winter.  In Colorado I sometimes had to increase the amount of hay I fed to keep my ponies’ weight from dropping too far when the weather got tough.  This past winter in South Dakota, the ponies were full time on dormant pasture.  When the weather got particularly cold and/or snowy, I supplemented with occasional tubs of hay.  I was basing this on the condition of the lead mare, which was a mistake because she was not representative of the rest of the herd, who were all heavier.  So this spring, they’ve all come into warmer weather and green grass with a little more ‘cover’ than I like to see. 

My late husband and I, on our numerous trips to England, would come home and look at my ponies with a critical eye.  Often I would feel like my ponies had less substance than the ones we’d seen, but after one trip, Don pointed out that many of the ponies we were seeing had much more flesh than mine do except late in the year.  More recently I’ve had my hands on ponies bred by other people, and I was surprised how much flesh they had on them for the time of year.  I was reminded of a study that found that many owners don’t know how to assess healthy body condition in their equines. (2)  Equally likely is that equine owners don’t understand or manage to the natural cycle of fattening in the summer and slimming in the winter, with that second part - slimming in the winter - being the challenging part.

A recent visitor said, “Your ponies don’t seem obese.”  No, that’s true.  On the Body Condition Score, obese is considered to be when it is hard to feel the ribs, and I can still feel their ribs.  Nonetheless, I’m keeping the mares in for half days, following the lead of a like-minded equestrian here in the Black Hills.  I will feel more comfortable with their current weight when the grasses start to die back in the late summer.  And you can be sure that next winter, I’ll be careful with that extra hay!

1. Camargo, Fernanda, et. al.  “Body Condition Scoring Horses: Step-by-Step,” thehorse.com, article #164978, 1/15/19.

2. Morrison, Philippa, et al.  “Perceptions of obesity in a UK leisure-based population of horse owners,” 9/25/15, as found at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595036/

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories about what’s possible, practical, and powerful with small equines in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.