Traipsing through Spokane
It was Thanksgiving Day, a light snow falling, my belly still bursting and with uncertainty of what I might find filling in my mind. My 5-year-old son and I were walking a dirt road of unknown length into what used to be the town of Spokane, S.D., near Custer State Park.
Snow has a tendency to deaden sound. Even though my son had just woken up from a nap, he was his usual talkative self. Still, when we entered the clearing where the caretaker’s house sullenly sits in Spokane, it felt like a hush came over the scene.
There was no one in sight, and besides the whitetail does we spooked on the way in, it was doubtful anyone even knew we were there. We wandered around for a while, making our way from one derelict structure to another. My son tried to climb the stairs in the caretaker’s house, but I quickly reined him in. Much of the structure is unsafe.
We wandered in and out of a nearby building, then visited some abandoned cars that litter the site. There was another small structure that appeared to house a cistern. Someone had moved the large, concrete cover, revealing a gaping hole. We steered clear. Another structure I had seen in pictures had completely collapsed into a heap of boards on top of a foundation. I imagine the whole townsite will look like that someday.
Still wandering, we came across a structure, which was likely used for food storage, built into the side of a hill. We looked inside. There was a hole in the roof under which a stove may have sat. Outside, we encountered what may have been the wood stove that sat under the hole.
There were more collapsed buildings, bare foundations, narrow roads here and there and always a faint feeling that someone was watching. I took pictures with the snow coming down and my son complaining of walking so much. So, I picked him up and carried him down the road to the car.
I went back to Spokane a few weeks later and couldn’t shake the feeling of a ghostly presence. I didn’t feel menaced by it, but I was aware of … something. Maybe it was all a fabrication of my mind.
How did all of this come about? Why did I choose to traipse around a ghost town I didn’t even know existed not long before? It all started when I saw Gary “Doc” Kuchar give a Turtle Soup talk at The Journey Museum in Rapid City last October on “Spokane and Points In-Between.”
Those who have lived in the area for a while know Kuchar knows his stuff. He knows cars. He knows history. He knows Custer County. He probably knows more than he lets on. He’s a humble, soft-spoken man with an incredible breadth of knowledge that he readily shares.
Kuchar was a great help with old photos and information for a story I wrote in the upcoming issue of Down Country Roads magazine about ghost towns, Spokane in particular. While the story detailed some of Spokane’s history, I wanted it to say something broader about ghost towns.
That’s the interesting thing about history; you can apply what happened in the past to your life right now — and the future. We think the civilization we’ve created will last forever, but archaeologists are digging tunnels under Jerusalem right now, unearthing long-forgotten secrets. What we see there is built on ruins that stretch back beyond anyone’s recollection. Pick any ancient city and the story is the same. Someday these lives we’re living are going to be really fascinating to someone digging in the dirt, unearthing the echoes of the past.
Maybe they’ll get the eerie feeling they’re not alone, too, just as I did. I hope so.
