Badger, SD Small town rich in History

03/26/2026

12/11/2025

Badger Danish Hall was located to the west of where Badger Oil bulk tanks are today on North street.

03/05/2025

This is part Two of the Badger history written in 1926. More to come.

The first few years following the hard winter were wet and all the legs and low places
were filled with water trapping muskrats became a favorite winter pastime so many
pelts were marketed in Arlington during these years that it came to be called the
muskrat city as the dryer years came on in the later 80's the shallow wells began to go
dry and the settlers had to put in most of their spare time digging for water and
abundant supply of good water underlies all this region but is from 60 to 400 feet below
the surface and no one at that time knew it was there or how to get to it in the fall of
1882 a school district was formed in the East End of the Township called by the county
board district 7 bonds were voted to build a schoolhouse near the southwest corner of
Matt Christensen’s homestead. the first officers of the district were JH Quinn Peter
Christensen and Thomas Clelland the first election ever held in the Township was in
connection with the organization of this district the contract was let for the building of
the schoolhouse and although the price trade was very much higher than afterward
paid for similar buildings the contractor was not satisfied but tried to get more money
from the district this the officers refused to pay as the contractor locked the doors and
refused to finish the building until these demands were met. this brought on a
deadlock that lasted for several weeks One morning the door of the schoolhouse was
seen to be broken down the officers discovering this took possession put in a new door
and a new lock and kept the key themselves they threatened to finish up the building
themselves and not pay the contractor this brought about a settlement and the
building was finished and paid for according to the contract the first school was held
in the summer of 1883 with Miss Clara House as teacher,
During this session of the territorial legislature of 1883 general WHH Beatle secured
the passage of a law that was known as a school Township system. Under this law the
county board of Kingsbury county divided the county into school townships. On May
8th 1883 an ordered an election to be held in each Township for the purchase of
choosing a name for the Township and electing three officers a director a clerk and a
treasurer. The election in this Township was to be held in schoolhouse #7 on June 18th
1883 and Mr. Quinn Mr. Anderson and Robert Crothers were appointed judges of the
election at this election. The name of Richland was chosen and Peter Thompson was
elected director JH Quinn was elected clerk and EE Stearns was elected treasurer. The
director was elected for three years the clerk for two years and the treasurer for one
year. In 1884 the county board changed the name of Richland to Badger. Second
teacher in the Township and the first to be employed under the Township system was
Miss Carey Spilde her contract dated May 5th 1884 was for two months at $25 per
month and was signed by pH Thompson director, HH Quinn clerk ,and Robert Crothers
treasurer.
Up until the fall of 1883 the Township had never had any part in running the county or
the territory but at this time the county board designated the territory included in the
school Township as an election precinct and John Weidenkopf’s home as a polling
place for the general election held November 6th of that year it was also ordered that
the Township should vote on the question as to whether it favored the organization of a
Township government. As the vote for Township government was favorable and
election was called for March 4th 1884 to elect Township officers and to vote money
for carrying on the Township. The election was held in the schoolhouse and the
following officers were elected supervisors Thomas Klein chairman, Mr. Webb and Mr.
Nelson clerks, Peter Christiansen treasurer, A Anderson assessor, Hiram Perkins. As
the people were new to this kind of work they forgot to raise money for expenses so
another meeting was called June 7th at the home of Andy Waite on the northeast
corner of section 29 Township 112. At this meeting $200 was voted for the general fund
and $200 for the road fund. The latter amount was for the planks for bridges and was in
addition to a tax of 10 mills on the dollar that was to be worked out on the road.
In 1883 a petition was circulated calling for an election for the purpose of voting bonds
to build a schoolhouse in the southwest part of the Township. As the amount of the
bonds asked for seemed to be more than needed for the purpose the bonds were
voted down. Another election was soon called or for the same purpose and asking for
the same amount and again was voted down. The third time an election was called and
the county Superintendent of schools Mr. George Williams was asked to be present
and used his influence to persuade the voters to support a schoolhouse proposition.
The bonds were again voted down but it did not take Mr. Williams long to find out what
the trouble was and at his suggestion another election was called to vote. The same
amount of bonds to build 2 schoolhouses one in the southwest corner and one in the
southern part of the Township. This time the bonds carried and the schoolhouses were
built. The following year two more schoolhouses were built one in the northern part
and one in the northwestern corner. Some years later two other schoolhouses were
built one in the western part and one near the center.
in the month of March during one of those early years the body of a young man was
found near the Bank of lake Albert with a bullet hole in his forehead. There had been a
light fall of snow and a short time before and part of it had melted but enough
remained to show that a wagon had turned off the road by the spot where the body lay
and had turned and gone back to the road. The body was taken to Arlington and
identified as a young man living near lake Preston with his mother and stepfather. It
was shown at the inquest that he and the stepfather had quarreled a few days before
and that the young man had been driven off by his stepfather and ordered not to
return. Not finding any work that day he had returned to his mother's house that
evening and that night had disappeared. No attempt was ever made to bring the guilty
parties to justice, the only excuse offered was that it would cause a county a lot of
expense. A short time afterward the family left and went to Chicago where a couple
years later the stepfather killed his wife and then committed su***de.
When the prairies were first settled they were covered with the bones of buffaloes
some whole skeletons could be found in the spring after the hard winter. Many fresh
bones and pieces of torn fur of the antelope could be found where the wolves had
rammed them down and killed them in the deep snow. At this time the Buffalo the elk
and the deer and antelope had disappeared never to return and the only wild animals
of the larger sort that were left were the grey wolf, the badger, the Jack rabbit and the
skunk and once in a while a red fox around the lakes and ponds. There were a few
minks and many muskrats.
One of the smallest animals there were was a few weasels and the prairies were alive
with the striped Gophers and the ground squirrels there were very few snakes and they
were all of the small striped variety. Prairie chickens were very abundant and during
the fall and spring the lakes would fairly swarm with wild ducks and geese. As the
prairies were broken up the Buffalo bones and skulls soon disappeared
in the winter of 1883-84 a vast number of Gray Arctic owls came down from the north
and stayed through the winter. A few of these owls were nearly pure white but most of
them were modelled with brown tipped feathers. One of them was caught in a trap
measured 5 foot 4 inches from tip to tip across the wings. Previous to this winter they
had only been seen here very rarely. When spring came in 1884 the owls disappeared
and only occasionally has one being been seen sense. What drove them down from
their northern home is not known. The winter in the territory was very mild during
these first . Songbirds were very scarce on the prairies. The meadowlark being about
the only one the other birds. Most common were the plover killdeer with swarms of
blackbirds around the lakes and a few crows and buzzards as Groves of trees began to
appear. When watering crops were established many other varieties common to the
more eastern states came here to make their home with us the plover was soon killed
off by pot hunters and are now extinct.

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03/04/2025

I’m trying to read this and have the computer type it for me. If there are mistakes in spelling please forgive me. This was written in 1926. Part 1. To be continued.

The history of Badger Township written by PR Crothers in 1926 Kingsbury county South Dakota badger Township is located in the northeast corner of Kingsbury county in eastern South Dakota comprised of all of Contressional Township #112 N range 53 W of the 5th principal Meridian and the east half of Township 112 range 54 sections 1-2 and three of Township 111 range 54 and sections 4-5 and six of Township 111 range 53 and contains an area of 60 square miles lake Albert Lake Badger Lake Thisted lie wholly within the Township and the northeast corner borders on the West shore of lake Poinsett the soil is a uniformly deep rich black loam underlaid with a porous yellow clay the sergage is greatly rolling and it's fairly well drained the drainage flowing into the lakes and they turn into emptying into the Sioux river that flows a dozen miles to the east the exception of some timber growing around the lakes this was originally a Prairie country covered with the variant grass and for untold ages was an ideal summer range for the vast herds of Buffalo elk deer and antelope.
It can never be known who the first white men were to enter the Township but the first we have any record of were general John C Fremont and doctor Joseph N nicolette who passed through the Township and discovered and named lake Albert in the summer of 1838 lake Albert as the name was given by general Fremont was named after Colonel Albert at that time chief of the topographical engineers as the lake region of eastern South Dakota was for ages of favorite hunting and trapping ground for the indians there is little doubt that this section was visited at an early day and at frequent intervals by travelling fur traders but they have left no record behind and not even a relic has been found in the township to remind us of their visits.
The Township was divided into sections and quarter sections in the summer of 1873 the Township boundaries were first tone out and marked and later the subdivisions were made the subdividing of Township 112 range 53 was begun on the 26th day of July and finished on August 1st of 1873 the survey was made by mark Bailey when the corner of a section was determined a mound was thrown up and a wooden stake properly marked was driven into the top of the mound four holes were dug on the section lines radiating from the mound and about four feet from it each hole about 16 inches square and about 10 inches deep the quarter corners placed midway on the section between the section corners were similarly marked except that only two holes were dug.
At the time of the survey was made only the only white man living anywhere near was a man by the name of Mortimer living with his Indian wife in the timber of the Oakwood lakes about 6 miles through the east.
The first white settler in the township was louis Christiansen and native of Denmark who settled on the east Bank of lake albert on the eastern border of the Township in June of 1877 a couple of weeks later Andrew Johnson came and filed on the land just north of Lewis Christiansen that same fall Carl engvall came and filed in the land that bordered on lakes Badger and fi**ed the following spring two brothers of Lewis Christiansen Matt and Peter arrived and located a little further South peter's land lying on the east Bank of lake Thistad lake Thisted was named by Peter Christensen after a lake in Denmark dear near his old home about the same time the spring of 1878 Jorgen Damm and Chris Johnson arrived and located South of lake Thisted a year later Chris Johnson while hunting among the timber along the lake was struck by lightning and killed this was the first death among the settlers in the Township.
Late in the fall of 1878 a party of Indians were seen trapping muskrats around the lakes none of the settlers knew anything about Indians except the blood curdling stories they had heard of Indian massacres and they were somewhat alarmed but after a while the Indians went away never to return
During the summers of 1878 and 1879 a few more settlers found their way into the Township and filled on filed on claims among them were Jonas Nelson locating on the West Bank of lake Albert the Stordahl family located on the South end of the lake the Palmer brothers and the molinex family located in the South part of the Township John Quinn locating in the eastern part of the Township John Quinn with his brother Tom and doctor Nichols drove into what is now badger Township in the latter part of April 1879 and being struck with the beauty of the country among the lakes and the richness of the soil decided to look no further each of them filed on a homestead and tree claim doctor Nichols choice being 1/2 section just north of lake tested during the summer he hired a surveyor and he had a town site located on his claim but nothing ever came of it and now even the name he gave it is forgotten Tom Quinn stayed only through the summer and doctor Nichols also soon tired of the pioneer life went back east.
On June 26th 1879 just as the Quinns had finished dinner they saw something coming down from the hills a mile or more to the east that at first they thought was an ox but as they stood looking they broke into a run and then they were sure it was Buffalo they hastily put their horses to the wagon and Tom secured the only weapon that they had an old fashioned muzzleloader 44 caliber c**t Navy revolver while they were hip hitching up Peter Christiansen came along with a rifle also on a hunt for the Buffalo and they all climbed into the wagon and started N to head off the Buffalo at the time they were living in a shack on the northeast Bank of lake tested John Quinn had a strip of breaking on his claim a mile north that ran 1/2 mile east and West the Buffalo struck into the South furrow of this breaking and went loping along toward the West as the hunters came up out of the Swale from the South when he turned N across the breaking as a team struck the breaking Tom and Peter thinking they could make better time afoot on such rough ground jumped out taking their guns with him knowing that the Buffalo would soon strike lake Albert if he continued running north and believing he would turn South and try to pass around the South point John Quinn unhitched his horses and turning one of them loose he jumped on the other and ran West to the point of the lake sure enough as he came down the long hill there came the Buffalo a big bull running swiftly along the shore and it became a nip and tuck race for the point as they approached the point and every jump was bringing them nearer together John longed for his Old Navy revolver but the bull edged by just in front of him and he didn't he even have a stone to throw at him however the spirit of the chase was in him and he continued to pursue for more than a mile and then stopped in a high point and watched him until he disappeared over the hill on the line between the sections of 18 and 19 nearly a mile away from the time when he was first seen until he disappeared he had covered a distance of more than 6 miles and he had made the whole distance on the run that was the last Buffalo ever seen in the Township
in July of 1879 Peter and Matt Christensen started a store on the east Bank of lake tested in front of Peters house Peter tended the store and Matt ran the farm a month or two later a post office was established in the store and it was called Pleasant Valley this store and post office continued to serve the surrounding country for a number of years until the Milwaukee railroad was built through the county when Peter gave it up moved to Oldham to engage in a store business there in the fall of 1879 the Dakota central branch of the Chicago and northwestern railroad running W from Tracy MN was completed in volga up to this time Watertown had been the nearest railroad point in the spring of 1880 the road was pushed on westward and about October 1st was completed to the Missouri River at Pierre as soon as the road reached the points now occupied by Arlington and lake Preston these towns were started and the former became the trading point for the eastern portion and the latter became the trading point for the western portion portion of the territory now included in badger Township Arlington was first named nordland after a few years the name was changed to Denver and the post office department refused to accept that name so it was finally changed to Arlington for a time the post office was named nordland the railroad station was named Denver and the town was named Arlington
the spring of 1880 saw the beginning of the great migration into Dakota territory that was to continue for the next three years until the whole of what is now South Dakota east of the Missouri River was covered with settler shacks and little towns and villages during the summer many new settlers came to Badger Township taking up much of the land in the eastern half of the Township and a strip along the southern edge all of the available tree came tree claim entries were taken 1/4 in each section
A great many of the homesteaders were young unmarried men and the rest were young married couples with here and there an odd older couple coming in with their boys few of them had more than a few $100 to start with and some only had enough to pay for the filing fees on their land a great many built sod houses some lived in tar papered covered shacks and a few a very few has small houses that were actually cited and plastered all of the stables were built of sod with the roofs covered with slew hay the fuel that was used almost universally was hay twisted the cats the hay growing on the sloughs in those early days grew very rank and heavy and was plentiful and cost only a little labor to gather the first duty of the settler after providing his family with a shelter and his stock with a stable was to break up the sod the sod was very tough and the plough lay had to be kept as sharp as possible and even then it took four good oxen or horses to pull a single 14 inch plow 4 oxen would break an acre or more a day and pick their living on the Prairie while grain had to be furnished are the horses so the oxen were the favorite team for this kind of work the breaking season lasted from about the 20th of May until the 1st of July sod broken before or after this time would not rot and made poor producing land for several years very little was raised on the land this summer it was broken except a little sod corn some potatoes and rutabagas some settlers raised flags on the new breaking but many others did not think it was profitable in the long run the first 3 winners after the first settlement was made in the Township were very fine the winner of 1879 and 80 was especially nice the only storm of the winter coming early in April after seeding had commenced just a little more than six months after this April storm came the notorious October Blizzard of 1880 the season had been very favorable one and the farmers were busy gathering in their crops and getting fixed for winter at daylight on the morning of October 15th the very fine rain was falling this soon turned to snow and the furious wind came up from the northwest driving the snow before it until the air seemed filled with snow and a person could not see a yard away this continued all that day and the next until about dark on the third day when the wind went down and the storm was over the next day the county was buried under a pail of snow some of the drifts being 6 to 8 feet deep after the Blizzard there were like two months of fairly good fall weather and most of the snow went off but some of the big drifts remained until late April the following year although the storm was a severe one the settlers stayed to fight for what they loved.
In a little more than a week after the Blizzard the Chicago northwestern railroad had their track shoveled out and the trains were running again and everything went on as usual until just after Christmas when the next Blizzard came others came along in their order early in January and after each storm it became harder to dig out the railroad tracks as the snow shoveled out only of the cuts made and it made it much deeper about noon on January 20th 1881 a freight train succeeded in getting as far as volga and stop there this was the last train to get as far West on this road until the 6th of the following may during January there would be breathing spells between blizzards of several days but during the month of February they came so close together it almost seemed like it was continuous there was never more than 1/2 day of good weather between this storms during February it would come from the northwest for about 3 days fine pellets of ice almost like a mist and driven with such terrible force that one would not face it and after a few hours of rest it would come back from the southeast for three more days so the weary days dragged on there was so much snow on the ground that the valleys among the cotus South of lake Poinsett were filled level with the surrounding hills there were hardships endured by the settlers and the Township but no deaths and there were few deaths occasioned by the storm in the territory the reason for this that all the storms with one exception came up at night when people were in their homes
fuel was the worst problem of the settlers the most of the timber was cut from around the lakes and after that was gone hay was the only thing left it would take two persons to get an armful of hay out of a stack one to pull it out and the other to keep it from blowing away of course the coffee mill had to be kept keep going grinding wheat for bread but there was plenty of wheat and appetites were good tea coffee sugar kerosene and to***co had to be gone without during the month of March the storm began to abate but the cold remained intense not a drop fell from the caves the entire month the first half of April passed without a sign of spring then the wind changed into the South and the sun began to have sway with the snow the mass of snow was so great that it was the 19th of April before it really began to thaw and by the evening of the 21st it was all gone every lake and slew and hollow was full of water and every water course was a raging torrent the Sioux river was 6 miles wide in places and the writer stood on the bank South of esterline and counted 20 houses of homesteaders in the water the outlet from lake distilled into lake Albert was over half a mile wide and the current was so deep and swift it was impossible to ride a horse through it about 4:00 on the afternoon of May 6th 1881 the first freight train since the blockade came as far West as volga the train consisted of two engines and about a dozen freight cars as they crossed the Sioux bottoms 1 engine was running about mile ahead of the train the only freight brought in for the people of volga was a carload of farm machinery a barrel of sugar and two barrels of whiskey
For months the settlers had been declaring that as soon as the roads opened up so they could get out they would leave the country they said it never was intended for white men to live in any way and was only fit for the Indians and the buffaloes when the warm sunny days of spring came and the grass was springing green on the prairies instead of leaving the territory the railroads were literally blocked for weeks with new settlers coming in in fact for three weeks the roads could not bring in a single sack of flour to feed the hungry settlers but every car was filled with immigrants movables unless the old timers could buy borrow or steal provisions from the newcomers they still had to keep their coffee mills at work
The winner of 1880 and 81 has always been known and probably always will be known as the hard winner in its severity can hardly be exaggerated yet in spite of the fact and in spite of the other fact of the settlers being so ill prepared for such a winner it is remarkable that was there was so little actual suffering among them the reasons doubtless if that they were possessed with two of the greatest blessings life can give you youth and health
The flood of the new settlers coming into the territory in the spring of 1881 completed the settlement of what is to be badger Township and the tide rolled to the West..
The character of the population of the Township had now been defined definitely determined and the process of building homes developing the land organizing society in the shape of a civil government schools and churches had begun the population the charm chip was made-up largely of scandinavians Germans and Native Americans in a general way the Danes occupied the eastern and northeastern portions surrounding lake Albert and lake tested a few families of Swedes were in the northwestern corner a large Norwegian settlement was in the southwestern corner and over running into Denver Baker and heartland townships about a dozen German families occupied the West central portion and the Native Americans of English Scotch Irish and German descent were in the southern and central portions.
During the first few years after the settlement was begun the bachelor portion of the population would leave the territory late in the fall for the pineries or their old homes in the east many of them coming back the next spring with their new brides during this. The population had also been increasing in the natural way the first white child born in the Township was Albert Christensen son of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Christiansen the first white settlers this interesting event occurred on the 15th of October 1878 this honor should have belonged to albert's cousin Anna Christensen the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Christiansen as she was born about two months earlier but Peter had not finished building his house on his own claim and at that time Anna was born his family was living with a neighbor over the line in Brookings county.

Previous to 1882 the crops grown in the Township were small as the settlers had little money to buy farm tools and the tough Prairie sod had to be broken and subdivided during the period between the close of the civil war and the settlement of the Township the methods of harvesting grain in the middle W we're undergoing rapid development first the Reaper that cut the grain and threw it off in the loose bundles to be bound by hand then the harvester where two men stood on the machine and bound the grain it was cut and elevated up to them in the later 70's the wire binder became to come into use but this machine was never entirely satisfactory about 1880 the wood company brought out a twine binder this was rather a crude affair but it worked and the next year the daring and McCormick companies came out with the Appleby binder that soon became the standard grain binders throughout the country these machines were rapidly adopted by our settlers and by their use on the prairies of the waving grain grass were soon changed to fields of waving grain wheat at the time was a staple crop and although the rich Prairie soil produced bountiful crops the price received was so low that the farmers were better off at the end of the year than they were at the beginning the governments calling in and destroying the greenbacks and demonetizing silver following the period of wild speculation after the close of the civil war brought on the panic of 1873 and this was followed by 25 years of extremely hard times for 15 years following the settlement of our Township the price of wheat ranged from 40 to $0.50 per bushel butter and eggs brought from 5to 8 cents and two and one half cents per pound was considered a fair price for fat hogs a good cow could be bought for from 8 to $10 some of the settlers who were fortunate enough to get into debt found themselves unable to pay their interest and were closed out and left the country the county in disgust the more thrifty ones kept out of debt and hung on

To be continued

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09/04/2024

08/25/2024

01/19/2024

If any of our followers have bits of history, pictures, newsprints, or any information they would like to share to show the history of our town please feel free to message the page and attach what you would like to share.
There is so much history tucked away in desk drawers, cupboards, and other places that may get lost to time that is too good to not share and maybe educate others as to Who, What, When, and Why we are the Town of Badger.
I will admit I may not get to it right away but I will review and post relevant history to keep our history alive.

01/19/2024

Found this gem while organizing today, not a local paper, but one that I remember seeing tucked away in my Grandmothers kitchen when I was a kid. Little did we all know how much that day would affect our small town then and now.