1880 TOWN was so much fun! Amy and I were heading out of the Badlands National Park and out of South Dakota when we spotted this huge red barn on the side of the road with a parking lot in front of it. The gas station is what actually caught my eye at first. We were running low on fuel and needed to stop soon. As soon as the barn was out of my peripheral view I begin to see the western town behind it. “That must be that place Dan told us about.” Amy said.

“1880 Town?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Can we stop? Do we have enough time?” I sounded like a little kid asking my wife. You remember when you were young, right? If you have raised kids of your own like we have it may have been asked like this, “Can we go to the park? Can we go to the pool? Can I please, please, please get a toy?”

When Amy replied, “Yes, if you want to we can.” I didn’t wait a second longer. I began to look for a break in the median ahead to turn around. I SAW ONE! I whipped the Aloha (our Thor Scope 18M Camper Van) around and headed back. I pulled into the gas station, jumped out of my seat and inserted my credit card into the gas pump. I filled her up, replaced the hose and hit the “No” button for receipt. I didn’t have time to waste. I knew we needed to get back on the road. We were on our way to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. That was an item on Amy’s bucket list and she meant to check it off! Turns out, Amy loved 1880 Town just as much as I did!

That barn is unlike any barn I’ve ever seen I thought to myself as we climbed up the front porch. It was round. It had fourteen (14), yes fourteen different sides. I learned later on, once inside, the barn was a gift shop / museum all-in-one, and that this was exactly how they built barns in the 1800’s. Round. The circular shape has a greater volume-to-surface ratio than a square barn. This made round barns much cheaper to construct than square barns or rectangular shaped barns. They require less building materials. Anyways, I thought that was pretty cool. Who knew? Did you?

As we continued walking up the gravel road, to our right we spotted a rather large animal laying in a fenced in area of a field. Upon further / closer inspection, and it actually raised its head for us, we determined it was a camel.

On our left, in yet another fenced in portion of the field, several bulls, with the longest horns ever. A family ahead of us must of lost track of one of their kids. We watched as the kid approached the fence. The parents quickly turned around and told the kid to get away from the fence but not before that mean old bull became annoyed by the kid’s presence. Let’s just say that bull came a charging the fence line. Amy and I moved quickly to the other side of the road. We opted to stay on this safe side until we were past the bulls. LOL, phew! That had gotten our hearts pumping! We made the same path on the way back down the hill later on. The kid? Oh yeah, he got back up with his parents and was safe.

A short time later Amy stopped to pet some ponies. They were a lot more friendly than the bulls. We observed the settler’s house, the windmill and headed back to town.

We checked out the Marshall’s office, I locked Amy up in the town jail for being drunk and disorderly (even though she hadn’t had a drop of alcohol, yet…), and we even robbed a bank. After that we moseyed on over to the fire station. It was really cool, instead of a fire engine (present day) they had a wagon type thingy with a water tank on top. Inside the fire station were old axes and hoses and contraptions I guess meant to put out fires! I dunno, I was a cop for 27 years! We did film a funny little video to send to our friends, Ken and Sheryl. Ken is a retired cop like me, and Sheryl is a firefighter. I made sure to see if the bell was working by yanking on the thick rope hanging out front of the station. It worked!

I can’t even imagine what it would’ve been like back then in either of these two career fields, law enforcement or firefighter. It must’ve been a difficult role to manage for sure!

History of 1880 Town

This little western town / attraction is located at 24280 SD Highway 63 in Belvedere, South Dakota. A guy by the name of Richard Hullinger originally bought 14 acres of land at this location in 1969. At the time he had no plans on making it an attraction or it becoming what it is today, awesome! In 1972 a gas station was built at this location. The idea surfaced at this time to create a realistic western attraction. Hullinger later purchased an additional 80 acres of land. Why did he purchase more land?

Dances With Wolves

35 year old actor, Kevin Costner, along with two of his friends, began development of a 15 million dollar budgeted (originally) film titled, Dances With Wolves. Costner would not only star as the main character of the film, Union Army Lieutenant John J. Dunbar, but was set to direct his friend’s novel / script and co-produce the film!

Dances With Wolves is a three-hour epic movie about the frontier West. Most of the movie was filmed on location in South Dakota, mainly on private ranches near Pierre and Rapid City. Filming also took place in the Badlands National Park, the Black Hills, The Sage Creek Wilderness Area, and along the Belle Fourche River. A few scenes were filmed in Wyoming as well.

In 1989, this big movie company came to a small town nearby the location where 1880 Town is now located. A Main Street set was constructed from old buildings and a number of Native American relics and antiques were borrowed from Clarence Hullinger, the father of Richard. Winter set in and the town they created for the movie was abandoned. The buildings and some of the props made for the movie were then given to Clarence since he had allowed them to borrow his relics. The Main Street movie set was then relocated to Richard’s 80 Acres of land and thus, 1880 Town was born!

1880 Town Evolves

1880 Town began its collection and is now an authentic replication of the 1880 to 1920 era towns and buildings from the past. Richard and Clarence kept up historical value choosing buildings that were historically correct (and very interesting) for an early South Dakota town! It took three days and thousands of dollars to move the barn 45 miles to 1880 Town. The Dakota hotel was moved here, built in 1910, still carrying the marks made by the spurs from cowboy’s boots on the staircase. The WGardel and Walker Livery Barn holds a variety of early engines and wagons from the Native American era. St Stephan’s church, built in 1915 was moved to this location with everything still intact. In the town there is also a Depot, an Express Agency / Telegraph office. There is a one-room school house that is amazing to see. Inside, the desks are all set up in a classroom setting as if it was a portal back in time to see the room before the children arrived to learn something in class. There is a train on tracks you can climb aboard and walk through. Out back, beyond the town is a homestead, a windmill, corrals, a barn, and of course, an outhouse. So many things to do and see.

Once inside the barn, we purchased our tickets. We explored inside. We viewed antique buggies, toys, old style telephones, an old saloon piano from Deadwood, and may other relics and items from the old west. Boots and an old saddle bag from the battlefield where Custer once fought. Arrowheads, dolls, cowboy outfits, photos from that past, so many things to see. My favorite was the section on Dances With Wolves. There were old magazines, TV Guides, VHS videos, the soundtrack to the movie on a cassette tape (things I grew up with), posters, photos from the film sets and much more. They had the scene from Dunbar’s (main character in the movie) temporary post set up that I remembered from the film. During my life, I must’ve watched Dances With Wolves at least thirty times now! Big Kevin Costner fan of course!

Buck (Cisco), one of the horses ridden in the movie actually lived at 1880 Town until he passed away in 2008 at the age of 33. There is a memorial for him on the grounds. There was Dunbar’s horse, the one that dies (spoiler alert) in the movie. It was not a real horse they used to kill of course, it was a fake one, very realistic looking. And they had it in the museum too encompassing the scene from the movie around it! This got me thinking about the movie. Did they actually use real buffalo? Yes! Did they use real wolves? Yes. Were any animals hurt during the filming of the movie? NO! In fact, I discovered during my research that the production company went to great effort and expense to stage realistic animal scenes without any harm coming to them. There was a huge buffalo stampede during the movie where buffalos were being hunted. This was achieved by using fake / mechanical buffalos. I read the cost of construction of these 23 fake animals was about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars! And in the museum the dead horse, had to look closely to make sure it was fake, that’s how realistic it appeared to me.

Amy and I, especially me, lol, were having a blast (from the past / and other people’s past, lol) as we walked through the place. I found myself in awe matching up scenes set up inside to actual scenes of the movie. I later watched the movie again for my 31rst time just to take in the surroundings and scenery in the background of the movie’s scenes.

We walked out the backdoor and there before us was the town. Buildings on the left, buildings on the right. A full sized train ahead and off in the distances on the other side of town, a tall windmill spinning in the wind. We had been told to visit the saloon once we were down exploring the town for some popcorn and beer. Not actual beer, but root beer! Ha.

We started in a clockwise rotation. We found another barn with old wagons, some actually used in the movie! More fake horses (props) and an old mining cart going into the tunnel. So fascinating to see. We continued on and walked through every building taking our time (no longer aware of time passing / or the need to get back on the road).

We climbed aboard the train and took turns climbing up into the front and back of the train while the other stood outside to snap a picture. We continued on, checking out the school and the church. It was a good little walk. We headed up a hill on a gravel road.

It was as if Amy and I had found a Time Machine and set our end time to arrive in South Dakota, 1880. You can even dress up in western cowboy outfits and dresses if you really want to! We opted not to due to time constraints, and well, I dunno. Some people did and walked around town in their get ups! They were getting the true authentic experience!

When Amy and I got to the saloon she walked on up the porch in front of me. She got to the double swinging doors and slowly opened one up and disappeared inside. “Amy! Get back out here!” I hollered, not a mean holler, no, a get out here and go through the saloon doors properly kind of holler! She reappeared. I told her she didn’t enter the saloon right. She turned around and put a firm hand on the top of both doors. She swung them both inward at the same time and entered the saloon. The doors flapped back and forth a couple of times. I thought to myself, now that’s how you go into a saloon!

Inside we found the round card like tables with mannequins sitting at one table playing a game of cards. Cool. There was a stage with a grand piano (which they come out and play on sometimes) and a very realistic old fashioned bar. We stepped up, the bartender all dressed up like a cowboy, and ordered us up a pair of South Dakota root beers! We grabbed a bag of popcorn and headed to a table. Such a surreal experience for someone like me let me just say. Someone that idolized westerns growing up and loves history like this. I went over and sat down with the mannequins and pretended I was apart of their poker game. On the way out I asked Amy to film me walking out through the swinging doors, she agreed and got set for the shot. I did my best cowboy walk out of a saloon act and held my root beer up in one of my hands as if I might have had a little too much (which apparently we both did, lol).

On the way out we decided we’d pay for a good bath and massage. We found just the right place!

All in all, this was such a unique experience for us and we hadn’t even planned on going here to visit 1880 Town. Thanks Dan, our traveling friend, for the information! Now we are passing it along to you. If you go to South Dakota make sure you take an hour or so out of your day of travels to visit this 1880 Town. Hope you have the experience of a lifetime that Amy and I did. If you haven’t watched Dances With Wolves then make sure you do!

Thanks for reading this Journal, thanks for taking the time to stop by. We wish you the best on your own journeys! Tates are out.

Markis.