Terry, South Dakota facts for kids
Terry is a small, undeveloped community in Lawrence County, South Dakota, in the United States. It's a place that doesn't have its own local government, but it has an interesting history tied to gold mining.
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A Golden Past: Terry's History
The Black Hills area is famous for its many gold deposits. The gold found near Terry was a special kind that wasn't easy to see or process right away. It needed more work to become valuable.
How Terry Began
In the 1880s, a special factory called a smelting and chlorination plant was built in nearby Deadwood, South Dakota. This plant helped process the difficult gold ore. Because of this new technology, miners started moving to the area that would become Terry.
The town grew around the Golden Reward mine, which started in 1887. This mine was built to use the new ways of processing gold. A special train track, called a spur, was built for the Deadwood Central Railroad to serve the mines. This train line ran from about 1890 or 1891 until 1918.
Life in Terry
Terry got its own post office in 1892, which stayed open until 1929. The community was named after a nearby mountain, Terry Peak. The town was busiest between 1900 and 1910, when almost 1,200 people lived there. Terry grew naturally along the sides of a narrow valley called a gulch.
Calamity Jane's Final Days
A famous frontierswoman named Martha Jane Cannary, better known as Calamity Jane, passed away in Terry. She died on Saturday, August 1, 1903, when she was 51 years old.
Terry Today
The land where Terry once stood is now privately owned by the Coeur Mining company. This company also owns the nearby Wharf Mine. Because it's private land, the area is currently closed to the public.
