Pactola, also known as Camp Crook, (1875–1950s) is a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...

in Pennington County,

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux Native American tribes, who comprise a large porti ...

, United States. It was an early placer mining town and existed into the early 1950s, when it was submerged under

Pactola Lake Pactola Lake is the largest and deepest reservoir in the Black Hills, located 15 miles west of Rapid City, South Dakota, United States. Constructed in 1952, the dam and waters are managed by the Bureau of Reclamation, with the surrounding land m ...

Etymology

The town's early name, Camp Crook, was named in honor of

General George Crook George R. Crook (September 8, 1828 – March 21, 1890) was a career United States Army officer, most noted for his distinguished service during the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. During the 1880s, the Apache nicknamed Crook ''Nantan ...

, who started his headquarters in the town. Pactola was chosen as the community name in 1878, when the miners were asked by lawyer and journalist H. N. Maguire to find a more interesting name. Pactola is derived from the

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

placer mining operations on the Pactolus River, an ancient river in Lydia.

History

The Rapid City Mining District was founded in July 1875. The

Black Hills The Black Hills ( lkt, Ȟe Sápa; chy, Moʼȯhta-voʼhonáaeva; hid, awaxaawi shiibisha) is an isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, United States. Black ...

at this time belonged to the Lakota people. These miners founded Camp Crook, in honor of General Crook, who they were hiding from. In August 1875, they were discovered and removed from the Black Hills. After this, the town was used as a headquarters for General Crook as he began chasing miners away from the Black Hills, who were in violation of the Treaty of Fort Laramie. The miners returned after the hills were opened in February 1876. Claims along the river were quickly filed and filled up. Some of these claims were made for as much as $50,000. In March, a party of 80 men who had been passing through were stranded in the town by a

blizzard A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong sustained winds and low visibility, lasting for a prolonged period of time—typically at least three or four hours. A ground blizzard is a weather condition where snow is not falling ...

. The leader of the party, James C. Sherman, decided to stay in the town in the hopes of gaining wealth from

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

. To serve the placer deposits, a long

flume A flume is a human-made channel for water, in the form of an open declined gravity chute whose walls are raised above the surrounding terrain, in contrast to a trench or ditch. Flumes are not to be confused with aqueducts, which are built to t ...

was built. The town was booming by late 1876. About 300 miners lived in the area. A store opened the same year, and in 1877, one of the first post offices in the Black Hills was established. The Black Hills & Western Railroad soon laid tracks to Pactola. The first hotel in the Black Hills, known as the Sherman House, was founded that same year by Sherman. This hotel became a stage station along two different stage lines. Several companies tried to build more flumes and ditches to the creek, but the expenses were unaffordable. Eventually, the town dwindled and became largely abandoned. Before its complete destruction, only one of the first buildings had survived. New buildings around the site included a lodge, some cabins, and one store. The town was submerged under

in the early 1950s. Only one cabin survived the flooding and stands downstream of the lake.

Geography

Pactola was located in the

of Pennington County.

is now over the town site. The lake is beside U.S. Route 385 and is 11 miles north of Hill City. Before its flooding, the townsite was located in a meadow near Rapid Creek.

References

{{Pennington County, South Dakota Ghost towns in South Dakota Former populated places in Pennington County, South Dakota