(gentle upbeat music) - [Narrator] This is a production of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

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- Welcome to "Dakota Life Detours".

We're gonna travel some side roads and visit three Dakota life stories that you haven't seen on television before.

Our host for this detour is the High Plains Western Heritage Center in Spearfish.

It opened in 1989 and the center honors pioneering, cattle and sheep ranching, rodeo, transportation, native Americans, and mining, and talks about the impact that they've had on the High Plains.

Now the High Plains, that includes North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana.

When you stop by the center, well, you can see the saddle that President Coolidge used during his summer at Custer State Park.

See some beautiful beaded artwork, or a ghost dance shirt of Native Americans.

You may also see the latest fashions women were wearing over 100 years ago, and so much more.

Now east of here, on Highway 14, between Pierre and Rapid City is what may have been one of the first truck stops.

It grew out of necessity and tradition, and is known as the Noble Garage.

Ray Noble could fuel or fix your car, and his wife Ruth was ready to serve you with a meal at the cafe just nearby.

(gentle music) - There was a minister that came in, his gas tank was leaking, and wanted to know if he could repair it.

He wanted him to leave it on the vehicle and wanted him to weld it while it was on there.

Well, my grandfather said, "Well, yeah, I think I can do that," and proceeded on to start to weld it and the minister said, "Well, I think I'm just gonna step outside."

And he said, "No, I want you to stay in here."

He says, "If this thing blows up, I want you with me."

(Larry laughs) (gentle music) - My grandfather was born in 1889 in Dakota territory, the same year that South Dakota became a state.

He was born in Centerville and grew up in Centerville, and graduated from Centerville High School.

Outta high school he wanted to pursue his automotive career, picked up and moved to Albion, Michigan and worked for his older brother in an automobile and bicycle shop there.

That's where he learned his trade and his welding, his profession which he's really good at.

So eventually moved back to Centerville, my great-grandfather wanted someone back to manage the farm and run it.

After my great-grandfather passed away the farm got sold, and really didn't have a place to be after 1925 so Mr. Kunkle, my grandmother's dad, of course had land out by Nolan so he needed somebody out there to, you know, help manage the farm and run it, and that's what brought 'em out there to the Nolan area.

- [Guest] The great big spree, the jazz age is over, all over.

In the 1920s the great American word was prosperity, now the '30s have begun and there is a new word, depression.

- [Larry] A lot of people gave up and would try to move somewhere and just walk away from everything, and he stood his ground and made a go of it for his family.

- Managing and running that Kunkle ranch and trying to start his own part of the land himself, you know, and getting a house built.

It was a huge struggle, I'm sure.

- You know, you're used to having some good years but continued on for several years in a row and a lot of people lost everything, but I think with them starting that garage they were able to hang on to their farm ground and continue on later.

(gentle music) - His career was fixing things and working on automobiles so he decided to take some of the inheritance money that he had from the sale of farm back in Centerville and build that garage, and started in that automotive repair business.

And that was what started it.

(gentle music) After the garage itself was completed, he put his shingle or his name up there, Ray E. Noble Garage.

(gentle music) They used some special paint, coal tar type of paint or something that they used on coating fuel tanks, underground fuel tanks or something, but it lasted for a lot of years.

And you can just vaguely see it now, the letters there.

Pretty well-known landmark.

- Yeah, it was a pretty main route to go from Rapid to Pierre, and kind of a halfway in between point on Highway 14 and back in the late '20s it had to be a long journey, those cars didn't go that fast back then and probably didn't have a heater (laughs) if you were traveling in the winter, and probably we were lucky to have an enclosed cab, so that was probably a good spot to have a place to warm up or cool down in the summer, 'cause you're in the middle of nowhere.

- There was a lot of people that depended on him to get the repairs they needed done so they could maybe harvest their crops or whatever, if a machine broke or something, and he would work sometimes all night tearing it apart, grinding the valves, welding a block or head on an engine, you know, to get people moving and going again.

He was good at that.

- [Larry] The stories are that he was one of the first acetylene welders in the area out there, and he was very good at it.

- Oh, my grandfather had a mind that didn't work like everybody's, I think he could just look at something and he could tell how to fix it or what needed to be done.

He was was amazing.

One person called, he is like a wizard with a torch, he could fix about anything.

- Well, rumor has it that he always said that he could weld anything but a broken heart or the crack of dawn.

(laughs) - [Gary] And from there they just expanded every year, tried to make it a little bit better and, you know, people stopped for have something repaired or maybe get some fuel or whatever, and wanted something to eat so then they started the little diner.

- [Larry] It was a nice place for people to stop in and have a bite to eat or they had a little breezeway in between that you could go in and cool off, or eat outside if you wanted.

Pretty convenient, it looked like.

- [Gary] Between those two, the garage and restaurant business, they were able to survive and they was a big business there for a lot of years, a lot of people stopped there.

- [Ray] This one time I was out there in the garage, there was an Indian family came along, they had camped along the road somewhere and had water in the radiator and they let it freeze up.

Broke the block, and they got up to my garage and I welded the block.

Took quite a while to do it so they didn't leave 'till the next day.

They slept in the garage and we fed them their supper and we fed them their breakfast, and when he left he lacked $10 of having money enough to pay me for what I did.

He said, "I'll send it to you."

But, you know, in about a month's time I got a letter.

That's the first winter I had the garage out there.

- If somebody came through and if they couldn't pay their full bill, I mean he was still gonna help 'em out, not gonna leave somebody stranded.

And people were kind enough that they would get back with him and usually pay him back.

I'm sure not everybody did, but majority of people are good enough people that make sure he got squared up.

(laughs) - [Gary] Integrity and honesty, you know, and always willing to help and lend a healthy hand to whoever needed it, you know, and then I think that's what we could say that is kind of their legacy.

I think that they were honest people and friendly, and tried to help people.

(upbeat music) - Whether, you know, over the years the cars, you know, got better and people probably could go faster and just get on by and make it onto the next place, but times changed and decided that there's probably a better job in town where he could make a living.

- [Ray] We operated that garage out there from 1928 'till 1940, and she was working from five o'clock in the morning 'till 10 o'clock at night, and it was too hard on her so I said, "We'll just close it up."

(gentle music) - Oh, she was quite important to the business I believe.

I remember she was a really good cook, I can see why people kept going back there to eat, and it's probably one of the first truck stops.

- If the walls could talk, and the area around it, it has some really interesting stories to tell.

- Well the building's starting to deteriorate quite a bit, you know, it'd be nice to keep it preserved for the future, keep it so it doesn't fall over and, you know, it'd be nice to get it as a historical landmark.

It's been there for close to 100 years now.

- You know, you'd like to see what's there preserved, at least as much as you can, for people to maybe talk about it as they're driving down the highway.

- I know a lot of artists have used that for paintings and photographs, and just about everybody who travels that road, I think, you know, at one point or another have looked at it and wondered, "Who is this person and what's that old garage about?"

So it's kind of nice to tell that story.

(upbeat music) - The High Plains Western Heritage Center here in Spearfish takes you from room to room.

For instance, in the cowboy room you'll get a sense of the hard work and the danger for those who drove Longhorn Cattle from Texas here to Western South Dakota.

The staff here at the center says, "Plan a couple of hours for your visit, so you can stop by the Prairie Kitchen and Shepherd's Hall, the rodeo room or spend some time here in the transportation room."

But the Western Heritage Center has another entertaining room, it's an event space.

It seats up to 150.

There's a variety of events held each and every month, and you can even enjoy the occasional sit down cowboy supper and show.

But it's the annual show that brings audiences to Hayes.

It's a small town about 30 minutes west of Pierre on Highway 34.

In fact, it only takes less than a minute to go from one end of town to the other.

You'll drive past the church and the hall, but for those who stop at the hall, there's a performance that happens once a year that you will never forget.

- We have a quote behind stage, "People will forget what you said and they'll forget what you did, but they won't forget how you made them feel."

And that's a big thing, they just love how they feel when they come out and get to see everyone else who's at the play, and get to see the people in the play, and it's just a unique experience.

(gentle music) - Hayes is a small town located about 30 minutes west of Pierre, South Dakota.

It is very small, the highway goes right through it.

There's a church and the hall here where the place takes place, and that's pretty much it.

And I don't know if the population's even 10, maybe, if that.

- That's kind of where it hovers, I think we might be a little bit under.

We probably have more people in the play than we do in the town of Hayes.

(laughs) (gentle music) I read in an article in our scrapbooks that the play was started to help get the hall outta debt, and then they just kept it going to bring the community together and keep the hall up to date and maintenance on the hall, and that first play was the eagerness beaver and it just has kept going, 70 years now.

(gentle music) - It is the longest consecutive running community play in the state of South Dakota.

- No one's ever challenged us on that so we're gonna go with it.

(laughs) - We've never missed a year.

- Least ate thirsty no more.

- Well I should hope not, 'cause you drank (indistinct) horse trough.

- [Judy] Even through COVID, we happened to have it the last day that we could have it.

- Mustard?

- Yes, mustard.

Do you have it?

- Why would I have any mustard?

- If you don't have any mustard, just say so.

- [Judy] And then the one year that we couldn't have it in March or April, we had it towards Fall, so we never did miss a single year of it.

(people speaking faintly) - [Mindy] We all spend a lot of time and effort to get there every week and put in the time, and so we want it to look good and everybody to enjoy it and want it to go off without a hitch, so we're pretty serious about putting in the time.

We have a lot of fun while we're doing it but we're serious about getting it done.

- The name of the play is Trouble-in-Tumbleweed, which is a comedy.

People like a good laugh and it's easier to give 'em a good laugh when you start with a comedy.

- We always do a comedy out here and I just think those are the best.

And it's definitely the people in the play, they're the ones who make it.

I mean you could have a terrible play but the cast is who's gonna really make it.

- There's a core group that have been in 'em for the last eight to 15 years that are really good at doing bigger parts and memorizing those parts.

We don't practice every single day, we only practice two times a week and we have put on a play with eight practices before.

- [Mindy] It's really rough at the beginning, (giggles) reading just out of our book, trying to figure out where we're gonna be, where we're gonna put the furniture and things on stage; and now we're at the point where we're without books, everybody's got their lines hopefully memorized and this is the part where we can start adding a personalized touch.

We just have a small town feel and it's fun, (giggles) so I think that's why a lot of people keep coming back.

- [Judy] We have sellout crowds almost all the time.

Just when people come, they need to come early to get a spot reserved for 'em (laughs) 'cause the tickets are only $5, and they've been that for years.

- We bring people from Pierre, Midland, Philip, I had a couple this year who called already wanting to reserve tickets from Wasta.

- We've had people from Wyoming, some from Minnesota, and they'll just come on a regular basis, and as well as all over South Dakota.

- It doesn't matter how far they have to drive, they just show up.

(laughs) (happy music) (curtain rail whirring) When the audience is there it changes everything.

(audience laughs) It's a lot different when you're performing every week, practicing, and nobody's out there but when the audience is out there and you're getting feedback, you're getting the laughs and the clapping, that really just changes everything.

- I've been in the plays for 15 years and help direct one, and I can still get nervous.

Once you get out on stage it pretty much goes away, but there's just different things you think about and hope that don't happen.

- [Mindy] I'm kind of more reserved and the play has brought me outta my shell, and I can see that it's always done that for other actors too, that are more reserved and by the end they're adding their one-liners and ad (mumbles) and stuff, and that's fun to see.

We have a lot of younger kids growing up that see this, and now some of 'em are in the play and that, really, I think it's gonna carry the community on in the future because we have them seeing us and being involved.

- [Levi] I think it's really cool to see my kids on stage.

They're actually the third generation that have acted on the Hayes play, my mom was in the Hayes plays earlier so she was the first generation, and then me and now them.

And so it's really been fun to get them involved and see how they can kind of blossom through all of this.

- I think it's really important that people see this and experience it, it's just something unique and not everybody gets to, and so we've probably been spoiled because we've always had the play to go to and not everybody gets that opportunity, and it really enriches somebody's life, I think, by going to these things and seeing this.

- If it wasn't for the theater out there and the plays, these younger kids, you know, they really wouldn't know these other people, and it just helps bringing them together, from the oldest one there to the youngest ones.

You know, we all just get to be one big family and it's been good.

(happy music) - [Larry] The founding actors and actresses that came before us, I think it's really cool that we've been able to carry the torch and keep it going for them, and I think they probably think it's really cool that it's still going, that they started that idea and we've been able to keep it going for 70 years.

It's probably as much of an honor to them that we're doing it as it is to us.

Just really an honor to be a part of it as long as I've been able to be.

- [Mindy] There's been so many people over the years that have been involved, and over 70 years, it's pretty amazing to look back on the run that it's had so far, and it'll be interesting to see where it goes in the future.

(happy music) - Oh, Luther.

- Oh, Julie.

- Oh hey, it's a kids' show.

(audience laughs) (stutters) stop!

Break it up, break it up.

- Harry Blair and Edgar Slim Gardner, together with other area ranchers, were concerned that the story of settlement on the High Plains wouldn't be preserved.

So in the 1970s, these two ranchers started raising money to build what has become the High Plains Western Heritage Center.

It took years, but they finally were able to purchase land and build the first structure, and a grand opening ceremony for the center took place in September of 1989.

Now in addition to the various indoor displays you'll enjoy, you can visit the outdoor exhibits, including a furnished one room school and a log cabin all on a 40 acre pasture.

Now 20 miles or so away in the heart of historic Deadwood, you'll find another experience but this one is a lot less Western heritage.

It's a retro Texaco station that now houses a hot glass flowing studio.

The service bays have been rejuvenated into hot glass shops where spectators can watch molten glass be transformed into sculptures by Deadwood's own master gaffer.

- I have just a crucible inside of here that is melting about 20 pounds of clear glass, and it's running around 2,200 degrees.

We start with clear glass or come in like little nuggets and we melt them down, and it becomes a big puddle in our crucible.

Toni Gerlach, Mind Blown Studio in Deadwood, South Dakota.

Step into my studio.

Just like our pipes over there, glass will stick to hot metal.

We gather molten glass on the end of a five foot rod, and everything starts from there.

Just depends on what you're making for the process from there.

Glass color is, that comes in all different forms, so from like a powder all the way up to full bars to, you can actually have a whole color tank, so it really just depends on what you're doing and how you're adding it but most colors are just made out of different metals and minerals.

A lot of our blues are made with like copper, a lot of our reds are made with golds.

Very similar to like ceramic glazes.

And then also, too, our colors have different reactions so it's not really like painting where you would take like red and blue and they would make purple, when those actually combine they turn black, so there's actually a chemical reaction with it.

And then shaping.

I do a lot of solid work as well, sometimes it doesn't always involve blowing, just shaping or manipulating the material into ideas you have.

The most important part is when we're blowing glass we wanna get our glass nice and even on the end of the blow pipe, and then what we do to start a bubble in there we actually blow a huge breath of air into the pipe and you have it in there with your thumb, and the heat of the pipe and the heat of the glass actually expands that trapped air and blows the bubble out through your soft material.

The most important thing is to have your glass directly on center off the end of that pipe, if it's crooked a little bit your bubble will shoot out crooked, and then from there your whole piece will be crooked.

All glass has a different coefficient, so like the dishes that you use to bake with, it's like a Pyrex or a boro.

It's a harder form of glass where this is actually a soft glass, and all those different coefficients, the glass have different purposes for the glass.

So like the glass that I make, we really wouldn't make like a coffee cup and put hot coffee in it, it could shatter or thermal shock it, whereas your boro silica glass is a harder glass where it can actually handle those heat fluctuations.

There's all kinds of science behind it.

Constantly rolling the pipe, the glass always has movement to it, right until we put it away.

So once you get that left hand on autopilot, then your brain can focus on what the right hand's doing to shape it.

We have a certain way to fold our newspaper, basically it just kind of holds into itself.

We cut off a corner to let steam escape, and then we soak it in water, tar it a little bit so that it does have like a carbon layer over the top, and then the glass just basically floats on a steam and carbon layer.

Never really touches the newspaper, but that's the closest way we can actually get to shaping the glass with our hands.

Also, the newspaper allows us to cool certain areas so that other areas of the hot glass can expand, so that you're shaping and cooling.

But you can actually get your glass too thin in certain areas or blow out a sidewall, or blow out the bottom, so you're constantly watching the thickness of the material, and the newspaper allows you to also cool some certain spots.

I appreciate the small town.

I have regular customers, I've talked to everybody.

(laughs) So that is nice, and people do care about your craft and where you're going and what you're doing.

I got started in glassblowing, I grew up in Las Vegas and I was always really interested in art.

My mother got me a glassblowing class when I was about 15, 16 years old, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

When I was in my mid 20s I decided that I wanted to be a glassblower as a career and went to a school in San Diego that offered glassblowing.

I moved up here in 2013, my family's originally from South Dakota so my mom's from Deadwood, so I spent a lot of time up here growing up, seeing my grandparents.

I Wouldn't be where I am today without the help of my mother and stepfather, they're always encouraging me and they have the can-do attitude and anything is possible.

And when I moved up here this Texaco gas station was available for rent and it had been previously a coffee and deli shop before, and then I am renting this space out so we have a really good working relationship here.

And now I'm able to focus a little little more on my craft too, and my passion really lies in kind of sculpting glass material.

Glass does break, even after doing it for 10 years, usually break a piece a day.

A lot of it's just trial and error, and figuring it out.

Sometimes you open it up and you're like, "Wow, that's ugly."

And then that's usually the first piece to sell the next day too.

We're always the worst critics of our work.

- You might say the High Plains Western Heritage Center is a living museum.

You'll see displays of our forebearers about their work, their lifestyles, their clothing and accessories.

From pioneers to ranchers to native peoples, and all of that can come to life in the performance space through speakers, performers, and reenactors.

For your events, you can even ask about renting that room here at the center.

Better yet, sign up for their email newsletter at westernheritagecenter.com, and see what events they have planned for you coming up in the months ahead.

Thanks for detouring with us along the back roads to the High Plains Western Heritage Center in Spearfish.

You can replay or share stories, or even full episodes of "Dakota Life" at sdpb.org/dakotalife.

Join us again for another "Dakota Life Detours" and for all of us at SDPB, thanks for watching.

(gentle upbeat music)