(whimsical music) - [Announcer] This is a production of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

(whimsical music) (light piano music) - It fell into disrepair, and in the '30s, it was in, I understand, terrible, terrible condition.

(light piano music) - Some people said just let it go, burn it down, ah, you know, but there six presidential inauguration invitations here in the house.

I mean, who goes to six presidential inaugurations?

(light piano music) - No homesteads are left.

My, my grandfather's homestead was the last one to leave, and ah, so those homesteads are gone.

So, and ah, that's about it.

(light piano music) (melancholy music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided by these organizations, the city of Faulkton, the Faulk County Historical Society, the Faulkton Area Arts Council, and the Faulkton Business and Professional Association.

Donors to the Explore South Dakota Fund support the production of local documentaries and other programs of local interest presented by SDPB.

Friends of SDPB appreciates their support of this program.

(light choral music) - [Narrator] There were no more than a thousand white settlers living in Dakota Territory when it was established in 1861.

A steady stream of settlers arriving in the 1870s gave way to a flood of immigration in the 1880s.

By 1887, the white population in Dakota Territory had reached 325,000.

Among them was a Civil War veteran and lawyer from Muncie, Indiana named Arthur Calvin Mellette.

He arrived by boat in 1879 and took a job at the land office in Springfield.

He rose quickly into territorial politics.

He moved to Watertown with his family In 1880.

Construction of the Mellette's grand home began in 1885.

Another Civil War veteran from Indiana made the journey over land.

Major John Pickler was part of a 13 man expedition that covered the final miles of their move to the territory in wagons.

Pickler built a small claim shack, and with others in his pioneering party, founded the town of Faulkton.

Like Calvin Mellette, Pickler was a lawyer with deep political connections and ambition.

Construction of the mansion he had built around his claim shanty began in 1882.

A Norwegian immigrant family led by Johannes Berdahl, came to Minnehaha County by wagon train in 1873.

The Berdahls endured the frontier hardships of failed crops, harsh winters, and rough shelter, but they persevered and eventually prospered.

They had this house built on their homestead near Garretson in 1883.

The Berdahls' house was moved from Garretson to the campus of Augustana University in Sioux Falls in 1978, along with several other historically significant buildings.

In September of 2022, the house and other buildings were removed from the Augie campus to make room for a new hockey arena.

Los Angeles based filmmaker, and Augustana alumnus, Andrew Kightlinger, produced and directed a short film before the house was moved, remembering the history of the house and the family that once called it home.

(light choral music) - Why did they come?

Why did they come here?

- They were among the first groups that came to this part of the country.

- [Alan] In America they had opportunity to make something better of themselves and to have a stake.

It's important to remember what they did, why they did it, and in the manner in which they did it.

- We're very rooted in South Dakota, because of the pioneer stories, because they become our stories.

- It's important to preserve all the immigrant stories.

The Norwegians are just one part of this huge mosaic in the United States.

- If you forget where you've been, sometimes you don't know quite where you're going.

(whimsical orchestral music) - One of the main characters in the pioneer story was land.

- They came because they had little future in Norway.

They weren't the oldest child.

The oldest child got the farm.

- The Berdahl brothers, Andrew and Eric, wrote wonderful journals that helped us to remember their journey from Norway to Winneshiek County in Iowa, and up to Southeast Minnesota, and then finally into Dakota Territory.

All the memories are there.

There were nine families that came and there were 11 wagons.

The Berdahls came in three wagons, because they had the largest family.

One of the main hardships they suffered, in fact, for the first four years they were here, were the Colorado grasshoppers.

They would come in and devour all of the plants, all of their grain.

Also, the snowstorms that came made it very difficult for the families, but they managed to survive.

- That story became the factual basis for "Giants in the Earth".

(dramatic piano music) He met John and James Berdahl, and also their sister Jenny, of course, whom he married.

- [Ruth] There wouldn't have been "Giants in the Earth" if it hadn't been for the stories that he heard from the Berdahls in this house.

- [Alan] "Giants in the Earth is a book that doesn't whitewash anything.

- "Giants in the Earth" is central for me, because it finally took away the romanticism of the pioneer experience.

- [Ruth] There was a lot of myths about what it was like to settle the West.

His novels just destroyed that.

- It's important to acknowledge the pain, because that is the real part of our lives.

We lived with death and we lived with birth as well.

(dramatic piano music) - The Norland Fest was an amazing event.

- Their motto was education, preservation, and celebration.

We were bringing people from Norway and other Scandinavian countries, dancing groups, and singing groups, and bands, and then we had food.

That's the thing that seems to connect us most easily with our heritage.

(dramatic piano music) - The basis for their lives are right here, family, faith, education.

- The house was a very authentic display of how people lived in that period.

- I have memories of the house when it was out on the farm and going out and picking plums from the plum trees that were there that were noted planted by my great-grandparents.

- My great-grandparents pictures are in one of the rooms.

Also, I have a picture here of the family that was taken in 1903 in front of the house.

- During one winter that was so terribly, terribly cold, they had to break up the organ and burn it for wood, for heat.

and I can not imagine how painful that was, making that kind of a sacrifice.

- Once they established a house they really did not want to lose the church, which had been the center of their lives in Norway.

- They were living in a sad house, and what was one of the first things they wanted to do?

To start a congregation.

- This is where the choirs were.

And so this is where young people would often meet.

(dramatic piano music) - And then we have the schoolhouse here.

Education was so important, because that's how they were going to make something of themselves.

(dramatic piano music) The writing cabin, of course, fits in with the education and, and keeping the story alive.

- The first draft of "Giants in the Earth" was written in the cabin.

If you think about Per Hansa and Beret, they're kind of two sides of the immigrant story.

There is the wonderful thing about coming to a new place and establishing a new home, and then there's the pain of being torn up from your roots.

When this novel came out in the American translation, it sold, I forget how many hundred thousand copies, and it's never been outta print, getting close to a hundred years.

It has to speak to us somehow.

And I think that demolishing that myth of the frontier and the pioneer, and showing the hardship, and showing what the cost of it was, was very important, both for immigrants and for Americans in general.

We know that because there's been responses from Americans of all kinds of backgrounds that say, "I read "Giants in the Earth" "and it was so great, 'cause it told my story."

- It represents a vast number of families who came and settled in this part of the country.

- It's that heritage that we hang our hat on.

It helps me connect to the people that I come from.

- It is who we are and whose we are.

(singing in foreign language) - [Narrator] In September of 2022, the Berdahl-Rolvaag House was moved to the site of the Granite Threshing Bee in Granite, Iowa, where it will be preserved along with other pioneer buildings and sere as a museum.

(dramatic piano music) This three story 20 room mansion was built in stages over the course of a dozen years.

It was the home of Major John A. Pickler, his wife Alice Alt Pickler, and their four children.

- John Pickler was South Dakota's first US Congressman, but before that he was a territorial legislator, and he is the man who founded the town of Faulkton.

- [Narrator] Pickler was 38 years old and well established as an attorney and businessman when he came to Dakota Territory.

He was born in Indiana, but grew up in Iowa.

He served in the 3rd Iowa Cavalry, and saw action in an uncounted number of engagements between 1862 and the end of the war in 1865.

After the war, he attended the University of Iowa where he met his future wife, Alice Alt.

Pickler went on to earn a law degree from the University of Michigan.

He set up a practice in Iowa, got into state level politics, and with his wife, began raising a family.

In 1882, he made a life changing choice.

- He read an article in Scribner's Magazine about the Dakota Land Boom, and he said to his wife, "Don't you want to be a pioneer like our parents were?"

And so he came out here with 13 other men, and staked out their claims to homestead.

And that's what he did.

He picked out his spot, and then built his little claim shanty, and, and stayed in his shack.

He said his floorless and roofless shack to begin with.

And then he could hear the prairie wolves howling at night.

And so that was his claim.

And then he started building the house around that.

He commissioned a couple of the bachelor men that were homesteaders to build him a house.

So the house that they built around his little claim shanty is what is now the dining room and the master bedroom, and then there were, there was a ladder upstairs for the two girls' rooms.

- [Narrator] The Picklers had two more children, and began adding rooms to their house.

- Well, the first edition to the house was the kitchen in 1885.

- I've always said that the interesting part about this house, everything in this house was left here by the Pickler family.

They, ah, they intended for this to become a museum, I'm sure.

- Then in 1887, they added on to the master bedroom, and made the, the back porch, or we call it the kitchen porch.

They also added a summer kitchen, 'cause it was so hot for cooking.

Ah, then they just, they added onto the bathroom, because in 1890 they added running water to the house.

- It was hooked at one time to a reservoir on the coal wood cook stove here, and that's what heated the water.

And then it went in here, and it was piped over to the sink behind me, and then to the bathroom, and then for a period of time, there was a bathroom up in the hallway upstairs.

- Then they added the library building, which is a two-story hotel building that came from the town of Lafoon, um, becoming the library and the music room.

and then some of the rooms upstairs, well, actually it's the boys' rooms and the guest room.

(light piano music) - The beautiful woodwork in the music room was done by a gentleman from the town of Cresbard, 14 miles away from us.

He came and spent the winter living right here in the house with the Picklers, and he did all of this work on all, put all his woodwork up in here, finished it and everything all by hand.

- [Narrator] John Pickler was elected to the Territorial Legislature in 1884, and made a name for himself as a champion of voting rights for women.

A suffrage bill he sponsored passed through the legislature, but was vetoed by the governor.

When South Dakota achieved statehood in 1889.

- Then he was elected to the United States House of Representatives from the new state of South Dakota in 1889, and served four terms.

- [Narrator] He continued to be a strong advocate for women's suffrage, but the opposition in Washington, DC was somewhat more fierce than it had been in Dakota Territory.

- He would speak for women's suffrage when they called him Petticoats Pickler, and said he was hiding behind the skirts of his wife and daughters.

- [Narrator] Pickler retired from politics, and returned to Faulkton in 1897.

He continued to work as a land inspector and lawyer until his death in 1910.

Alice Alt Pickler was also politically active throughout her life, primarily in the suffrage movement.

Mrs. Pickler was closely connected to national leaders of the movement, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony.

- We know that Susan B. Anthony came and stayed here in the house several times.

She described the room that she loved with the rose wallpaper upstairs.

We know that she was here.

(light piano music) - [Narrator] Alice Pickler lived to see women get the vote in 1919 with the passage of the 19th Amendment.

She continued to live in Faulkton until her death in 1932.

- Mrs. Pickler gave the house to her oldest daughter, and Lula lived here until 1956 when she fell in the kitchen and broke her hip.

And then her children took her to live in Aberdeen.

She lived another 10 years.

- [Narrator] But the mansion sat vacant.

The deed was passed to the Picklers' eldest granddaughter who tried to clean things up during the 1970s.

- But she had kept the house locked up, and wouldn't allow the community to see it.

And part of that is because of vandalism.

- [Narrator] But then in 1987, the Picklers' granddaughter changed her mind about keeping the family home.

- And she said, "Look, if you get a grant "from the South Dakota Committee on the Humanities, "and you catalog all the books and papers in the house, "and prove to me that you're sincere, "I'll give you the house to become a museum."

So that's what we started doing, and I was the project director for that.

We ended up with 585,000 pieces of paper.

The oldest was a Civil War battlefield letter.

And so in 1989, the state archives came and picked up all of those papers, and, and have been working with them ever since.

So she did sign over the house to us in 1987 then, and we started working on restoration, and it's, it's been a lot of work ever since.

- [Narrator] Nearly the entire house has been restored.

Work continues on the tower.

- It was leaning.

It was like six inches away from the house, and it was dangerous, dangerously leaning, so it needed some new cement down underneath, and some reinforcing in the walls.

- [Narrator] The house is distinctive pink color is a very close match to the original color applied in 1894.

The mansion is open for viewing during the summer months, and hosts school tours from time to time.

- Some people said, just let it go, burn it down, you know, but there were six presidential inauguration invitations here in the house.

I mean, who goes to six presidential inaugurations?

Um, it was just unbelievable.

The papers and the things they did and the people they knew.

And we know that Teddy Roosevelt came here, and he stepped off the train and he said, "Well, hello Major."

So we know he knew him, and we know he came back here to visit.

And that Susan B. Anthony stayed here at least twice.

It's just amazing that these people that were involved in the national politics were coming here to Faulkton, South Dakota out here in the middle of nowhere.

(whimsical orchestral music) - [Narrator] The home of South Dakota's first governor was built from locally made brick.

- And it was built in 1885.

This house actually is 3,600 square feet, which is pretty darn good size.

It has the ah, upstairs.

There are four bedrooms, and a sitting room on the second floor, and then there's a third floor tower, which is very small, but it's more the style of the house.

It's an Italianate house, and you had a tower when you had an Italianate house.

And so that's why they have the tower.

And downstairs, of course, is the dining room, the governor's office, a double parlor, um, and the kitchen area.

There's a front and a back stairway, that, the good stairs, and the serviceable stairs that they used all the time.

(whimsical orchestral music) - [Narrator] The grand home of Arthur and Margaret Mellette was a dream achieved after a long period of both joy and suffering.

Arthur Calvin Mellette was born near Muncie, Indiana.

He earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Indiana in 1863.

In 1864, he joined the Union Army, taking the place of his drafted brother, who on account of health reasons was unfit for service.

Mellette was involved in several engagements during the war, but spent much of his time in the service ill and in the hospital.

After the war, he earned a law degree from the University of Indiana, married his longtime sweetheart, Margaret Wylie, set up a practice in Muncie, and was elected to the Indiana State Legislature.

But Mrs. Mellette developed some health issues.

Mr. Mellette, thinking that his wife might benefit from a change of climate traveled west.

He looked at several locations, finally settling on Dakota Territory.

Mellette turned to a friend and prominent fellow Hoosier for help finding a job.

- Benjamin Harrison was from Indiana also, and a friend of his, and Dakota Territory was opening up, and they needed a Registrar of Deeds and they needed people, and so Benjamin Harris sent, ah, Harrison sent, ah, Arthur to be the Registrar of Lands, and he was sent to Springfield.

And they spent almost a year in Springfield, until the homesteads were pretty well filled up.

- [Narrator] When the railroad reached Watertown, there were more deeds and claims to be registered.

The Mellettes moved there in 1880.

- They lived above the registrar's office, he and the, Maggie and their four children.

- [Narrator] Mellette was elected to the Territorial Legislature in 1883, and elected Territorial Governor in 1885, the same year he had his house built.

Mellette strongly supported the idea of dividing the territory between north and south, rather than east-west along the Missouri River.

- He always had the good of the people first, always.

- [Narrator] When South Dakota became a state in 1889, Arthur Mellette was elected governor.

But a year later, a political disaster for the governor, and an economic crisis for the state.

- It was found that the state treasurer had absconded with about a quarter of a million dollars, while, and um, Mellette, as I said, was such an honorable man, he had no knowledge that this had happened.

He had no part of it, but he felt responsible, because W.W. Taylor had been his treasurer.

And so he sold all of his property, and the only thing he kept was this house because of his family.

But he sold all of his property to give the money to the state, which he had no obligation to do.

- [Narrator] But almost everything he had wasn't enough.

He sold the house and went back to Indiana.

He restarted his law practice to stay afloat, but the Mellettes moved again to Kansas to live with one of their children.

- Sadly, during that period of time, quite abruptly, he was only 50, 52 years old, he became ill and he passed away.

- [Narrator] And so began a long period of decay for the Mellette House.

- Eventually it was an upstairs and a downstairs apartment and it fell into disrepair.

And in the '30s, it was in, I understand terrible, terrible condition.

The railroad is just down the hill from us, and I guess it provided housing for many of the hobos that rode the railroad.

And um, how it survived is a miracle.

- [Narrator] It was scheduled for demolition in 1943, but a group of caring citizens raised $500 and purchased the house.

Repair, renovation, and restoration work has been going on ever since.

- The centennial of South Dakota brought new life into everything.

It was operating, but that really brought significance to, hey, look what we've got.

And so that, I think, gave it another shot in the arm of people being proud to have it, and that it is a treasure to have - [Narrator] The Berdahl-Rolvaag House, the Pickler Mansion, and the Mellette House.

Three homes built by South Dakota pioneers with three things in common.

Children grew up in these homes.

The homes were only saved from the ravages of time, because a few people cared.

And the homes represent state history in a way that photographs and documents can not.

Visitors can stand where pioneers stood, and perhaps think about an average moment on an average day, the aroma of supper in the oven, the sound of music from a distant room, and the clatter of dishes when the time came to gather 'round the table with the family.

(whimsical choral music)