Still trying the figure out whether a Saturday or Sunday would be a better way of adding another entry in this ongoing saga of uncovering the mysteries of this old mining town. But I’m sure as long as I keep giving my attention to it, it should be worth it either way (hopefully..)

NOW ON TO SOME NICE SHOTS WITH CONTEXT!

So, for starters, I can’t go one single day without going for a nice walk around this town! Doesn’t matter if its the same loop every day up and around the backside ridge. But for reasons unknown, every walk still feels completely new and different from the other! like the winds whisper to you when you are paying attention, compelling you to look closer and at those small things that are always waiting to be found just hiding behind someones house to show the Midwest album covers just waiting to be snatched from thin air!

The original Water tank for leads water supply built during the 1960s that people still drink from from this day (stainless steel and brass is built to last!) Very Mid 20th century industrial Vibes Right here! The Homestake company was surprisingly benevolent in its investment into the local community (the first companies in the US to provide free all expenses paid healthcare for its employees long before the labor movement made employer insurance standard practice!) when government projects simply take too long! Nothing really stops you from building your own model city from the ground up!

This town may obviously seem like it’s seen better days from a lot of roads seeming like they never got repaved sense the mine went out of business. But It really only contributed further to the DIY character of many of the locals who are more than comfortable using the left over hardware to clear snow and pull out the occasional stump. The locals never forget that even with Homestake money! they were the ones who built this city from the ground up, and know how best to take care of it!

Lead was probably one of the first towns in the Black Hills to become fully electrified in 1911 from clean renewable hydro-power. Combined with the electric street car network and racial tolerance! It was ironically the green thumbed liberals dream come true long before 15 minute cities entered the popular lexicon! (Yet you think were a bunch of unsophisticated hicks right?)

As I write this right now! I just might make another walk around town just to give myself a break from the constant barrage of sensationalized garbage my search engine wants to push on me and remind myself that, actually, everything is actually NOT on fire and I’ve never seen it more lush and green in my entire life! It’s only a minutes walk from my house to be frank! Tell me why our forest is in danger again! Even a little fire is actually good for it same reason you get a hair cut! It helps it grow back in thicker and lusher than what was there before! this entire alpine climate evolved on the expectation of routine wildfires and we actually have ALOT more trees here than the empty sparse hills that were here before we settled down and properly managed the forest for future sustainability.

Adventure awaits just over yonder! Best back-country alpine views of all time! No rules and no signposts past this point!

There is a recent effort by the city to repurpose the old pre-war school campus into something thats actually not just a stereotypical scene of urban decay, such as what you can see from what state the old auditorium is left in!

A building nowadays so useless, not even squatters want to use it! You still can’t help appreciate the days when everything was made from well insulated and erosion resistant brick then cheap paneling and steel. Again, built to last! Even if it means outlasting its original purpose!

The actual old elementary school had a much needed facelift into practical condos, no central heating or AC obviously! Because modern developers don’t have the bottomless pockets of gold like Homestake had! But it looks perfectly rustic for your usual vacationer …. and not a person who actually needs a place to live. cmon… this pandering to tourists is getting old, we know most of them go to deadwood to gamble anyways rather than stay in town! What do we actually have to do around here outside isolated seasonal events… I really don’t mind the lack of attention, but some more money and jobs in this town would be nice so I don’t have to hedge my well being on the performance of my blog.

the wreath and thin trimmed trees is a nice touch!

From what i can tell from the sidebar! I don’t want a part 1 to become a part 1 and then some! I’m not usually one to give long winded pretentious closing paragraph, too tacky. So I’ll just leave the usual buttons below and its up to you if you dig post industrialized former boom towns and the weird pull they have on you. Because I don’t see the harm in being upfront with my intentions. Theres really not that much of an economy out here to be honest and the revitalization efforts of Dakota Gold wont pay off for another 5 years or so! So when jobs are scarce, become a blogger! Obviously…

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Public access TV is always a bit dodgy. But why pay them any more than what they got from add revenue when i could just bootleg it onto my sub-stack

for free. I don’t remember signing any agreement saying I could’’t lol.

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Because you see, actually one of the people who actually live here and can actually appreciate the smaller things the tourists that usually just drive into this town by mistake when they can’t find deadwood just a few more miles down the road.

The titular shaft of course, dumping its load were no one can see it…

Why don’t they ever stay here for starters. We actually have free parking while Deadwood just wants to milk you dry and then blame you for going there. Most of the people who actually work there that aren’t blood sucking corpo dinguses live here anyways, so you know you would actually get the real northern hills community, rather than what cartoonish tourist trap parody of a western town they turned deadwood into sense they legalized gambling there in the late 1980s to make up for all the prostitutes going on strike with the ATC employees. I am still salty at them getting rid of the only thing that did’nt involve food or narrated bus rides… (the go karts were great in the gulch, now it’s basically an empty tarmac they could pass off as an “interpretive trail”.)

this is’’t about deadwood though. So here is a nice mural a local artist made in a well spirited attempt to make Lead more artsy for the San Fransisco vacation rental types wanting to experience “local culture.” I do like birds though…

Okay maybe I’m a bit of a hypocrite. I did’’t grow up here either. But at least I actually moved here at the ripe old age of 12 in 2007. long enough to really come to appreciate the grounded earnestness of small town life were in contrast to my childhood in Minnesota, people in here will open up to you like they knew you sense kindergarten and trying to dress yourself up and something your not will immediately make everyone know you’re from a big city on the coast with a possible meth addiction (seriously, get your meth out of our town, people here are crazy enough without it, thank you!).

when you look at this town from the right angle though! It does look like if J.R.R tolkien and Tim Burton did some kind of cinematic universe cross-over. It beckons you to adventure while tinged with a hint of nostalgic melancholy of its best days behind it.

While this town is everything America was meant for sense its founding, I do admit for the sake of objectivity that the dog owners here can be insufferably entitled and lazy.

So apparently neutering is okay, but muting their vocal chords is not?

I’m starting to honestly wonder if this Is this some kind of rent control scheme? Because not only can i not walk past one street corner without the dog gracing me with its version of harassment and profanity. I’ve seen people with 4 dogs all sharing a tiny grass lawn, all of them in a competition to see who can be the most aggressive and territorial for pissing rights. Just… why is that even necessary you indignant man-child? Do you think owning 3 pit-bulls makes you tough? Probably because you are already a convicted felon who went to jail for his meth addiction and can’t buy a 12 gauge to defend your house with less noise and less poop.

Don’t take my word for it, one of our old, pristine, historic houses from the 1920s got reduced to a smoldering slab because those same dipsticks who own these dogs had a little “cooking accident” and their dog that deserved SO much better than constant abuse and neglect probably didn’t make it. Nice job, you take the gold in the salt of the earth marathon.

But slowly this town is finding a new name for itself as Black Mesas redneck cousin that makes moonshine in his spare time after the Homestake mine closed down sometime around 2001-2002 (luckily everyone who was laid off were given free scholarships to pursue the trade of their choice!). As much as were flattered to have lead be a science town doing science things. the locals who don’t know a single thing about particle physics are all crossing their fingers hoping it doesn’t cause a resonance cascade event. (then again, that concern is valid considering particle physics can get WEIRD.)

I should probably end this. Because I think I’m just making myself angry at the town I love for reasons i really can’t explain. Maybe being so weird and undefinable is it’s own special appeal. Were jocks and nerds live in… somewhat… harmony.

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Hello! whoever is going to read this (hopefully you’re an actual human on the other end) For God knows whatever reason! I just recently reminded myself Substack exists! Why I have put off using this site for so long even though I have been writing professionally for years at this point is beyond me.

But as is usually the case with me, I am going to be as upfront and honest as I can with you. As much as I have a love hate relationship with social media, most of this generation are so chronically online i guess this is the only real way I can reach out to anyone to let them know that yes. I too exist and wish we could know each other in real life!

(Believe me i tried! the COVID hoax and general paranoia corroded what remaining social atmosphere remained in my small town.)

While you could say i’m being a bit sardonic, it beats being new age snake oil salesman number #1302 who exists to blow smoke up your tush for the low low price of $200 an hour at minimum, and I’m also so damn sick of the online biosphere taken up by insincere jerks who love to make you think they actually care about you when they want you to sign up for another zoom seminar or buy cheap merch made in some nameless sweatshop in some interchangable communist dictatorship and shipped straight to your door from another Amazon sweatshop here in the states.

(Vivziepop cough cough I’m not afraid to name names!)

I may not butter you up or sell you on hookum or act like everything is awesome like some terrible live action parody of The Lego Movie! But I will at least try to pull you up with nothing more than my unfiltered, unapologetic, unflinching sincerity that will serve as a breath of fresh air to anyone sick to death of the irony, snarky nihhlism, and self-rightousness that passes as “hip” and “cool” nowadays in the untested, bug infested beta of the 2020s we never really asked for.

Believe me, When you are us up front and no holds barred as I am, you WON’T be popular! But at least you will be worth it to the people who stuck around to appreciate whats worth sharing. At least you know what you are reading is from a real human being who has been around the block a bit too many times for his own good.

At the very least I welcome my critics as a worthy conversation rather than something I have to plug my ears for. I will hear you out, even if i think you’re completely full of it!

If you are interested in reading the book I got published about a secret organization of Paranormal operatives as they fight off the threats spawned from satanic ritual abuse in 1980s minneapolis, you can buy it on my Amazon page here: https://a.co/d/5ROlu1m

All comments welcome. as you can tell! I’m pretty thick skinned!

If you are looking forward to the short stories and nature photos of the Black Hills region i’m going to post here (and i hate saying this) you can of course SUBSCRIBE for any future updates. my sequel to my book, “PARSEC: The Shadow of Raum” is probably going to come out sometime this year if I can get over my chronic habit of overthinking the next 100 words each and every time… oh well, this is better than living with the regret of not doing anything notable in my life at all and working as a gas station clerk up into the ripe old age of 75. What a loser, am I right? It’s okay you can laugh. Were all kind of at that point…

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