Beulah, Wyoming : First town in Crook County
By Mary Jane Wilson
Revised by Gregg A. Forsberg
Gold, that tantalizing stuff that fires imaginations, drew men to the Sand Creek area in the late 1870s. From the mid 1850s on, there had been periodic exploration but no settlement. Then in 1876 the gold rush that had begun in the Lead-Deadwood, South Dakota , area spilled over to Sand Creek. The gold did not last long, and its attraction was soon replaced by that of the grass and water, which soon brought in the cattlemen.
Of the early settlers, the one who perhaps played the biggest part in the future of the area was Alex Moorcroft. Moorcroft's homestead, which he took up in 1876 on Sand Creek, included what is now the town of Beulah . According to one source, he built a cabin in 1877 and later laid out a town there.
First known as Sand Creek, the settlement is considered as the first in Crook County . It was later renamed Beulah, possibly as a tribute to the hymn " Beulah Land ," or perhaps to an early teacher named Beulah Sylvester. According to some the word Beulah in the bible the book of Isaiah 62:4 means happily married.
About the time the first settlers arrived along Sand Creek, the last of the Indian raids occurred. A wagon train led by Charles W. Pettigrew left Spearfish headed west in July 1877. They camped along Sand Creek. That night one of three hayfield workers they had passed during the day came to the camp to warn of Indians, his partners having been killed by them. The warning gave them time to prepare and when the attack came they were ready. After three days of desultory firing of shots by both sides, someone managed to slip away and go back to Spearfish, South Dakota , for help. Only one person, an Indian, was killed during the siege.
By 1880 many cattle outfits had come in and taken up all the land with direct access to Sand Creek and to Redwater Creek. By the following year, a stage line was in operation between Spearfish, South Dakota , and Sundance , Wyoming , with a relay station in Beulah. To take care of the needs of the settlers in the surrounding area, Beulah became a flourishing trade center. Besides the relay station, there was a hotel, several saloons, a dance hall and a stone grinder mill.
According to Benjamin F. Lincoln in a 1968 Rapid City Journal article, he helped build the Mill in 1888. John Fox had the new flour mill built by H.H. Reinecke, a ship builder and master millwright from Germany . The mill was built on land purchased from Moorcroft. Reinecke operated the mill until Fox deeded it and the water rights to Frank Andrews, a skilled miller from Michigan .
Andrews had a reputation for quality with Silver Star white flour. According to one source, ranchers came from a hundred miles or more to have their wheat ground. He claimed he could process one hundred barrels of flour in twenty-four hours at peak capacity. The manufacture Nordyke & Marmon Co., Indianapolis , IND. Claim the three-stand mill is recommended where a capacity from twenty-five to forty barrels of flour per day is desired. Andrews died in 1915 and the mill was sold to Toomey Milling Company. Toomey operated it through World War II. The period after WW II seems to be a bit of a mystery. Melvin and Mary Shepperson purchased the mill around 1955. They used the Mill as a stable and storage for hay. In the same 1968 article Melvin was quoted “it’ll have to come down eventually. It is an eyesore and, with its rotten timbers and boards, a danger.” October of 2004 Mary sold it to Gregg Forsberg. Gregg his wife Karen and his son Garrett decided to remodel the Mill and transform her into a grand guest house/entertainment center. Garrett used his ingenuity to figure out the complicated job of restoring the building and still leaving some of the historical features of the past. It is now “the Mill on Sand Creek” and available to the public to rent for private events.
Click Here To Visit The Mill Page!
By the year 1880 Beulah boasted, besides the flour mill, two hotels, several saloons, dance halls, a school, post office, a general store, a grocery store and doctor and dentist offices. In that year, the year of Wyoming statehood, Beulah had nearly reached its peak. The centers of trade gradually shifted to Sundance and Spearfish as mobility improved.
Many of the names associated with those early days are still to be found in the county--Matthews, Reinecke, Ellsbury and Lincoln, to name a few. Among the buildings still in use in Beulah, the Sand Creek Trading Post dates back to the 1880s when it was known as Louis Minzer's grocery store.
