My father looked me in the eye and said, “Go west, young man!” Well, what he actually said was, “Have you ever been to the ghost town west of town? The 1880 Cowboy Town? It’s a couple miles west of town on I-90. You should go sometime, see what the Wild West looked like in the 1960s.”
So, last weekend, MrsGryphon and I visited the Wild Wild West.
When you travel across South Dakota, you’ll see billboards for roadside attractions from one end of the state to the other. Most of them are for the world-famous Wall Drug (as seen in Time magazine!), but around Sioux Falls, you’ll see a few for the 1880 Cowboy Town (not to be confused with the 1880 Town that’s further west).
Four miles west of Sioux Falls, at Exit 390, you’ll see the sign for the 1880 Cowboy Town at Buffalo Ridge.
The entrance to the ghost town is through a gas station/ gift shop/ fireworks store.
After paying admission, we were treated to a brief stroll through the gift shop where a few coin-op animatronic displays are set up.
After that, we headed out the back door to the ghost town. A long, wood and gravel path leads you through the prairie. There’s a pasture nearby with a buffalo herd, but it’s a very big field and we didn’t see any buffalo.
The approach to the ghost town is peaceful, and littered with the rusting remains of antique farm equipment.
As we neared the town, we found a small graveyard. The hand-painted wooden tombstones reflected a simpler time, a time when a Sgt. Fitz, who lived from 1800-1880, died after “He said NO at a shotgun wedding”. Wait, 80 years old? Good on Fitz!
The buildings were sagging, the paint chipping, and there were a surprising number of pieces of wood with nails sticking out of them strewn around. It really did feel like a ghost town.
Of course, being a ghost town, there were ghosts. SO. MANY. GHOSTS.
The animatronic ghosts of a 1960s vision of the 1880s wandered the streets. Well, they didn’t actually wander the streets, per se… They were safely contained behind chicken wire, glass windows, or yellowed and aging sheets of acrylic, protecting the visitors from the vengeful ghosts of animatronics past.
The ghost of Lincoln…
There were the Lewis and Clark. And York, who may be a California raisin.
There was a smithy…
A telegraph office…
And a gold-mining Welsh dwarf…
There were also so a few good photo ops…
Unfortunately, more of the animatronics were out of order than were working.
Most of the automatons started out their lives as mannequins, some having begun their careers as static displays at another Wild West feature over 80 years ago. The displays have been upgraded in fits and spurts over the years, and the original taped narration was replaced with digital sound chips around 20 years ago, but the technician who designed and maintained most of the features passed away several years ago.
Although the owner and his son have done their best in trying to repair the displays and replace the aging timers and relays as they fail, the maintenance has fallen behind. The good news is, I’ve heard some super-secret behind-the-scenes rumors that they’re bringing is someone to bring the animatronics back to life!
Despite the aging animatronics, a slight (but very real) Five Nights at Freddy’s vibe, and a set of stairs up to a viewing walkway that may have left me fearing for my life, I found the whole place charming. It was a look into the past, but not the past that the creators had intended. It was a look into Roadside Americana, what is a long-passed golden age of the roadside attraction.
They’re still out there, you know, the old roadside attractions. Not as many as there used to be, but there are still some. Go find one, check it out. Really. You’ll be glad you did!
