The Sioux City Journal
May 29,1874
The Black Hills

The report published by us a few days since that General Custer was organizing a strong military force for the purpose of exploring the celebrated Black Hills country is fully confirmed, and the intelligence is received by the people of the Northwest with intense interest. The Sioux have guarded this domain with a jealousy which indicated that they had particular reasons for excluding white men from it, and of course this policy has only served to intensify the desire to penetrate the forbidden land. For years we have had reports of rich gold deposits existing in the Black Hills, and the information coming at different times, from different parties backed up by the exhibition of rich specimens claimed to have been found there, has led to the belief that the region is rich in the precious ore. Government researches have also tended to confirm the popular impression. In a work entitled: "Reports upon the Mineral Resources of the United States," published by the Government, it is stated that explorations made by Lieutenant Warren in 1847, and by Captain Reynolds in 1859-60, under direction of the United States Topographical office satisfactorily establish the fact that the Black Hills of Dakota are rich in gold, silver, iron, copper and pine forests. The same report says the area occupied by the Black Hills is 6,000 square miles, or about the surface of Connecticut, and adds: "Their bases are elevated from 2,500 to 3,500 feet, and the highest peaks are about 6,700 feet above the ocean level. The whole geological range of rocks, from the granite and metamorphosed azoic to the cretaceous formations of the surrounding district of Dakota would doubtless be the scene of great mining excitement as the gold field of the Black Hills is accessible at a distance of 120 miles from the Missouri River."
In a work entitled "Outlines of History of Dakota Territory," published in 1870, it appears that as far back as 1867 the people of the territory were firm in the belief that the Black Hills were rich in gold and other valuable minerals, and says: "Valuable specimens of gold are frequently brought to the trading posts above Yankton by the Indians residing in the Black Hills, giving unmistakable evidence of the existence of gold in paying quantities in that locality."
John Goewey, of this city, while a post trader at Fort Sully, in 1862, fitted out a trusty Indian to explore the Black Hills, a white man not being allowed to enter them. The Indian returned in due season with rich specimens of surface gold which he declared he picked up in the beds of streams around the base of the hills.
Dan Harnett, formerly of this city, but now of Sioux Falls, and well known through this country, says that with a party of gold seekers he passed through the section lying along the southern base of these hills in 1857, on his way to the gold regions of Montana. He started from Fort Laramie and struck straight for the Wind River Mountains, passing the Black Hills on the route. He says that they found rich specimens of surface gold in every stream, but the country was full of Indians and they were not allowed to prospect. He also states that the Indians all had gold, some of them large quantities of it. On Snake River, 100 miles above Fort Hall, his party met a band of Indians who had been to the Black Hills, and they were all rich with precious metal. The Indians bought powder from them, paying as high as $100 per pound in gold. Mr. Harnettt sold a revolver to one of the reds for $150 in gold, one of the nuggets being worth $60. The Indians said they got the gold in the Black Hills, and that there was plenty more of it in the beds of the mountain streams.