I just about choked up watching this news story a few nights ago. Most towns in South Dakota, especially during the "Dakota Boom" and later when much of West River got opened up for non-Native settlement, were established by various railroads or anticipation of railroads. The towns started on "anticipation", and towns founded by railroads that failed fairly quickly, often became "tweeners" off of the main lines. When the hardtop highways started to be built, they typically followed one of the major railroad lines so "tweener" towns became even more backwaters and by the early 21st century, most of the tweener towns were just mere shells of what was once there, if there had been that much of a town to begin with at the start. Nowadays, a person wants to go to a "tweener" town because its usually an out-of-the-way county highway that will get you there.

Fedora is one of those southeast SD tweener towns. I've only been through it a couple of times and the last time, I don't even know if a business was open there anymore. However, most of these declining towns are surrounded by good farmland and this is where this special hunting spot story comes into play. I suspect that the family that started this not typical hunting lodge and ministry had connections to the Fedora area. They may have had money enough to start the operation from scratch but my hunch is that a parcel or two of farmland was sold to give the hunting lodge and ministry the capital to get "Suncatcher Lodge" up and running. I have no real evidence to back up my thesis but just a gut feeling. Sometimes, money (a windfall after selling land) means more than just a better off life or paying debts. Again, I may be way out of the lane but maybe that's the narrative I'm hoping happened in this story.

Best to watch the video to the right of the headline.

https://www.keloland.com/news/local...0wr8HKqKx7RLQ_aem_SvHBfjUgXJ5suMCXcTnevQ