Guest post: keep US85 historic

Editor's note: After Missoula I returned to Deadwood in 1981 and was hired as a foodservice delivery truck driver by Paul Miller, a mad genius, who ran the transportation for Twin City Fruit. Paul's dad Dave told stories about beating checks back to Deadwood driving rickety old trucks on gravel roads and US85 since the 1940s from Deadwood to Denver's Denargo Market peddling produce from Scottsbluff, Nebraska back to the Gulch. They owned the Scottsbluff market back-hauling beet sugar and Rockyford melons from the area. 

Paul's brother David, Jr., now a local historian, ran the staff and warehouse until selling his share to Paul while their father, Dave, Sr. ran purchasing. David, Jr. also owned Pop's Grabit N Growl on Deadwood's Main Street until gambling came to the Gulch. Paul bought the Fish and Hunter warehouse then built a freezer that featured an impressive 40-foot roof-mounted ammonia refrigeration system to sustain the large-scale walk-ins that sustained Paul's $22 million market share. The property footprint sat directly along the US 85/Highway 14A and Whitewood Creek boundary, which serves as the primary gateway into Deadwood. 

Let me just say that you haven't lived until you've driven a refrigerated truck from Deadwood to Newcastle, Wyoming and back again twice a week for a year and a half on US85 sometimes over ice and snow covered roads.

Denver-based competitor Nobel also distributed in the Black Hills market then it was absorbed by Houston-based Sysco but was the division that ultimately bought Paul's client list. Following corporate transitions later in its history, local lore and historical employee forums note that operations abruptly ceased, with remaining inventory packed up overnight. Paul died in 2014 but not before giving the Fish and Hunter property back to the City.

Today, I can see US85 from my house in New Mexico and my dreams still feature deadlines to meet.

From my inbox.

Hello Larry, 

My name is Mike Miller. I worked with you at TCF in Deadwood. I left in 1987 to work for American Airlines in Tulsa, retired in 2021, and moved to Olympia, WA. I’m sending you this in case you would be able to help my Dad out. He’s 85 and still fighting for the Black Hills at every opportunity. What we are trying to do is get as many people as we can to submit comments to Mark Malone of the SDDOT. Their plan is to widen and straighten highway 85 from Cheyenne Crossing to the Wyoming border. We know what that means. We recently got an extension on the comment period to September 4th. If you, or anyone you know could send a message to Mark, it would help a lot. A comment from you would carry a lot of weight. 

Thank you Larry. 

Sincerely, Mike Miller

Trump's failures are scaring the shit out of banksters: Goss

Creighton University's Ernie Goss follows the economies of ten midwestern states including South Dakota's and back in 2024 he acknowledged President Joe Biden's leadership. But until now Republicans weren't anxious to write a new farm bill because the agriculture recession made the Biden/Harris administration look bad. 

A cynical observer might suspect bankers provided gloomy outlooks to Creighton's Rural Mainstreet Index for at least five months especially in midwestern swing states to sink Democratic Party prospects just as Republicans in congress stalled immigration reform because it makes sense to Earth haters that after he was elected again the Orange Julius would run America into the dirt so banks can foreclose on the whole dealio to massage auction price points. 

Goss said that the region has lost some fifteen thousand jobs over the past 12 months and South Dakota's manufacturing sector lost about 800 jobs over the last year or 1.8% of its manufacturing base.

"When we look at what we're selling with agricultural goods and livestock in China, it's still down about 68% as compared to the same period in 2024," said Goss. "We've improved over 2025 numbers, but again, when you compare it with 2024, we've still got a long way to go, particularly on soybean and pork--pork would be a number-two product there." Goss says more than 26% named passage of a five-year farm bill as the number-two answer. Like members of Iowa's congressional delegation, he says farmers and bankers are frustrated with Congress' inability to pass an expanded farm bill. "This has been going on for a couple of years now," he said, "trying to get a five-year farm bill instead of these one-year bills. Farmers are facing so much volatility out there. There's no reason, in my judgment, for farmers having to deal with a one-year plan instead of a five-year plan." [Survey says tariffs still a top banker issue in KMAland]

New Mexico seeing growth; South Dakota not so much

While South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa saw significant decline in the first quarter New Mexico's output increased 3.1%

Read it all here.

Passenger rail a priority for some Montana legislators

Imagine a time when portions or all passenger rail in the United States are elevated for wildlife egress and a corridor between Mexico City and the Amtrak station in Shelby, Montana is a route to the Yukon River in Alaska intersecting with a bridge over or a tunnel under the Bering Strait connecting South and North America to Russia and the rest of Eurasia.

Cheyenne, Wyoming is on board with Colorado for expanded Front Range passenger rail that would connect El Paso to Shelby. I-25, especially from Pueblo, Colorado to Fort Collins through Colorado Springs and the Denver metro, sucks at biblical proportions as does flying into Denver International Airport so growth on the Front Range is driving planners to pick up the pace on passenger rail. Littleton, Louisville and Pueblo are among several Colorado cities pushing for increased passenger rail service.

And, although Amtrak rejected Delaware-based AmeriStarRail plans to utilize existing infrastructure from Amtrak and Norfolk Southern to complete the Transcontinental Chief the company is currently petitioning Congress, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Department of Transportation to pressure Amtrak back to the negotiating table. They are now targeting a revised 2028 launch timeline to coincide with the Los Angeles Summer Olympics.

Calling the potential for passenger rail service "a huge asset" Broadwater, Butte-Silver Bow, Dawson, Gallatin, Granite, Jefferson, Missoula, Park, Powell, Prairie, Sanders and Wibaux counties became founding Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority member counties. Now with twenty counties and several tribal nations on board BSPRA hopes to restore passenger rail across southern Montana from North Dakota to Idaho and include some 47 stops in seven states.

Some legislators, including Billings Democratic Rep. Denise Baum and Missoula Democratic Sen. Andrea Olsen, have pushed for increased access to passenger rail alongside some of their Republican counterparts, including Glasgow Sen. Gregg Hunter. Many transit agencies around the state are interested in this conversation too, as adding train lines could be an opportunity for bus services to expand offerings. One question in the survey asked what type of public transportation would be used if it was offered. Trains were the most popular answer, followed by buses. [Survey shows Montanans interested in more public transit]

Olson on Bruner

Editor's note: Matt Bruner supported Ted Cruz when he was a South Dakota delegate to the 2016 Republican convention. Bruner farms near Carthage where he has taken some $3500 in federal subsidies, supports candidates in the far white wing and even Republican former legislator, Steve Hickey called him a racist. When pressed by an interested party on Faceberg recently Bruner said he doesn't care whether a farm bill is passed after he posted a picture of rotten corn saying, "but it's not actually black. Thus, it's Kamala corn." 

South Dakota's favorite former teevee anchor, Shad Olson notices Bruner's misogyny, too.

I've said for years that in national conservative political circles, South Dakota has long been a laughingstock of RINO incompetence, dominated by the most corrupt, talentless, self-aggrandized band of mediocre people anywhere in politics.

It's nice when they're generous enough to prove it in viral fashion.

Pretty rough night for the Thune, Rhoden, AFP wing of the club.

These are NOT Republicans... and never have been. And they've been holding this gullible state hostage for decades under false pretense that everyone in America now sees through.

John Thune could be doing anything, anywhere come January 2029. But I promise you, after blocking the SAVE Act, punctuated by Matt Bruner's clown show denial of Scott Presler's attendance at the state GOP convention, Thune will NOT be the U.S. Senator from South Dakota.  

Matt Bruner, the "bouncer" who's now ticked the national radar for kicking MAGA superstar Scott Presler out of the SDGOP state convention has no idea the mercy that's already been extended him over the past year. It'd be a shame if Matt's DM's [sic] and his pathetic, equally awkward attempts to woo a certain blonde South Dakota lawmaker were added to the public bonfire of his idiotic, Democrat-operative shitshow that's now made the national scene.

He sent her pictures of porn stars and other scantily clad women, comparing her anatomy to theirs, complimenting her admittedly luxurious feminine figure... and expressing his ardent desires to take her out to dinner. I guess this sort of thing constitutes high romance for a guy who drinks Bud Light out of cans inscribed with John Thune's name.

I never considered him a contender. She found him repulsive. His political stupidity and clear devotion to the neocons were my only concern.

She mostly ignored him, she and I shared a few laughs over his antics, but she was too nice to say the things that I will, and I never felt need to respond to a guy who looks like Yosemite Sam after ingesting a basketball... life clearly dealt him a tough set of genetics out of the box. But Karma arrives in interesting ways.

Couldn't happen to a nicer illiterate.

Typical Hansen/Rhoden supporter.