what happened to silver lake
That's not a question, because every time I've visited De Smet, Silver Lake has been alive and well and full of water (and junk cars and no telling what else). The point is: I'm tired of being told that Silver Lake was drained in the 1920s, like that settles the matter and nobody should even head over to the eastern part of De Smet to look where it was because you simply won't find any sign of any lake. No sir, no lake. Don't bother looking. Period.

Yes, in 1923 there was a grand plan to dig ditches from Silver Lake to Lake Henry. This was supposed to (according to the newspaper) "entirely drain Silver Lake and while it may be a long time before the land is made tillable, it will turn the wet marsh into hay and pasture land." The goal was to "reclaim many acres of land adjacent to De Smet." Explain, then, why Silver Lake is full of water, surrounded by wet marsh, and there's not a hay field or pasture in sight? Once you drained [sic] Silver Lake, wouldn't you then need to fill the lake depression with dirt? That never seems to be mentioned in the Grand Plan, but maybe that's where the junk cars come in...

Obviously there was some sort of effort to drain Silver Lake, but it was neither long-lasting nor untimately successful. That stands to reason, being followed by the dust bowl years and all. Since the drainage failure is so obvious today, why not admit it?

I wonder if Silver Lake would have been looked upon as such a waste of good farmland if the town had been built on its shore, as originally planned. Pioneers waxed poetic at length about the beautiful lake; even Laura Ingalls Wilder mentioned its loveliness a time or two. It's still a pretty spot. Why not acknowledge its existence, or at the very least, its evolution?
- posted by pioneergirl at 8:26 PM