GALENA, A GHOST MINING TOWN

These Black Hills hold a lot of stories, history, and natural beauty. I'm just adding a few bits to the story Mama Linda posted a little while ago. Galena was an old mining town that quickly went from boom to bust between the late 1800's and the early 1900's. Almost 4,000 people lived in this miniscule town at one point, which is in the middle of nowhere in the Black Hillls. They mined minerals and "galenite" a mixture of silver and lead. Proud current residents and families of those residents who lived here back when gather once a year and show off this ghost town, mostly to South Dakotans. One gentleman in his late 50's manning one of the information tables showed us a picture of his mother, a girl of about 5 or 6, in the yard of their home in Galena. The cemetery is located in "Vinegar Hill" in the outskirts of town, but it's an integral part of the annual "walk".

Two members of the Galvin's, an Irish family, are buried here