Family trips West to South Dakota were part of my childhood. Although I grew up in my father, George Southerton’s, hometown of Honesdale, Pennsylvania, my mother, Evelyn Mabel Larsen Southerton, a World War II “war bride,” was raised on a South Dakota homestead.
Mother’s stories from her childhood painted a rugged but life on the open range. Several classic Americana 1950s and 1960s cross-country road trips to visit our South Dakota relatives confirmed family lore with cattle roundups, sheep shearing, and calf branding.
Being from the East, on these visits, I recall my uncles and their children, saddled up on their horses, dressed in trail-weathered “cowboy” hats, leather chaps, boots, and spurs.
This was indeed a contrast to my childhood daily life during the 1950s and 1960s, when Westerns—American TV Wild West and movie storylines often centered on small frontier towns with gunslingers and saloons re-created on Hollywood’s back lots.
I realize that an integral part of this picture was the Larsen family’s entrepreneurial side. Having authored a collection of articles and books on this topic, from the American Colonial Era to global South Korean entrepreneurs, uncovering this familial lore has prompted the sharing of a snapshot of the American West at the turn of the 20th Century.
Noted economist Harvey Leibenstein points out that the dominant characteristic of entrepreneurs is their ability “to perceive market gaps.” * They then develop new goods, services, or processes to fit those needs. Among settlers to America, dating back to the Colonial Era, many farmers sought opportunities to supplement their often-meager returns from crops and livestock. Along with a common practice of land swapping and speculation, farmers branched into openly entrepreneurial ventures. Larsen’s would follow….
In 1874, my great-grandfather, Albert Larsen, a Norwegian immigrant, staked his homestead claim nine miles north of Humboldt, South Dakota, on the eastern border of the state. With his wife, Clara, they reared ten children on the homestead. Seven of these children eventually traveled further west across the Sunshine State and filed land claims under the Homestead Act on an area called 71 Table, near the town of Scenic, South Dakota.
This section of land was named 71 Table because many of the horses roaming these open plains carried a local rancher’s “71” brand. Furthermore, Table or Tablelands was a common term for a plateau.
The Larsen move West meant traveling overland along established freight trails, with teams of horses pulling buckboard wagons. Distinctively American, the four-wheel wagons were widely used in settled regions of the United States into the early 20th Century.
Upon reaching the Missouri River, they ferried across and crossed the plains until they reached the Badlands, a semi-arid, wind-swept region. Family accounts of the trip noted it was necessary to “rough lock” the wheels of the wagons to descend into the basin. Rough locking was a chain tied around the rim of the rear wheel of a wagon to slow the movement of the wagon downhill.
Arriving in this first wave of relatives were great-uncles Roland and Adelbert. Along with making improvements on each individual’s claim of 640 acres, the two brothers soon began to freight lumber from Rapid City to the Scenic area for other homesteaders. Skilled as a carpenter, Adelbert built many of the early settlers’ claim shacks.
Ever the entrepreneur, Uncle Roland, with a team of his horses and a breaking plow, soon shifted to the next opportunity and began to turn the sod for many of his neighbors, a requirement for “proving up” a homestead.
Lawrence H. Larsen, my grandfather, came to 71 Table to visit his siblings more than 100 years ago in 1919. Before returning home, he also decided to homestead and filed on a section of land in Sage Creek Basin.
To add to his land holdings, he bought a section of land that was previously settled.
As required by the Homestead Act, my grandfather quickly set about improving the land. He moved his wife, Helen, his son, Lowell, and his daughter, Daphna, to the ranch in 1921.
With the family settled on their homestead with a panoramic view of the Badland bluffs, my mother, Evelyn, and two brothers, Lawrence Jr. and Kieth, completed the family.
Along with homesteading, my grandfather, following his brothers’ examples, looked for other ways to supplement the family income. Seeing the need to harvest grain crops, he began taking on extra work beyond his own farming. With a grain reaper-binder and four horses, he traveled around the community cutting grain. He also had a corn binder, which he used for custom work.
In addition to cutting the grain crop, the reaper-binder also tied the stems into small bundles, or sheaves. These sheaves were then “shocked” into conical “stooks” to allow the grain to dry for several days before being threshed. Gas- or steam-powered threshing machines separated the grain from chaff. Finally, the grain was hauled to the local granary silos in Scenic and then transported by railcar to a mill for further processing into flour.
By the late 1920s, Roland and Adelbert acquired a threshing machine. They threshed grain, making the circuit through the region and the surrounding Tables during the harvest season.
Over time, and to supplement his income, my grandfather bought a Ford Model TT (the truck version of the Model T, costing around $325.00) and started providing local trucking services. For $3.00, he would haul hogs from 71 Table to Wall, South Dakota, a thirty-mile run to a stopping point on the Chicago and North Western Railroad (CNW).
As drought conditions worsened in the region, my grandfather and Roland again adapted by going into the sheep business. Mother commented that sheep had the cash-crop advantage of being a two-product animal… wool and mutton.
As the Great Depression reached deep into the heartland of America, hardships for ranching and farming, such as severe drought combined with waves of grasshoppers, proved too much for most of the Table settlers.
The Larsens weathered the difficult times, with government relief programs stepping in to save their ranches.
America’s recovery in the 1940s required larger landholdings to support ranching and farming. Ever the risk-takers, my grandfather and Roland continued to acquire and lease more property.
Passing away in 1946, my grandfather had grown the family homestead considerably, and Roland’s holdings grew to over 3,000 acres. Over the years, and by necessity, our Larsen family has spread throughout the country (and at times other countries), but our roots and culture are tied to these homesteaders.
Amid the attention given today to entrepreneurialism from companies like mine, AI, and SpaceX (where, in fact, my nephew is a rocket engineer), what has remained a constant in our country’s culture is the pursuit of new opportunities, taking risks, and adapting to ever-changing situations.
I am honored and proud to have uncovered this entrepreneurial spirit in my family’s history.
Sources: Eastern Pennington County Memories, Scenic, Part 1 and 2. Published by The American Legion Auxiliary, Carrol McDonald Unit, Wall, South Dakota. Roland Larsen by Mrs. Roland Larsen; Adelbert Baker Larsen by Marian Aune; and The Larsen Family by Lawrence Larsen.
* Harvey Leibenstein, The Collected Essays of Harvey Leibenstein, vol. 2, Kenneth Button, ed. (Aldershot, England: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1989). Pp. 254-256.