Sale barn a mix of business and pleasure

Men in battered Western hats watch intently from the seats as bawling calves are herded into the sale ring below them at the Belle Fourche Livestock Exchange. This is serious business. The prices ranchers get for their cattle at the sale barn determine "whether they last another year or are able to pay the bank the note or whatever," says Dean Strong, who has owned the Belle Fourche Livestock Exchange since 1977. "It's not much fun when you're standing up there and the market is not enough to go around." Despite the serious nature of the sale ring, the Belle Fourche sale barn, like those in other cow towns, is also a social gathering place. Some people come here to eat lunch and chat and joke with their friends and neighbors. The history of gathering, selling and shipping cattle here goes back to 1890, when legendary Black Hills pioneer lawman, businessman and rancher Seth Bullock enticed the Elkhorn Railroad to extend its line from Whitewood to his ranch on the Belle Fourche River. The first cattle were shipped that year. During the next few years, the new town of Belle Fourche became the largest shipping point for cattle in the world, with ranchers trailing their herds in and grazing them on the big flat area north of the Belle Fourche River, a few miles west of where the Belle Fourche and Redwater rivers and Hay Creek meet, inspiring the French name for beautiful forks, Belle Fourche...more