Igloo, a History; pg. 55; On April 24, 1964, the Secretary of Defense announced the closure of various facilities; among them was the Black Hills Army Depot, to be phased out over a period of three years and closed by June, 1967.
Page 59; At 4:00 P.M. on June 30, 1967, the flag at the Black Hills Army Depot came down for the last time. No ceremony marked the end of the facility's twenty-five-year service to the country. Twenty people, hired from the 112 employees retained until closing, remained as caretakers for a fifteen-month period. Silence began to descend on the lonely prairie site which once echoed with the sounds of ball games, dance music, school bells, and people talking as they worked.
Page 62; For the surrounding communities the closing of the Black Hills Army Depot meant economic upheaval and loss in population; the effects of the closing still linger today. For the people who worked and lived on the depot, the closing was more poignant. This had been their home, and they left because they had to, not because they chose to go. Millions of Americans leave their homes every year to begin a new life in a new place; but they know that life goes on in the place they came from. Someone lives in their house, someone mows the grass they planted, someone sends their children to school down the street, visits with the neighbors, and goes to work each day. If they go back for a visit, they can talk to people they remember who still live in the same place and to the same things. For the people who left Igloo, this is an impossibility. If they go back to that spot on the prairie, they will find deserted buildings, overgrown yards, empty streets - and silence. For them, home disappeared on June 30, 1967, and perhaps that is the saddest fact of all.
by John E. Lynch
Chapter 9, Edgemont, South Dakota
pages 123 to 136
This study was completed in August, 1968.
The Edgemont story is a chronicle of frustration and tenacity. Certainly, few other towns could have faced so many obstacles with so great a determination. Few other communities have needed or received such close OEA attention.
On April, 1964, the Department of Defense announced that Black Hills Army Depot (BHAD) would be pnased out, effective June 30, 1967. The depot comprised 21,000 acres of land in Fall River County in the extreme southwestern corner of South Dakota, approzimately eight miles south of the city of Edgemont. The - - -The depot represented one of the few installations in the United States where civilian personnel were furnished housing, in this case at very reasonable rents. In fact, the nominal rents at BHAD previously cause the - - -
(under construction)
notes from Sherry (Hansen) Hulbret, class of 63, wife of the last officer to leave BHAD
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