The Sheep Herder Who Wrote the Book

By 1910 open range had ended. In the early years sheep could do well on scrub land and could produce both lambs and wool. Archer Gilfillan was born in White Earth, Minnesota in 1886 the son of an Episcopal Missionary to the Ojibway Indians. He was educated back east. A Phi Beta Kappa with an Ivy League education , he turned his back on it all and spent 18-19 years working as a sheep herder in Harding County, South Dakota. During those years, he spent most of his time living in sheep wagons, including this one. Gilfillan was a good writer with a sharp wit, and wrote the classic book, Sheep, a personal story of the life of a herder, nearly everything you ever wanted to know about sheep, and what it meant to live alone in a sheep wagon in South Dakota. The typewriter is the actual typewriter he used to create his writings. 

The next window display depicts what a typical town in the middle border had evolved into before the great depression. This mural depicts Mt. Vernon, SD.  Towns often had churches, a café, a pharmacy, a store, and many other businesses. This was the "Roaring Twenties". Great economic boom before the collapse during the next decade.