Brooks died June 3 , 1907 , at the Battle Mountain Sanitarium and is buried in the Buffalo Gap Cemetery . Much of his family still remains in the area , and the physical remnants of his time in the area , like the old mine and ruins of his cabin still remain too .
On a sunny fall day , about a dozen descendants of Brooks take me up the scenic and winding Iron Mountain Road to go take a look at what remains of the old settlement . Along the way , Orval Elliot , the oldest living descendant , and his daughter Patty Ebert , tell me stories of Elliot ’ s own marks on the area . Elliot , now 90 years old , is the great grandson of Brooks , and made some exciting discoveries of his own in the Black Hills .
Elliot worked for the National Forest Service for 27 years out of Custer , Fall River and Pennington Counties until 1984 . During his time working for the Forest Service , he discovered a buffalo jump in 1959 after discovering old buffalo bones which were unknowingly unearthed .
“ I look in there and there ’ s this bone , and the workers on the drilling rig surely must have seen them ,” said Elliott . “ But they didn ’ t know what it was ,” added his daughter , Patty . So , he covered the bones back up with his foot and contacted
Bob Alex , an archaeologist .
“ I saw that bone and knew it was a buffalo jump .” said Elliott . Previously , he had worked at the site of a buffalo jump near Crawford , Neb .
In 1980 , Alex eventually confirmed Elliott ’ s 21-year old suspicion that it was in fact a buffalo jump .
Elliot also accidentally came into possession of some quite extraordinary Fairburn agates . In the bottom of a box of things he ’ d purchased at auction , he discovered the agates , which went on to be featured in a book about agates .
“ He ’ s mainly known for giving rocks to kids ,” said Patty .
We arrive at our destination , a small unsuspecting pullout the family has marked with a small flag , and the family pours out of the fleet of vehicles . Those of us that are up for the approximate one mile hike into the reserve hit the trail and begin our journey to the cabin . Along the way , Elliott ’ s son-in-law Ted Ebert explains the now-archaic mining processes practiced by those earlier settlers and prospectors — much more crude and less precise than today ’ s techniques .
Eventually , we come upon an old stone structure , constructed from the discards of the nearby mine . It was in this building that they would process the ore dug out from the mine . The area near the mine used by Brooks is still littered with the slag and other detritus . Just a little ways farther down the trail , down a small hill , is the remains of the original cabin , now mostly faded into the past . Some stones and concrete are all that remain of the building which sits along the base of the hill , and overlooks a large valley . Venturing farther into the valley , hikers can also discover the remains of another mine , developed later in the early 1900s .
Elliott ’ s only memories of the old settlement are of his family hauling some black sand from the nearby mine , but still being a child , his memories of the cabin were sparse .
“ The last time I saw it , the roof was completely gone , I believe ,” said Elliot .
That was many years ago , and now , not even the roof remains , or any of the original timber for that matter . Still , visitors to the old site can almost feel what it may have been like to live as one of the Black Hills earliest settlers as they walk through what remains of the fascinating history .
This photo shows five generations of Orval Elliott ’ s ( seated ) family . Just after this picture was taken , the family members that were up for it trecked about a mile into the Norbeck Wildlife Preserve off of Iron Mountain Road to visit what ’ s left of the settlement left behind by Elliott ’ s great-great grandfather William Brooks .
24 Down Country Roads November / December 2023