Page 14
BLACK HILLS PIONEER / SPEARFISH 125th ANNIVERSARY
September 2013
September 2013
BLACK HILLS PIONEER / SPEARFISH 125th ANNIVERSARY
Clyde Ice:
Josef Fassbender early Spearfish photographer
Honoring the legacy of the man in the sky By Josh Larson Black Hills Pioneer
Many children have stared into the sky and wished to fly, but not many have pursued this dream with as much dedication as Clyde W. Ice. Born in May of 1889 in Hand County, Dakota Territory, Ice, who was also known as “the Ice Man,” would grow up to be an Airline pilot, flight instructor, aerial acrobat, wing walker, bush pilot, crop duster and mail pilot, just to name a few of his numerous accomplishments. It was sometime after World War II, when Ice was in his late 20s, that he made his first big step towards what would be a life long passion when he traded two automobiles, worth about $400 each, for his first plane. Ice’s first solo flight came with no aviation training. “I was always kind of mechanically inclined,” he said. “I had sat in the plane and wiggled the stick around and watched what it did, so I had it pretty much figured out.” His second flight was with a passenger. “After that I hauled kids for free for two days so I could learn to fly.” All of these flights landed safely despite Ice’s lack of training. As his career progressed Ice was soon known for his mercy flights. Rhonda Sedgwick, au-
Snappers Club – A gathering place for all The Snappers Club was originally used as a meeting place for the local rifle club. The building was built by the U.S Bureau of Fisheries and the Works Progress Administration in 1936 for the D.C. Booth Fish Hatchery. Today, the building serves as a venue commonly used for gatherings, wedding receptions and community events. The Snappers Club also is a historical focal point of the Spearfish City campground. Pioneer photo by Heather Murschel
thor of “Sky Trails: the life of Clyde W. Ice” wrote of these flights, “His willingness to gamble everything, even his own life on (his knowledge and skill), has saved the lives of many.” A 1947 blizzard provided Ice with one of his most memorable flights. He and his family were living upstairs in one of the buildings at the Spearfish airport. At 3 a.m. Ice received a call from Dr. Gordon Betz, who was desperate to get to Camp Crook, where a young pregnant woman had fallen off a horse. With more than three feet of snow on the ground and whiteout conditions on the air, visibility was so poor that Ice had to follow the landmarks of Spearfish Creek, the Redwater River, the Belle Fourche River and a series of power lines. Both the woman and her newborn daughter survived. During his life Ice received numerous awards, was made an honorary member of the Black Foot tribe, was entered into the OX5 Aviation Pioneers Hall of Fame, and saw The Clyde Ice Airfield in Spearfish named after him. Out of all of this, though, Ice said his greatest achievement was that a drop of blood never spilled in the 65 years and more than 43,000 hours he flew. Clyde Ice’s legacy spans more than four generations. He was known for his kindness, generosity, and unwavering passion in the field of aviation. Ice died in 1992, he lived to see his 103rd birthday. Clyde Ice was a daring pilot, a kind and generous person, and will go down in history as one of the most prominent figures in Spearfish history. Pictured at right, is Ice posing for a photo beside his plane. Photo courtesy of the Black Hills Airport Collection
By Jaci Conrad Pearson Black Hills Pioneer
Pictured is one of several photos derived from the Fassbender Collection. It shows a scene on Main Street around 1928. The Fassbender Studio can be seen on the corner of Illinois and Main streets, as well as the American National Bank building in the distant corner. Photo courtesy of the Fassbender Collection
FASSBENDER
Continued from Page 8
Task Force at the time and Deadwood Historic Preservation Officer. “I identified it early on as a secure, climate controlled environment area in the Northern Hills with the space available to house the collection,” Kuchenbecker said. “It’s a wonderful space to move the collection to. Held upstairs in the photographic vault, it is the only collection in the room until it’s processed.” A veteran photojournalist who spent 20 years in the newspaper field, Carlson worked to establish a formalized system to process the collection that is similar to one he developed for negatives at a former newspaper he worked at. “We’ve digitized more than 1200 images--and many of those images need more thorough iden-
tification and information.” Carlson said. As part of that process, volunteers work to repackage the photographic items for storage, in some cases scanning and digitizing and in every instance, creating a record in a database that will eventually number close to one million records. Carlson’s main goal? “I want to come at this from two directions,” Carlson said. “I want to continue to process the collection and get it in a database as efficiently as we can, while at the same time getting at those images that are most interesting to the general public. For example, I want to start getting pictures of presidential visits, events and landscapes cataloged, digitized and available to the public as soon as we can.”
Pioneer photo by Josh Larson
Then & Now
As part of the 125th Anniversary, the Leland D. Case Library provided historic photos of Spearfish in order to showcase the changes to many historic sites over the years. Pictured at left is the Passion Play ampitheater in April 1939, and at right is the former ampitheater, which has been renamed Lookout Ampitheater.
Page 15
For many locals, much of the 20th century or the better part of six decades, the name Fassbender said “photography,” not only in Spearfish, but throughout the Black Hills and much of the surrounding region. Fassbender was born in Lobberich, Germany in July, 1892. Prior to the onset of World War I, Fassbender left Germany and came to the United States. Fassbender arrived in the states in 1914 with a man named Father Golden, who was headed to an Indian reservation in South Dakota to do missionary work. He ended up working a couple of years as a cowboy near Lovell, and then as a clerk in the drugstore at Faith before he established Josef’s Studio in Faith in 1917. The following year, he married Magdalena Mengenhauser, and they began their family of three boys and two girls. Fassbender arrived in Spearfish around 1924, he went to work for the O. A. Vik Studio, located on the corner of Main and Illinois, where “Horses to Harleys” is now located. By 1928, he had established his own “Black Hills Studio,” which he and his family would continue to operate well into the 1980s. Fassbender’s “Black Hills Studio” was located at 621 North Main St., where the High Plains Gallery is now located. For a time, the family business enterprises included the Mobil filling station, which pre-dated the Coffee Corner and RMS bicycle shop now located on south Main and Grant Streets. Fassbender died in 1958. While his oldest son, Henry, had gone on to a career with the Eastman Kodak Company, another son, George, took over operation of Black Hills Studio at just 25 years of age. George continued the family business for several more decades, but passed away in 1998. George Fassbender cared deeply about what would happen to he and his father’s photographs and before he died made arrangements for two good friends – both with deep roots in the region – to take custody of them. Johnny Sumners and Ed Furois did just that and preserved the collection for several years. While the vast majority of the estimated 800,000 images are portraits, mostly school pictures, the balance of them include a treasure trove that captures a wide diversity of life in the Black Hills and surrounding region. These photographs, negatives, slides, and film footage provide a glimpse of activities ranging from rodeos and sporting activities to the carving of Mount Rushmore and almost all significant activities that took place at Black Hills State University for several decades.
Pioneer photo by Josh Larson
Then & Now
As part of the 125th Anniversary, the Leland D. Case Library provided historic photos of Spearfish in order to showcase the changes to many historic sites over the years. Pictured at left is the D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery in 1942 after a May snowstorm, and at right is the hatchery today.