Editor’s Note: For nearly 70 years, the feature-rich pages of Coins magazine, Numismatic News’ venerable sister publication, have tracked the history, fun and the growth of this great hobby, while also attracting new collectors to pursue what was once deemed the “hobby of kings.” Dusting off these time-aged issues, from the early 1960s and beyond, each installment of “Past Times with Coins,” written by its former longtime editor, explores what nuggets of interest they contain.
Stories of towns that through the passage of time have disappeared are fascinating. Some remind us of their once prosperous existence by a few leftover bricks or a single, forlorn dwelling.
My master’s degree thesis advisor, Dr. Watson Parker, a leading authority and author on South Dakota’s Black Hills, traipsed through much of the region looking for such remnants for, penned along with Huge K. Lambert. One such town they detailed was Minnesela, which they wrote, hoped, in its early days, of becoming a major town in Butte County: “In 1887 it had a population of 100, its own school, a Methodist church, and its own newspaper, the; it was also the county seat.” However, the railroad bypassed the town and “in a few years Minnesela was a ghost town, and now all that remains are a few farms.”
