When Hot Springs Was a Pup

by Charles Badger Clark

Badger Clark was already famous when he wrote "When Hot Springs Was a Pup" , likely a fund-raising project for the local Kiwanis Club in 1927. Clark extolled the virtues and foibles of his little community on the edge of the Black Hills, from its beginnings as a Lakota place of healing to its current status as a destination resort. Hot Springs, South Dakota is still a unique, thriving community, home to artists, craftspeople and the world-famous Evans Plunge. Charles Badger Clark Jr., known as Badger Clark, became the first poet laureate of South Dakota in 1937. He lived and worked in his cabin, dubbed "The Badger Hole", until his death in 1957, writing poems and humorous short stories depicting the cowboy life. Self-described as a "poet lariat", he enjoyed spinning his tales for audiences across the country, as he became a much sought-after speaker for events ranging from rural junior high and high school graduations to women's club meetings. Except for added electricity, the cabin remains as it was when Badger Clark died at age 74. In summer, volunteers show visitors how simply the poet lived, with kerosene lamps, and a storage box below the kitchen where he kept perishable food and ice when he could afford it. His boots are lined up as if he had just walked out the door, and a table holds the typewriter on which he composed poems. Above his fireplace hands a saying recalling his hospitality as well as the time he spent in Cuba. "Mi Casa Es Suya": My house is yours. Expanded edition with over 100 photographs and notes by the editors Historian and author Peggy Sanders and author Linda M. Hasselstrom worked together to create this text to bring Badger Clark's words to a new audience. This updated and revised edition contains additional notes and commentary; a biographical sketch of Clark, "Requiem for a Cowboy Poet", by Peggy Sanders; and a timeline of Badger's life. The book provides an abundance of detail on the early days of Hot Springs, with over 100 historical photographs, maps and illustrations.

227 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1983

About the author

Charles Badger Clark (January 1, 1883 – September 26, 1957) was an American poet.

Charles Badger Clark was born on January 1, 1883 in Albia, Iowa. His family moved to Dakota Territory, where his father served as a Methodist preacher in Huron, Mitchell, Deadwood and Hot Springs. He dropped out of Dakota Wesleyan University after he clashed with one of its founders, C.B. Clark. He travelled to Cuba, returned to Deadwood, South Dakota, where he contracted tuberculosis, then moved to Tombstone, Arizona to assuage his illness with the dry weather. He returned again to South Dakota in 1910 to take care of his ailing father. There, he contracted tuberculosis.

Clark published his first poetry collection in 1917. In 1925, he moved to a cabin in Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where he lived for thirty years and continued to write poetry. Clark was named the Poet Laureate of South Dakota by Governor Leslie Jensen in 1937. His work was published in Sunset Magazine, The Pacific Monthly, Arizona Highways, Colliers, Century Magazine, the Rotarian, and Scribner's.

Clark died on September 26, 1957.