George S. Mickelson Trail: Mystic

The Mystic segment covers 22 miles from Tracy Park in Hill City north to Rochford, the most enclosed and forested stretch of the George S. Mickelson Trail. It follows Castle Creek up from Hill City through Tunnels A and B to the ghost town of Mystic, then swings along Rapid Creek through Tunnel C, past a small waterfall, and over a string of trestles into Rochford. Spruce fills the shady gulches and ponderosa pine the sunny slopes. Mystic has no services, and Rochford is a hamlet with a saloon and a trailhead. South of Hill City the trail continues as the Custer segment; north of Rochford it climbs to Dumont as the Deadwood segment.

• In the summer of 1875 geologists Walter Jenney and Henry Newton found gold on Castle Creek, and the camp that grew there was named Sitting Bull.
• Sitting Bull had 100 people in 1879 before the rush moved north to Lead and Deadwood.
• Railroad officials renamed the camp Mystic when the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy built a station there in 1889, probably after Mystic, Connecticut.
• In 1900 Chicago investors put a million dollars into the Mystic Reduction Mill, a four-story building straddling the tracks that used an electro-cyanide process.
• A sawmill went up on the mill's foundations in 1918, and it ran until 1952.
• Mystic was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 and sits on Black Hills National Forest land.
• M.D. Rochford and Richard B. Hughes laid out Rochford in a gulch in May 1878, and by December the town held 500 people with another 500 prospectors camped on the hills.
• Rochford's Standby Mine ran a 40-stamp mill fed by an elevated flume; the mill was rebuilt in the 1930s and worked until 1942.
• The keyhole tunnel near Mystic is only about 40 feet long, blasted through rock and lined with beams.
• A modest waterfall on Rapid Creek sits beside the trail between mileposts 78 and 79, south of Rochford.

Burlington and Missouri River crews graded the High Line from Edgemont to Deadwood in 1890 and 1891, blasting four hard rock tunnels and building more than 100 timber trestles in under a year. Gold had opened the country first. Custer's 1874 expedition reported gold on French Creek, and the next summer Jenney and Newton found it on Castle Creek. Camps such as Sitting Bull, later Mystic, and Rochford grew along the creeks the rails would follow. The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy ran the line, hauling passengers, mail, coal, livestock, and general merchandise to the mining towns and their mills. Its successor, Burlington Northern, abandoned the Custer to Deadwood portion in November 1983 and the Edgemont to Custer portion in 1986. Governor George S. Mickelson pushed to turn the corridor into a trail. The first six miles were dedicated in 1991 as South Dakota's first rail trail. Mickelson died in a plane crash in April 1993, and the trail took his name. The full 109 miles from Edgemont to Deadwood opened in 1998, managed by South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks. Rails-to-Trails Conservancy inducted it into its Hall of Fame in 2010. This is the tunnel segment: Tunnels A, B, and C all lie between Hill City and Rochford, and the railroad's 1889 station at the old Sitting Bull camp gave Mystic its name.

• Hill CityMILE 0Directions
• Red Fern Trail StopMILE 7.5Directions
• MysticMILE 14.2Directions
• RochfordMILE 22.3Directions

• Wikipedia · George S. Mickelson Trail
• South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks · George S. Mickelson Trail: Trail Policies and Etiquette
• Mickelson Trail Affiliates · Mickelson Trail Information
• South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks · A Birder's Guide to the George S. Mickelson Trail
• South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks · George S. Mickelson Trail map and trailheads
• Rails-to-Trails Conservancy · A Milestone for the Mickelson Trail: Celebrating 25 Years
• Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (TrailLink) · George S. Mickelson Trail
• HistoryNet · Ghost Towns: Mystic, South Dakota
• Legends of America · Rochford, South Dakota: Friendliest Ghost Town in the Black Hills
• Travel Dogs · George S. Mickelson Trail: Mystic Road to Tunnel C (Mile Marker 77)
• Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (TrailLink) · George S. Mickelson Trail History
• Black Hills Visitor · George S. Mickelson Trail
• Spearfish Area Historical Society · A Black Hills gem: The Mickelson Trail