When the sunrise service officially moved to Mt. Rushmore in 1947, the Rev. Virgil Selix put a small notice in the March 28, 1947 Hill City News that read, “There will be a Easter Sunrise service to be inaugurated at Mt. Rushmore this year. The young people will be in charge of the service, to be followed by an Easter breakfast in the church. Some day this Sunrise Service at the Memorial may be a famous tradition.”
Thousands will gather this Easter Sunday to carry on this 70-year-old tradition because a determined group of people established the sunrise service in the ’40s and ’50s. Idealistic teens envisioned the service and leadership from four pastors in the early years helped establish it on the monument. A legion of volunteers also fought cold, snow and mud to haul an old organ and an altar up the mountain, play music, sing, usher and erect a large wooden cross each year. Ultimately, in 1957, they would haul an upright piano up Iron Mountain Road.
Credit for the original service goes to Phyllis Gadstetter's seventh and eighth grade Sunday school class at Hill City’s Union Congregational Church. Doris Gould Tillman was 13 and remembers the class thinking it would be terrific to hear Gadstetter’s magnificent voice echoing in the Hills.
The youth led the 6 a.m. April 1, 1945, service on Bishop Mountain in freezing temperatures with the help of the Rev. S.B. Welles. Although two inches of snow covered the ground at Turtle Rock at Bishop Mountain, 200 people attended — many in their Easter finery. Tillman remembers the youth being embarrassed because they arrived in jeans and heavy winter coats. Bishop Mountain is on the back side of the monument and worshipers saw the sun come up over the mountains. When they returned to the church, the Ladies Aid met them with a hot breakfast.
In 1945, gas rationing was still in effect and people shared rides. This was well before seat belts and Tillman remembers an amazing number of people piling out of cars. In later years, people met at the Hill City church to share rides.
At that first service, the youth saw their breath as they sang in the pre-dawn light. That made a big impression on these early organizers. Tillman said subsequent sunrise services didn’t start earlier than 7 a.m. with 7:15 and 7:30 a.m. as the usual start times.
That same year, the Rev. Carl Loocke led a prayer service with 52 people somewhere in the Grizzly Gulch area. Loocke held a special fondness for Mt. Rushmore or the Shrine of Democracy.
Loocke took photographs for Gutzon Borglum’s first exploration trip in 1924. The party spent the night atop Mt. Rushmore. He later promoted the idea of having the image of the Mt. Rushmore printed on the 1952 license plate. Loocke’s fondness for the memorial can also be seen the 1950-56 bulletins he printed with the memorial’s image above the phrase “Shrine of Democracy Mt. Rushmore Memorial Easter Morning Service.”
With two groups holding services that first year and with no newspaper announcements, things were bound to get a little confused as the years passed and memories faded. The April 26, 1951, article highlighting the seventh sunrise service noted that Loocke and the Keystone Congregational Church had originated the service when he led a brief prayer service during Easter 1945.
Tillman quickly sent a letter to the editor reminding everyone of the bigger service attended by 200, which was held by the Hill City youth. Perhaps the clincher in claiming the title lies in the fact the Hill City Ladies Aid served a hot breakfast.
Not surprisingly, the two churches joined forces in 1946 after the Rev. Virgil Selix arrived in Hill City. The weather that Easter was glorious, but no one interviewed remembered any specific details of the service. However, many think the Hill City Ladies Aid again served breakfast.
Incidentally, Tillman moved to Colorado with her husband and family in 1958 but returned to Hill City 10 years ago. Tillman has attended the service faithfully since her return and plans to be at Mt. Rushmore for the 70th sunrise service.
In 1947, athe Rev. Selix contacted Mt. Rushmore about actually moving the service to the monument and that service was held at the administration building, which was the original Sculptor’s Studio. The weather was rainy and parts of the Black Hills saw snow by 7 a.m. Fortunately, however, they had a large fireplace. The service sponsored by Hill City, Keystone and Custer congregational churches drew 150 people. The volunteers brought everything up the mountain for the service — including a large aspen cross that the Park Service erected. They transported an old organ from Hill City and a small altar from the Keystone church basement. The Hill City church organist Golden Howe played for this service. Loocke read scripture, while Selix gave a short sermonette.
The most unusual feature of this service was the delivery of biographical sketches of George Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln given by Don Harris, Glonda Preest, Arlene Lindstrom and Betty Canfield, respectively. One of the attendees thought it would be fitting to conclude the 1947 service by singing “God Bless America,” but Howe didn’t have the music. Lois Halley’s piano teacher, Dottie Bloom Allen, piped up, “Lois can play that! She doesn’t need music. She can play it by heart.” Halley could indeed play the song by heart and the 1947 service concluded on that patriotic note.
Allen participated in the original service and most of the early services. She remembers the 1951 service when South Dakota Poet Laureate Badger Clark gave the sermon. Allen played the piano prelude in 1953. She also recalls Badger Clark’s poem “A Cowboy's Prayer” delivered by the poet at the 1956 sunrise service.
Selix moved to California some time after Easter in 1947. However, the sunrise service was blessed with another strong leader when the Rev. Henry H. DeNeui of Hill City joined Loocke. DeNeui was a Baptist minister who had a call from the Missionary Organization to go to South Dakota from Chicago to start churches in South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Iowa and Colorado. His son, Jim DeNeui, recalls learning to drive on the road up to Mt. Rushmore at age 14. Jim then spent many Sundays driving his father to five different churches while his father studied and prepared sermons.
Henry started churches in Rochford, Rapid City and Kadoka and in Newcastle and Upton, Wyo. He also traveled to several farms and ranches for nighttime services. Part of the early growth of the sunrise service is credited to Henry starting these churches, since he encouraged their members to attend the sunrise service. Henry put out early press releases, highlighting the upcoming services and worked with Loocke in printing early bulletins — which also served as advance posters promoting the event. Henry gave his final Easter sunrise sermon in 1952 before moving to Golden, Colo.
Each Easter sunrise service had some special element, but the early years were especially memorable.
• 1949 featured filming by Movietone News. KOTA Radio broadcast the service.
• 1950 It is believed Life Magazine ran a picture of the service in an April edition, although the Keystone Church has not located the edition.
• 1954 featured the baptism of Timothy Olson, infant son of Mr. and Mrs. James Olson of Custer. Johnny Bevins played “Taps.”
• 1956 featured Badger Clark reading his poem, “A Cowboy's Prayer.” Clark died Sept. 25, 1957, so this may have been one of his last public readings. Loocke designed the 1956 bulletin in purple ink and printed it on glossy card stock. It featured a cross above the monument, the American flag to the left in the front and the Bible and Easter lilies to the right. Loocke died Dec. 2, 1956, so this was his final sunrise service sermon.
• 1957 With Loocke’s death, the last of the four original pastors was gone. The Rev. R.L. Gowan of Hill City faced 1957 somewhat alone. Fortunately, it was his fifth year. Yet just as importantly, he led a group of dedicated volunteers. There is no bulletin available from the 1957 service hosted by the Hill City and Keystone churches. This service had to be held at the Peter Norbeck Overlook on Iron Mountain Road. Snow and heavy rains had delayed road construction to the monument and the road was impassible. Cars that ignored the signs and drove around the barricades got stuck.
Mt. Rushmore superintendent Charles Humberger placed a front-page notice in the April 19, 1957, Rapid City Daily Journal, noting that the annual event would be held — just not at Mount Rushmore. People were directed to drive to the overlook with the Peter Norbeck plaque, an area giving “an impressive view of the four great faces.” Rangers directed traffic.
The night before the service, Junior Halley, Virgil Chase and perhaps others loaded Halley's upright piano onto a pickup truck for the trip up Iron Mountain Road. On Easter morning, Halley sat in the bed of the pickup truck at the Peter Norbeck Overlook and played hymns and concluded by playing “God Bless America.”
Selix was quite prescient in 1947 when he predicted, “Some day this sunrise service at the memorial may be a famous tradition.” Over the past seven decades, thousands upon thousands have gathered beneath those four great faces on Easter Sunday. This year, thousands more will again join Halley for the benediction as she plays “God Bless America.”
- Submitted by Eileen S. Roggenthen, Keystone Congregational United Church of Christ historian
