In winter and in spring as it so transpired not more than one mail a week was delivered and month after month the contractor was obliged to report his story to Uncle Sam by affidavit of himself and the carrier or other witnesses conversant with the facts of no bridges, no forage, and no travel to help break the trail. This was in order to escape fines for failure to deliver mails as stipulated in the contract.
Whether merited or not, it was the opinion our people generally entertained in those days that the departments at Washington were very stupid in handling the affairs of the Indians, the mails and other public matters of vital importance to the few inhabitants here almost isolated from civilization.
Two of Dawes county pioneers who are still with us were connected with the Fort Robinson-Pine Ridge mail line in the early eighties, P. B. Nelson as contractor and R. H. Arnold as carrier.
In the spring of 1876 the Cheyenne and Black Hills Telegraph company constructed a one wire line into Deadwood and after the establishment of Camp Robinson the company built a line sixty miles east from Hat creek station where a wire testing operator was stationed to Robinson where the first telegraph instrument clicked in the present limits of Dawes county.
After the establishment of the Pine Ridge agency the government built a telegraph line from Fort Robinson to Rosebud agency via the Pine Ridge agency. The line was a practical failure east of the Pine Ridge agency during the whole period of its existence for the reason that between Pine Ridge and Rosebud there were many Indian camps and telegraph poles furnished dry and convenient firewood. The Indian agents as often as opportunity presented explained to the Indians the importance of keeping the wire off the ground that quick communication might be had with Washington as to the shipment of blankets and provisions for their own use.