South Dakota Pheasant Analysis

Bootleg Pheasants

The South Dakota pheasant, a treasured resource fully protected by a regulated hunting season, provisioned the pantries of law-abiding residents with savory meals. During the fall hunt, shotgun toting men and boys with highly trained bird dogs tramped through the farm fields in pursuit of their prey. Subsequent to a successful hunt, wives and mothers canned the birds in quart jars to preserve the meat. During prohibition, roast pheasant under glass became the ultimate in fine dining in Chicago. Consequently, a robust and lucrative market emerged for fresh pheasant, which didn’t subside during the off-season. The demand in the Illinois city created an opportunity for illegal profit and apt conditions for conflict with

In order to provide for the year-round demand, Johnnie hired trusted friends to hunt pheasants, a majority of the time out-of-season. After a successful hunt, they hid the birds at predetermined locations inside of haystacks, the seemingly definitive South Dakota concealment. Subsequently, Johnnie made regular rounds to the haystacks to collect the pheasants, after which he drove the over one thousand mile round trip to buyers in Illinois.

Sheriff Edward Maxwell couldn’t ignore the birds hidden in haystacks, as he did when wayward smoke drifted skyward disclosing the presence of a still. If a farmer occasionally shot a pheasant off his own property to feed his family, Maxwell could forgive the transgression. However, these poachers snatched sustenance from the mouths of local children and sold it to “crooks” in the big city. Therefore, poaching pheasants for profit constituted a grievous crime requiring a significant effort to apprehend the

Louis Railroad Company, completed a line running east and west in 1906, crossing the Milwaukee Railroad two miles south of their watering station, which probably caused the relocation of the town.14 At the intersection of two rail lines, Bradley became a major shipping center for South Dakota grain. Trains hauled the bounty of the fall harvest to market, usually wheat to the mills in Minneapolis; manufactured goods and other merchandise into Bradley; and carried travelers to and from town in relative comfort. During the 1930s, in addition to freight trains, two passenger trains ran daily on the Milwaukee Railroad line. Furthermore, on the “Louie,” as residents affectionately called the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad, steam locomotives pulled at least two freight trains and three passenger trains through town every