For release Feb. 26, 2003
Contact: Nicole Kranzler, 773-3426

"State Historical Society celebrates Black History Month" Black entrepreneurs found niche in state

PIERRE – February is Black History Month. The South Dakota State Historical Society is recognizing the month with features honoring the contributions African Americans have made to South Dakota history.

"Business is business" was the slogan of Dan Coates, a Sioux Falls entrepreneur and community leader for over 20 years. Many of his peers must have adopted the same attitude, for Coats and other African Americans have succeeded as business owners in South Dakota from before statehood to the present day.

Among the first black entrepreneurs in Dakota Territory was a young woman who arrived in Deadwood searching for work during the gold rush of 1876. Born a slave in Tennessee in the early 1830s, Lucretia Marchbanks had been taken in bondage to California. Freed during the Civil War, she moved on to the mining camps of Colorado, and finally to Deadwood, where her first job was to manage the kitchen of the Grand Central Hotel. Following stints at the Golden Gate Hotel and the DeSmet Mine superintendent’s mansion, she earned a reputation as the best cook in the Black Hills. In 1883, Marchbanks opened her own establishment, the Rustic Hotel, where she was reportedly "over run with customers." Two years later, she took up ranching on the Wyoming side of the Black Hills, where she died in 1911.

Other African Americans operated successful businesses in early Deadwood, including saloon-keepers Edmond Colwell and Ben Simpson.

On the other side of the state, in Yankton, African Americans were joining the ranks of the business sector, as well. Among the first was Tom Douglass, also known as Christopher Columbus Yancey, who arrived by steamboat and recruited other blacks to homestead in the area he called "Beulah land." Remaining in the community into the early 1900s, Douglass operated a successful saloon and restaurant. He also invented and manufactured the striking machines often seen at carnivals. Jim Parsons was another restaurateur whose popular cafe was crowded to overflowing on Saturday nights.

Segregation, ironically, played a role in the creation of black businesses throughout the state, as restaurants catered to the African Americans who were denied service in white establishments. "Home barbers" stood ready to trim the hair of men refused entrance to white barbershops. A number of black women found niches in the beauty industry, serving the special hair and skin needs of other African Americans and branching out into the white community.

Louise Mitchell arrived in Sioux Falls in 1908, starting her career in the wig and shampoo department of Koenig’s Dry Goods Store. She later opened Mitchell’s Beauty Shop in Shriver’s Department Store and eventually owned and operated Mitchell’s California School of Beauty Culture until her death in 1941.

Mitchell trained many of the state’s best hairdressers, several of whom went on to own their own shops. Helen Haynes, born in Nebraska in 1900, came to Sioux Falls in 1922 to apprentice at Mitchell’s Beauty Shop. She later opened the city’s well-known Egyptian Beauty Salon. Hazel MaHone, a Huron native, also trained with Mitchell. After attending Huron College and beauty schools in Chicago, she started her own salon, attracting prominent clients from the Huron area.

A number of African-American men went beyond operating successful businesses to become civic leaders. Dan Coates, who opened a plastering business in Sioux Falls in 1937, worked to organize the local chapter of the NAACP and break down racial barriers in restaurants and hotels. Sioux Falls native Kenny Anderson operated his own dry-cleaning and laundry business. In 1988, he became the first African American to serve on the Sioux Falls city commission. The Kenny Anderson Community Center is named in his honor.

In Yankton, Isaac Blakey and his family operated a successful truck farm during the 1930s. His son, Ted Blakey, later opened his own janitorial service and eventually expanded into professional bail bonds. In 1959, Ted Blakey joined the Jaycees and went on to become the country’s first African-American JCI senator in 1965. He also joined the local Kiwanis club and soon became its president, the first black man in the nation to do so.

Whether they fed hungry miners, served in the beauty industry or managed civic affairs, black business owners and professionals have played integral roles in the economy and communities of South Dakota.

The State Historical Society is looking for objects, documents, photographs, manuscripts and any other material or information on other significant African Americans in South Dakota. Anyone with information should contact the South Dakota State Historical Society, 900 Governors Drive, Pierre, SD 57501; telephone, (605) 773-3458. Headquartered in the Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre, the society is a division of the state Department of Education and Cultural Affairs.

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