One of the strangest county seat wars was waged in the Black Hills. Like frontier towns everywhere, both Custer City and Hayward wanted the county seat. Years later surveyors discovered that the two were actually located in different counties!
In 1877 a newly appointed board of commissioners met in Custer City and organized Custer County. The county capital was soon moved from Custer City to Hayward, however, because it was bigger. Hayward's population, mostly miners, was about 300.
Hayward remained the temporary county seat until an election was held to permanently locate the capital. Custer claimed the election. Hayward refused to concede, saying many fraudulent votes were cast. For two years feelings ran high and things occasionally got rough. Contact between the two towns often resulted in fisticuffs or worse.
In 1879 Custer finally won out over the loud protestations of a dwindling Hayward. In 1881 surveyors definitely fixed the boundary between Custer and Pennington counties. They had discovered the towns weren't even in the same county. While Custer City was smack in the middle of Custer County, Hayward was two miles inside the Pennington County line! Today Custer is a prosperous community of 2,000 while Hayward is a near ghost town.
10/01/03