Rural Heritage December 2025/January 2026

Bruce Murdock looking toward the head of Hell Canyon from a flat-topped divide. His pipeline comes from out of sight around upper right and continues mid-left to go over the breakdown into adjacent Chilson Canyon.

Scotty Springs Ranch is located in the southern Black Hills of South Dakota. A 1971 US Geologic Survey bulletin describes the area where Scotty Springs Ranch is located as being “in the lower, more arid part of the Black Hills characterized by intermittent streams occupying narrow canyons separated by flat-topped divides. Sparse growths of pine trees are concentrated in locally favorable environments such as rocky slopes and north-facing canyon walls…. Local relief is as much as 600 feet in some canyons.” Scotty Springs Ranch is dominated by two canyons: Chilson and Hell. The main part of the ranch is in the bottom of the upper reaches of Chilson Canyon at about 4,050 feet in elevation. Seasonal grazing on the flat-topped divides between Chilson and Hell

Canyon is at 4,600 feet or higher. The two Scotty Springs for which the ranch is named are in the upper reaches of Hell Canyon, at elevations of roughly 4,450 feet. Some of the ranch’s grazing is on higher plateaus to the north of these canyons, including The Terraces, an area named for berming that was done by the Civilian Conservation Corps. As shown on the map, the distance to the springs from the house and the elevation of the springs below the flat-topped divides made it infeasible for previous owners to bring spring water to the house in anything but a jug. To fully understand the accomplishment of bringing spring water to the house, it’s helpful to understand how stock and the house were watered 50 years ago. Bruce says, “When we first got here, to water stock we had pumpjacks on wells with Briggs & Stratton gas

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