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Historic place

The Thoen Stone

Thoen Stone Dr (Lookout Mountain), Spearfish, SD

A small sandstone slab found near Spearfish in 1887 claims to be a dying prospector's 1834 confession — and if genuine, it would push the first Black Hills gold discovery back 40 years before Custer's famous 1874 expedition.

📅 1887–present🏛️ Historic MarkerStill hereBuilt 1887
Open on the mapSlide back to 1887

The story

On March 14, 1887, brothers Louis and Ivan Thoen were gathering sandstone at the base of Lookout Mountain when Louis found an inscribed slab. The cursive inscription claims to be the last testament of prospector Ezra Kind, one of seven men who found gold in 1834 and were then killed by Native Americans — Kind the lone survivor. Its authenticity is genuinely unresolved: Louis Thoen was a trained stonemason (raising hoax suspicions), yet a 1950s investigation matched several names on the stone to real people who vanished heading west around 1830. The original is displayed at the Adams Museum in Deadwood; a replica and marker stand at the Spearfish discovery site.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

If authentic, its claimed 1834 date would predate the official 1874 gold discovery by 40 years.
The man who found it was a trained stonemason — exactly the skill needed to fake it.
The original stone isn't in Spearfish — it's on display at the Adams Museum in Deadwood.

Nearby history

Black Hills Passion Play

N Meier Ave (Lookout Mountain) · 475 m away
For 69 seasons, a German family who traced their Passion Play tradition to a 1242 monastery performed it nightly on what

D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery

423 Hatchery Circle · 537 m away
Congress funded this fish-culture station in 1896 to stock trout across the West — and for a decade it ran a satellite o

Burlington Spearfish Line

Old CB&Q grade, Spearfish Canyon · 846 m away
For 40 years a Burlington branch line hauled lumber, farmers, and $2.50 excursion tourists through Spearfish Canyon — un

Spearfish Historic Commercial District

600 block N Main St · 1.0 km away
Founded in 1876 as "Queen City" by prospector-brothers Alfred and William Gay, Spearfish grew into the gold rush's bread

Matthews Opera House

612 N Main St · 1.0 km away
Built by a Wyoming rancher who fell in love with the town, this 300-seat opera house spent decades as a movie theater, t

Homestake Hydroelectric Plant No. 1

S Canyon St (mouth of Spearfish Canyon) · 1.1 km away
To avoid buying coal, the Homestake Gold Mine paid for a 5-mile, 8-tunnel water diversion through solid canyon rock — en

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Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoen_Stone