N-Scale — 1960's Garretson and Sherman, South Dakota
by Rich Holzapfel and Finnlay Seeloff
Early in 2021, Sharon Kringen put a request out on the Garretson Living Facebook page for a train or railroad exhibit for the museum seeing how Garretson is located where it is because of the Great Northern Railway. The town was started at the Palisades because of a supposed silver strike, they even had a mill. Unfortunately, the Great Northern couldn't lay tracks down into the Palisades so they helped the townspeople load up and move the entire town to where it is now and renamed it Garretson after a Great Northern official of the time. I contacted Sharon and said that I had an idea. She invited me to the next historical society board meeting to share my ideas.
Side note - The last building still standing that was moved from Palisades is now the home of Big Ern's Sports Cabin.
At the board meeting I was given a couple of options of areas I could work with. After I explained that I would like to create a working diorama of the town of Garretson and the surrounding area, concentrating on the highlight of the area — the Palisades, Split Rock Park and the Dam, and Devils Gulch, the board decided I should have this room for my adventure. They moved everything out and gave me a blank canvas to work with. Now, I had already decided that I would build the Garretson that I remember when I was a 10-year-old boy.
I believe I started construction of the benchwork in April of 2021. Construction proceeded slowly at first and then picked up as the ideas started coming as I progressed.
Through all the construction, from day one, I had the help of my grandson Finnlay Seeloff. He is already a skilled modeler and built some of the different scenes on the layout by himself. Finnlay is 9 years old.
As construction progressed, we discovered my original track plan would not work because of size width. I wouldn't be able to reach the back track if there was ever a problem. So, we tore that down and started over and ended up with the layout you see now.
Main Street in Garretson is still lacking some of the buildings, but they will be added as time goes by, as I must build most of them from scratch. I have taken artist's license with some of the places and where they appear on the layout, but everything I have placed on the layout is some part of Garretson's history.
After the benchwork was finished and ready for the layout, Finnlay and I started by building the Palisades. The Palisades that you see on the layout now is our third attempt, but it's the one that works the best with where it has to be located in the room.
Next came the trackwork and again the finished track is at least the 4th or 5th design to be able to get the N-Scale train around without problems, because you never want to have to tear out finished scenery to fix track.
When the track was all in and trains were running smoothly, we could start on the terrain. As with everything else, trial and error work the best in any layout and I'm sure as we add buildings and scenery to Garretson & Sherman (how'd they get in here) there will be other changes too.
I would like to think these people for all of their help & support in this project.
• My sister Sharon Heesch, who I taught to make trees and she got good at it right away.
• Phil Rysdon who painted all the backdrops. He is a good friend of our DSED train club.
• Black Hills Caboose who donated almost all the rolling stock that is on the layout.
• The Garretson Historical Society for letting me have a free hand in this creation.
• And finally, Sharon Kringen for getting the ball rolling. I know there were many monetary sponsors. Great thanks to all of them as well as creativity costs money too.
The layout as it sits now is fully operational. Although the train will only run on the main line, the switches are operational and could be used at a later time.
Please enjoy your new Garretson N-Scale Railroad Diorama!
Editor’s note: we meant to run this piece after Jesse James Days, so our apologies for taking so long to get around to it. Garretson Historical Society President Bruce Brown told the Gazette that the Museum had the largest fundraising and largest attendance ever during this past Jesse James Days! Congrats to our friends at the Garretson Historical Society.
