Headed for Pierre, I watched for Vayland.

I missed it.

It’s no longer there.

In my hundreds of trips to Pierre and points west on Highway 14, I’ve always passed through – or rather by – Vayland.

But while driving out that way recently, I waited for the traditional Vayland drive by, as I always have done. It’s usually just past Wessington on that lonely northern jag on my western trip.

But there was nothing.

Vayland was never intended to be much of anything but a non-descript whistle stop on the Chicago North Western rail line. Early residents built a few houses and planted a few straggly trees, and George Sexauer of Brookings built an elevator there by the tracks.

Long after the trains stopped running, the abandoned old elevator remained a sort of beacon on that lonely stretch of prairie and straight-as-an-arrow Highway 14.

Then along came the 50th anniversary of the National Parks Service in 1966, and Vayland gained a smattering of national notoriety.

Wessington auctioneer-promoter Gene DeHaven thought he’d do his part to help the nation celebrate. He found 20 somewhat willing mules and hitched them up for a wagon trip around the country. It replicated the famous 20-mule teams that hauled Borate, from which Borax is made, and pulled up out of Death Valley to level ground by mules.

DeHaven’s team attracted a good bit of attention and news coverage as it plodded along through various and sundry states in a round trip that was to return to his home base in Wessington in the late summer or early fall.

National magazine photographers and television crews were in Wessington for the arrival of the 20-mule team. But the mules apparently smelled Wessington water soon after they headed east out of Miller.

With a somewhat quicker step on that last leg, they were ahead of schedule and would arrive in Wessington hours before the welcome home ceremony.

So DeHaven leaned back on the leather reins at Vayland, 8 or 10 miles shy of Wessington, and “whoa-ed” his team. He and his mules spent the night in that weathered, abandoned old Sexauer elevator.

And next morning, to the delight of well-wishers, the curious, the Life magazine photographers and television crews, the mules pulled into Wessington right on cue.

The details of what happened next are sketchy. I got the story second or third hand. But as I understand it, DeHaven was visiting with a magazine photographer and mentioned that one of his mules took sick on the long and arduous trail and had to be shot.

The photographer expressed disappointment at missing such a dramatic photo. To which DeHaven is said to have replied: “Get your camera out. I’ll shoot another one.”

Vayland, the Sexauer elevator and the personable DeHaven and his mule team are now history.

But out of habit I’ll probably continue to look for the little town and its prairie skyscraper and remember Mr. DeHaven, his mules.

If you’d like to comment, email the author at cfcecil@swiftel.net.