Book signing set for new Cuny Table publication

The 50-page publication was printed at Chadron State College with assistance of a grant from the South Dakota Humanities Council. It will sell for $10 a copy.

The new book contains about 30 photos and was edited by Dr. Katherine Bahr, associate professor of English at Chadron State. She and Virginia met about five years ago when their husbands were discussing a mutual interest in restoring old Hudsons.

As the friendship developed, Virginia related that she had written and published the history of Cuny Table in 1984, but nearly all the copies were gone and some updating and upgrading were needed. She didn’t know if she could do it by herself.

Dr. Bahr’s long-standing interest in history roused her curiosity. Maybe she could help. Before long, the women visited the unique area and the revision efforts began to sprout. The more the CSC professor studied the situation, the more enthused she became. It was something that needed to be done.

Maybe because she grew up in Georgia and didn’t know a lot about the development of the West, Bahr became enthralled with the uniqueness she saw at Cuny Table, both from a geological and a cultural perspective. The fact that the table, which is about 15 miles long and three to four miles wide as it rises some 300 feet above the South Dakota Badlands, gives it a distinct identity. Because many of the families who settled and still reside on the table are the result of marriages between men of European descent and Lakota women made their stories special, too. They represent America’s “melting pot” to the Nth degree.

The table was named after Charles Cuny Sr., who moved to the area with his mother Josephine and his seven younger brothers and sisters in 1880 after the husband and father, Adolph Cuny, was shot during a robbery of his stage coach near Fort Laramie, Wyo., where the family had a ranch and trading post. Charles’ picture is on the cover of the new book.

Charles and Louise’s grandson, David Cuny, is among those who ranch on the table. Through marriage, the Cunys became related to other prominent families who resided on the Table, including the Pouriers, Twisses, Swallows and Specks.

Virginia’s parents, Ruben and Anna Marie Kain, purchased a quarter section on Cuny Table in 1926. Staying there took lots of grit. She said that shortly after the stock market crashed in 1929, her father shipped a carload of cattle to Omaha and cleared just $30. The Kains were among the families that had to move with the U.S. Defense Department purchased much of Cuny Table for an aerial gunnery range in the early 1940s.

After serving as a nurse during World War II, Virginia and her husband moved to Hot Springs, and have lived in Fall River County ever since. After retiring as a nurse, she started gathering information about Cuny Table. Because of her background, she knew where look and whom to talk to have questions answered. While she never anticipated that a book would develop when she started the project, 250 copies were printed in 1984.

In the ensuing years, she collected more information and made corrections suggested by readers of the first volume. Her chance meeting with Bahr helped launch the second edition. Bahr did the editing, wrote the proposal for the grant from the South Dakota Humanities Council and convinced CSC officials to allow personnel in the CSC print shop to crank up the presses.

Bahr thinks this may not be the last word on the history of Cuny Table. She pointed out that Virginia’s work inspired Chadron State graduate student Michael Anderson to dig into the story of Major Michael Twiss, an Indian agent who was a resident of the Table, for his master’s thesis. An article, “A New Twist on Thomas Twiss,” based on the thesis has been accepted for publication by the Nebraska History Quarterly.

Copies of the new book will be available by mail. Checks for $12 (includes $2 for postage) made out to the Chadron State Foundation may be sent to Dr. Kathy Bahr, Department of Language and Literature, Chadron State College, 1000 Main Street, Chadron, NE 69337.