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Authentic Black Hills Gold

Black Hills Gold Jewelry must be made in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Black Hills Gold Genuine three-color gold has been produced since the late 1800’s and originated in the Black Hills of South Dakota, hence the name Black Hills Gold, of course! The leaf and grape design was inspired by the wild grape vines that flourished in the valleys of the American West. The three colors of 10K Gold and 12K Gold (rose, green and yellow) are created by mixing copper and silver in varying amounts with 22K gold bullion. Each creation is formed by a painstaking and labor intensive process that goes back to the 1800’s.

Black Hills Gold jewelry requires the work of multiple craftsmen, each adding his or her own touch to the unique and beautiful finished product. No other gold jewelry can be named or marketed as Black Hills Gold Jewelry. It is the official State Jewelry of South Dakota and is unlike any other jewelry in the world! Black Hills Gold Jewelry is a unique American art form, produced ONLY in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Highly skilled artisans perform each step by hand with special care. The beautiful soft colors of Pink and Green are created by carefully alloying pure 24 Karat Gold. Combining these soft colors with a bright yellow gold displays an array of leaves and grape clusters and perhaps an eagle or a rose. The final touch is a combination of various steps of polishing and engraving.

NEW BLACK HILLS GOLD NUGGET

Black Hills Gold History

According to legend, a young Frenchman lost his way while searching for gold during the gold rush days in the Black Hills. Growing weak with hunger and frustration, he fell asleep beneath a tree and dreamed of the beautiful grape vines and grapes of his homeland growing near the sides of a babbling brook. Inspired by his dream, he created a tri-colored gold jewelry with the grapes, leaves and vines — known today as Black Hills Gold.

Black Hills Gold history actually began in 1874. An expeditionary force of one thousand men was led by the infamous George Armstrong Custer into the Black Hills area, a 1000-square-mile region held sacred by the Sioux. A few months after the group’s arrival, a man named Horatio N. Ross discovered gold along French Creek in the central Black Hills. One of the last great North American gold rushes inevitably followed White settlement of the region increased dramatically with the discovery of gold.

The city of Deadwood grew out of this Wild West era of prospectors, saloons, and legendary figures like Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. This historic mining town was also home to S.T. Butler (pictured at left), widely acknowledged as the father of Black Hills Gold jewelry. The three-color grape leaf style that Butler used may have originated in California during the 1849 gold rush and worked its way eastward through the mining camps of Nevada, Idaho, Montana and finally, the Black Hills.

F.L. Thorpe, grandson of S.T. Butler, was a third generation goldsmith artisan who expanded his grandfather’s original designs into the hundreds. In 1919, a partnership was formed between Frank Thorpe and and E.O. Lampinen under the name F.L. Thorpe Company.

When the partnership of Thorpe and Lampinen was dissolved, Lampinen operated his own shop in Deadwood under the name of Black Hills Jewelry Manufacturing. F.L. Thorpe Company also continued operating.

In 1944, Ivan Landstrom bought Black Hills Jewelry Manufacturing from Lampinen and moved the firm from Deadwood to Rapid City and continued to operate under the name of Black Hills Jewelry Manufacturing, manufacturers of Landstrom’s Original Black Hills Gold Creations. Also in the early 1900’s, a 16-year-old woman named Clara Arnold learned the art of making Black Hills Gold from relatives of S.T. Butler. By the 1940’s she owned and operated her own manufacturing plant in Rapid City. She sold her company to the Stamper family in 1959, and it has since operated under the name Stamper Genuine Black Hills Gold Jewelry.

In the 1980’s a federal judge ruled that if a manufacturer was to call its jewelry Black Hills Gold, then it must be made in the Black Hills. Several new companies were born in the Black Hills after this, including South Dakota Gold, Mount Rushmore and Coleman. These new manufacturers brought increased competition and new styles to the marketplace, branching out the original vines of Black Hills Gold tradition. History had travelled full circle in 1995 when Landstrom’s purchased F.L. Thorpe, reuniting the two original Black Hills Gold manufacturers. Landstrom’s still manufactures most of the original Thorpe styles, in addition to expanding Thorpe’s product line to include new styles.

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