For nearly a century, families and outdoor enthusiasts have been traveling up Tinton Road, venturing into the woods, and spending quality recreation time at the Iron Creek Lake Campground (Spearfish, S.D.), according to the Black Hills Pioneer.
Jeff and Jodi Sleep, owners of the campground and store, are inviting the neighboring communities to come celebrate 90 years of slowing down and making memories at the lake at 5 p.m. Saturday (Aug. 29).
Jeff said it’s a little bit of a family mystery how his great-grandfather, Alfred Sleep, managed to create a family legacy around the lake. He said in 1936, a group of sportsmen, Lawrence County, and the chambers of commerce for Spearfish, Lead, and Deadwood, were looking to build a dam in the area of Iron Creek Lake in an effort to mitigate flooding in Spearfish.
“We don’t know exactly what happened, but somewhere along the line he bought the mineral claim from a guy in Nebraska at the same time that Lawrence County bought the land that the lake went on,” said Jeff. “He was also buying other mineral claims in the Black Hills, around Tinton, so the best I know is he had some vision of doing some recreational things with the land.”
