Britton Post 0080 receives Legion charter

Charter members of Britton American Legion were J. S. Didrickson, Walter M. Kelly, Roy J. Masse, B.F. Jones, Louis W. Crawford, E. L. Rooks, Gordon McNab, Werle E. Franck, Wallace H. Ward, Bernard J. Lammers, H. W. King, Lewis E. Castle, A. Printup, Arthur C. Bonham and Otto L. Kaas. The date of the charter was Oct 3, 1919 and the first meeting was held on Oct 24, 1919 with 134 members in attendance at the meeting which was held in the City Hall because of the large number of people in attendance. Future meetings were held in the basement of the Hamilton building until the members decided in 1921 that it was time to get a Legion Hall of their own. Three lots were purchased on north main in Britton and a 75' x 140' building was built. This building was used by the community as well as for the Legion for the next 30 years. Legion documents show that it was the first in the state and was dedicated on Aug 10, 1921 with a banquet attended by 250 people with a program following the Social hour. It was used by the community for dancing, indoor baseball, roller skating, stage shows, boxing matches, turkey raffle fund raisers, and whatever else seemed to come along. During the 20s and 30s,the hall was used by the school for basketball and some other activities.
Also, during the 1920's and 30's, the depression and droughts hit with a vengeance and activities slowed down considerably. In 1934 the Legion members were very concerned when a group of people came into the area promoting communistic practices and holding meetings, etc. The old minutes state that a "crop of parasites under the name of "farm school on wheels" came into the area taking fees from the people in money and food. The purpose of the school was to educate people as teachers to spread the communist doctrine. The legion people advised the state and federal authorities, but nothing was done by them. Finally at the "pointed suggestion" of the Legion members, the Farm School was disbanded and they left our area. The 1930s era was tough on all the South Dakota people and activities seemed to drop off until the 1940s when WWII came up and many of our young people were called to duty there. The school used the Legion Hall for many activities until they got their new auditorium built. The use of the Legion hall after that time was limited so it was advertised for sale and sold to the school for $5250.00, and they wanted it mostly for the lots. The hall was moved to the south end of town and used as a bus barn for many years and the Legion bought a smaller hall and moved it to W highway 10 for a meeting building which was used until February, 2006. At that time it needed a new heating system, insulation, paint on the outside and inside and remodeling. As it had been used only once a month for our meetings, the auxiliary had started having their meetings at the senior center because the legion hall had so many steps to get inside, and the usage seemed to be very limited, the Legionnaires had many discussions and meetings and the decision was made to sell the legion hall. We had made arrangements to have our meetings at the meeting room in the VFW club for a very low rental figure and they also left us room to keep the color guard rifles and equipment in a secure area of their basement. Our old legion hall was sold for $29,500. (and that figure was basically for the 5 lots as it was in a good location. The hall was then given by the people who bought it to a hutterite colony which could fix it up and use it for a school house. All it cost them was the labor moving it and cleaning up the property and filling in the basement hole, all of which they did with their own people.
Legion baseball went strong for some years with Legionnaire Mike Forrester in charge. Then as it became harder and harder to field a team, he finally gave up in about 2011 and since then there has not been a Legion baseball team in Britton. HOWEVER, for about the past five years and still going strong is the Legion BB gun and air rifle shooters. Mike Kraft (and his wife, Rose) and Harlan Hilleson are the leaders and do a great job with the young people. They have been regularly winning the state competitions and then they travel to the national shoots in Arkansas or Bowling Green, Ky, the home of the Daisy air rifle manufacturers. In fact, several years ago, a BB gun competition was held in Britton and the CEO of Daisy and others from Bowling Green flew in to watch these young people as their records showed that they were consistently winners. It seems that the girls are often if not usually the best shooters in all shooting positions, standing, sitting or prone.
Our Legion post 80 supports many community activities- History essay winners, BB gun shooters, youth baseball, college scholarships, Boys State and many other local activities.
In 2010, Bill Goodale from Chappaqua, NY and a member of our post, pulled into town hauling a trailer behind his car and on this he had a 1950 Willis Jeep for us. He said we were all getting too old to march in parades so he was helping out. The jeep had been sitting in a shed in a Wisconsin farm which his wife had inherited and they knew what to do with it. We went to work on it (it was really wrung out), got the engine overhauled and running, worked over everything else and Bill Goodale kicked in another $2000.00 to help with the expenses. A great guy and a great member of our Legion although he is only here about 2 weeks of each year.

We still have our annual fund raisers, but instead of the old "turkey raffle" with all the games and all the work involved, we have adapted and have a Sunday Baked Potato dinner handled by the Auxiliary and then we have an afternoon of bingo which people enjoy and support well.
We still sell raffle tickets for several months ahead, and bingo tickets. Merchants support it well with donations of bingo prizes and raffle prizes and we have a great time and end up with about similar income as the old turkey raffle.

Our Color/Honor Guard has always been a main stay of our post. We are members of both the Legion and VFW and generally have about 12 active members with full uniforms. They conduct the honor ceremony for funerals at the Church involved and at the cemetery for the burial of the veteran. They are also on hand for parades, Relay for Life, and other festivities where the Color Guard is requested to help.

Our membership is a problem as the old timers die off and we seem to not be able to interest the younger veterans to join up with the Legion. I noticed as I read the minutes of the SD Legion convention in Pierre in June, 2014, that there are 9 posts in our state with under the minimum number of members to retain their charter. A motion was made and carried to revoke the charters of Andover post 258 and Garden City post 199. The other 7 posts will be notified and discussed at the July executive committee meeting. The times are changing.