Where You Step Into Spearfish Creek Is What the Preservation Plan Is About

Where do you get into Spearfish Creek? It could be the bank at Dower's Hole, or a spot near City Park, or the accessible fishing point on King Street. The City of Spearfish has spent the past year asking that question with a map. Its consultant, ISG, set up an online map where anyone can drop a pin and tag it as Fishing, Swimming/Cold Plunging, Tubing, Safety, Streambank Erosion or Trail Usage. Most of those categories describe a person stepping off the path and onto the bank. That one action shows up in almost every part of the plan.

The plan's second phase is now in public review. The city held an open house on September 30, 2026, from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Tretheway Pavilion in City Park, 115 S. Canyon St., to collect feedback on draft concepts for "priority locations along the Spearfish Creek corridor." The city says the projects aim to balance public access, recreation and the creek's ecological health.

The pressure the city describes is foot traffic at the edges

KOTA covered the preliminary plan in June 2026. The station described the creek as a roughly five-mile stretch through the middle of town that draws anglers, tubers and tourists every year. City leaders told KOTA that population growth, more visitors and urban development are adding to streambank erosion, loss of native vegetation and polluted runoff.

The proposed fixes match that diagnosis closely. KOTA listed three: native plant buffers along the banks, upgrades to low-head dams so fish can pass, and "designated access points to reduce damage caused by uncontrolled entry along the banks." Two of the three deal directly with the strip of ground between the trail and the water.

The plan covers six key areas. KOTA named four of them: Spearfish Campground, City Park, the downtown core, and the area near the Black Hills State University campus. Those are some of the busiest stretches of creek in town. Back in April 2025, during the first phase, city staff told KOTA that erosion needed attention at City Park, at Dower's Hole and along the creekside area at the north end of Spearfish.

What the map already marks

ISG's public map includes a set of reference markers the project team placed. These show what already exists along the corridor. They aren't designs. They are still worth reading, because they show which features the planners are working around:

1. Hydro Plant, 670 South Canyon Street.
2. City Park restrooms at 140 North Canyon Street and the 101–199 block of South Canyon Street.
3. Pedestrian bridges at 232 Washington Street, 423 Hatchery Circle, 308 Canyon View Lane and 1244 North Ames Avenue.
4. Handicap Fishing Access Point, 510 King St.
5. Dower's Hole, 1527 North Ames Avenue.
6. Lowhead dams for irrigation intake at Hillsview Road, 514 West Nash Street and 211 Meier Ave.
7. Alternate paths where the Rec Path crosses under the bridges at Hillsview Road and 504 West Jackson Boulevard.
8. Park restrooms at Lions Park, Brady Park, Salem Park, Jorgensen Park and Evans Park.

Dower's Hole is the only swimming or fishing spot on that list marked by its local name instead of a street feature. The fact that the project team pinned it by name says a lot about how well known that spot is.

The bank work that is already finished

The plan didn't start with an empty creek. Smaller projects have been going on alongside it, and they show the kind of work the plan is likely to recommend.

The 2025 plantings changed location partway through. In a May 2025 update to the Parks, Recreation & Forestry Advisory Board, the two sites were listed as the Creekside Nature Area and Rotary Park, with work set for the week of Memorial Day. The June update said the work was finished, but at the Creekside Nature Area and the stretch north of the Nash Street bridge. The map also shows the 2025 SDGFP project areas at 2525 North Yukon Place and on Nash Street.

The Evans–Jorgensen job was the biggest of these. The Black Hills Pioneer reported a $146,556 contract with Johner & Sons. The scope included removing and replacing the concrete sidewalk and topsoil, drainage fabric, a new 6-inch non-reinforced concrete sidewalk, seeding, mulch, a water barrier, erosion controls and pedestrian traffic control. That part of the Rec Path closed starting Monday, July 13, 2026, and the city expected it to stay closed through the end of July. KOTA listed the Public Works contact number for the project as 605-642-1333. We found no later city notice confirming the reopening date. If you plan to use that stretch, call Public Works first.

The 2026 SDGFP areas on North 3rd Street and West Mason Street appear on the map as labels only. The public map doesn't say what work is planned there or whether it has started.

The irrigation dams make this more complicated

The low-head dams show that the creek serves more than recreation. On the map, all three are labeled as irrigation intakes. KOTA reported that the creek supplies irrigation water for city park areas. It also supports the D.C. Booth Fish Hatchery and is tied to one of South Dakota's few Class I brown trout fisheries.

The same structures that pull water for park lawns are the ones the plan wants to upgrade for fish passage. Changing a dam at Hillsview Road, West Nash Street or Meier Avenue would touch irrigation, trout habitat and the experience of anyone floating through. A tuber, an angler and a parks crew each care about those structures for a different reason. That overlap helps explain why this is a planning process and not a simple maintenance job.

Money, timeline and what's still open

On April 6, 2026, the Spearfish City Council voted unanimously to approve ISG's Phase 2 proposal for $62,988.40. The Black Hills Pioneer reported that the 2026 budget set aside $70,000 for the work. The Pioneer described a process with two months of online engagement, two open houses, a technical advisory workshop and concept sketches. Building the recommended projects would come later, in Phase 3.

That $62,988.40 pays for planning and design, not construction. When KOTA covered the plan in June, the city was looking at state and federal grants for the eventual work, and no cost estimates had been released. For comparison, the single Evans–Jorgensen bank repair cost $146,556, more than twice the planning contract. A full set of projects across six priority areas will need funding well beyond the line item paying for the drawings.

ISG says the feedback from this round will feed into an updated master plan. Neither the city's September notice nor the project page lists a deadline for online comments or a date for the final plan.

Adding your spot to the record

If you missed the open house, the city says you can still read about the projects and sign up for email updates on the project websites. To add a comment on the map, place a marker at the location, fill out the short form and submit it. At the first open house, the Black Hills Pioneer reported that Parks and Rec staff asked people to mark where they fish, wade or swim, where they see erosion, and how they use the trail, and said staff would combine all of it.

Comments tied to a specific place are the most useful. "Dower's Hole bank is worn down on the north side" can go straight into a design, while a general wish for a healthier creek is much harder to act on. The draft concepts will be refined with whatever pins and comments come in.

At Real Properties of Lead-Deadwood, we follow Spearfish projects like this one because changes along the creek corridor affect how people use the parks and trails nearby. If you own near the Rec Path or the creek and want to talk through what the plan could mean for your street, give us a call. We're glad to share what we know and help you track the plan's next steps.