Black Hills Sweeping

About Black Hills Sweeping

Downtown, the bronze presidents standing on their street corners collect a cap of snow on the shoulders and hat brims every time a storm rolls through, and Black Hills Sweeping works the blocks around them at night, after Main Street Square's ice rink has closed and the crowds have cleared out. The same equipment that sweeps parking lots clean of gravel and debris all summer runs blades and brooms through the winter instead, clearing commercial lots and the sidewalks fronting downtown storefronts before the morning coffee crowd arrives. Salt goes down heavy on the concrete around the rink, where foot traffic packs fresh snow into ice within an hour. Lots get plowed edge to edge and swept clean of the leftover grit that plain shoveling leaves behind. By the time downtown wakes up, the presidents are still capped in white but the sidewalks under them are bare. The crew reaches the commercial corridors through downtown and out along the main routes into Box Elder.