Less than 24 hours after Lamont Hill was laid to rest in the Elk Vale Cemetery on Monday, the wagon train that he hoped to ride with into Deadwood passed by his gravesite early this morning.

Hill, 70, of Rapid City died Thursday, Aug. 7, of injuries he suffered in a fall from his horse on the Fort Pierre-to-Deadwood Trail Ride. He was buried Monday in the small country cemetery just a mile or so from where the wagon train camped last night.

Marvin Kammerer, a longtime friend of Hill's, said the gravesite service for Hill was the biggest funeral he had ever seen at Elk Vale Cemetery.

Before his accident, Hill, formerly of Onida, was one of more than 300 people who are traveling by horse, wagon and foot on the 17-day, 240-mile trek from Fort Pierre to Deadwood. The wagon train is retracing the historic trail taken by freight wagons between 1874 and 1908, when the expanding railroad line ended the need for teams of oxen and mules to transport goods across the prairie.

About 50 wagons and 350 horses are on the wagon train, which camped Monday night near the junction of Elk Vale Road and Elk Creek Road about 8 miles north of the Flying J truck stop.

In breaking camp today, the wagon train passed by the Elk Vale Cemetery on its way to spending this evening on the Bruce Blair ranch east of Tilford off Pleasant Valley Road.

On Wednesday, Aug. 13, the wagon train will spend the night camping at Barry Field at Fort Meade near Sturgis, where a 5 p.m. buffalo feed and local history program is open to the public. The cost of the event is $5 and will benefit the Old Fort Meade Museum.

The Fort Pierre wagoners will meet groups from Cheyenne, Wyo., and Sidney, Neb., on Deadwood's Main Street on Friday, Aug. 15.