Dr. Richard Lamb was a resolute barber and physician, but perhaps he needed to be resolute as the first well-documented African American who laid down roots in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Dr. Richard Lamb navigated through legal disputes within the predominantly White community of Sioux Falls, such as when he turned in fellow barber C.L. Nelson to the authorities on September 10, 1895, for violating the “Sunday Law.” The municipal government had passed an ordinance requiring downtown businesses to remain closed on Sundays to respect a Christian day of rest. In court, Nelson pleaded guilty and was required to pay $10. Nelson also complained against Lamb for operating his barbershop on the sabbath, as the two were neighboring competitors. After Lamb admitted to the violation and paid the fee, Nelson lowered his prices to undercut Lamb’s clientele. Upset by these tit-for-tat actions, Lamb approached Nelson to see if he and other barbers would sign an agreement to close up their shops at 8 p.m. daily, with Sundays excluded. Richard Lamb’s successful brokering of a deal showed how the Black settler might chart a new racial frontier, laying the foundation for the African American community to grow in Sioux Falls.
Born in 1832 in New Castle, Indiana, Lamb attended one term of medical college in Ohio before apprenticing to a local physician. In 1878, he married Agnes Killian, the daughter of German immigrants, in Kasson, Minnesota. Shortly thereafter, the interracial couple relocated 230 miles west to Sioux Falls, which had been incorporated as a village only a year prior. In April 1879, Lamb opened a doctor’s clinic and barbershop at 130 ½ S. Phillips Ave. Before the professionalization of medicine in the early twentieth century, the dual role of barber-physician who could provide a shave or prescribe a tonic was not an unusual scope of practice. When Richard Lamb’s business was in operation, Black barbers earned roughly equal wages on average compared to their White counterparts in the same occupation. This might help to explain the friction between Lamb and Nelson.
Like Richard Pettigrew, the Sioux Falls lawyer-turned-land speculator who became South Dakota’s first U.S. Senator in 1889, Richard Lamb invested his earnings into properties hoping to turn a profit. When first settling in Sioux Falls, one of Lamb’s friends told him about how he had sold a property outside of Los Angeles, proving to be a great investment. This conversation would encourage Lamb to try his hand at land speculation, stating that “Sioux Falls and its dirt will suit him first rate.” Lamb would acquire multiple properties in Sioux Falls, including his residency at 515 S. Main Ave. and two other downtown lots, as well as land in Lennox, South Dakota, abutting a spur line of the Great Northern Railroad. After Lamb’s passing in 1897, his beneficiaries sold his residential property to the Swedish Baptist Church in 1903 for $1,000.
Lamb’s investments in Sioux Falls would prove to be economically fruitful as he worked as a barber, physician, and land speculator. He was even able to afford to take his wife Agnes on a “bridal tour” around the Midwest, as well as dressing in fine garments such as those made with silk. Lamb as the first African American settler in Sioux Falls proved its dirt suited him first rate.
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