Black Hills artist and environmentalist Dick Fort, 94, died Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, at the Fort Meade VA Medical Center near Sturgis, with family and friends at his bedside.

Dick was a prolific painter and composer, but he was best known as a leader of two decades-long projects. He and fellow cross-country skiers worked with the U.S. Forest Service to create the Eagle Cliff Cross Country Ski Area in the Northern Hills. Dick also was a founding member of ACTion for the Environment, formed to protect the Black Hills from damage threatened by open-pit gold mining.

Richard Lindsey Fort was born July 6, 1922, in Mitchell, the son of Lyman and Mildred Fort. His father was principal of the local high school and his mother taught grade school and was a composer. She taught Dick piano. As a boy, Dick also painted and drew cartoons, and he taught himself to sculpt roadside alabaster. In summers the family camped in the Black Hills. Eventually his parents bought a cabin in Spearfish Canyon, where Dick hiked, climbed and fished for trout.

The Fort family later moved to Sioux Falls. Dick graduated from Washington High School in 1940. Later he attended Grinnell College in Iowa, majoring in English and German.

In 1943, Dick was called up from the Army reserves. He trained in Ohio with a special German-language unit and in London as a cryptanalyst. After D-Day, Dick served with combat units in France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany, intercepting and decoding German radio messages. He earned battle stars for pinpointing enemy positions some of them during the Battle of the Bulge and he was honorably discharged at Christmas in 1945.

After the war, Dick returned to Grinnell College to finish his degree, and he earned a second degree from the Art Institute of Chicago, supported in part by the GI Bill.

In 1956, Dick began a 28-year teaching career at Wilbur Wright College in Chicago. During a 1960's sabbatical, Dick returned to Europe to visit galleries, museums, cathedrals and other architectural landmarks. He drew on those experiences for his own art and for the courses he taught. In Chicago, Dick often took his sketchbook to the jazz joints of Rush Street. He also drew inspiration from artists ranging from 17th century Baroque painters to 20th century abstract expressionists.

Most summers during his teaching career, Dick returned to the family cabin on Spearfish Creek to paint, compose, hike and fish. He also organized popular Sunday volleyball games in Spearfish Canyon, and his reputation as a maker of chokecherry and dandelion wine grew with each vintage.

In 1984, after he retired from Wright College, Dick moved permanently to the Black Hills to the small community of Englewood, not far from Spearfish Canyon. There, inspired by Buckminster Fuller, Dick built a home of connected geodesic domes, which became a weekend headquarters for his large, eclectic group of friends. Dick organized cross-country ski expeditions in winter and hikes in summer. In his 70's, he took up mountain biking. When gold prices shot up in the early 1980's, sparking a new gold rush in the Black Hills, Dick was among the first to see the risk. And he took action, recruiting and organizing environmentalists and testifying before regulatory agencies, the state Legislature and in court.

Dick also created space in his home for a small music studio equipped with 1970's consumer electronics and two keyboards. There he composed 24 Black Hills-themed symphonies, each in a different key. Those works remain mostly unheard, but a 2014 documentary about Dick's life, "Fort: a Spearfish Canyon Rhapsody," used some of them as a score. A 2014 coffee-table book also preserves some of Dick's art. The impact of his life, however, reaches further. Black Hills journalist Kevin Woster summed it up: "If the human spirit can live on in a landscape, Dick Fort's will surely live on in Spearfish Canyon."

Survivors include Dick's nephew, Michael Fort, and Michael's wife, Yvonne, and their children, Jason and Melissa Fort; and Dick's niece, Sandra Larson, and her husband, Mark, and their children, Chad Larson and Carrie Morris.

Dick was preceded in death by his parents; and his brothers, Donald and Gerald Fort.

Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 30, at Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis. A Celebration of Dick's life will be from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 1, at Spearfish Canyon Lodge near Lead.

In lieu of flowers, the family encourages donations to Dakota Rural Action.

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