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The Double Jeopardy Murder Trial
· 10.2 mi · Things to Do
Jack McCall shot Wild Bill Hickok in broad daylight and a Deadwood jury actually acquitted him. But here is the twist. Deadwood was an illegal settlement on…
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Potato Creek Johnny's Giant Nugget
· 10.2 mi · Things to Do
In 1929 a tiny old prospector named Potato Creek Johnny pulled a 7.3 troy ounce gold nugget out of a creek in the Black Hills. It was one of the largest…
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The Sheriff Who Befriended a President
· 10.3 mi · Things to Do
Seth Bullock first met Theodore Roosevelt in 1884 while hauling a horse thief named Crazy Steve across the Dakota range. The two became lifelong friends.…
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The Night Deadwood Burned
· 10.3 mi · Things to Do
On September 26 1879 a fire broke out in a bakery on Sherman Street and within hours most of Deadwood was gone. The town had been built from the very dead…
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Lead, SD: Not the Metal You Think
· 10.5 mi
You'd swear this Black Hills town was named for the soft gray metal, the stuff of pencils and pipes. It isn't. The name isn't even pronounced like the metal. It's said "leed," and it comes from a mining term: a "lead"…
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Homestake Mine: The Richest Gold Strike in the Western Hemisphere
· 11.0 mi · Historical Marker
The Homestake Mine in Lead operated continuously from 1876 to 2001, producing over forty million troy ounces of gold and reaching a depth of 8,000 feet, making it the deepest mine in North America.
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Tinton, South Dakota
· 11.9 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Imagine striking it rich in the Black Hills! That's exactly what the founders of Tinton hoped for. Tinton sprang to life in 1876 as a gold mining camp. It later transitioned to tin production. The Dakota Tin and Gold…
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Ranch A
· 12.5 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Ever wonder where the rich and powerful went to unwind back in the day? This place gives you a glimpse. Ranch A, built in 1932, was a vacation retreat for Moses Annenberg, a major newspaper publisher. Annenberg hired…
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Vore Buffalo Jump
· 14.9 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Imagine a 40-foot deep sinkhole used for centuries as a buffalo trap. This is the Vore Buffalo Jump. For roughly 1500 to 1800, Native American hunters stampeded bison toward this natural pit. The sinkhole was deep…
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The $40 Motorcycle Wedding
· 15.8 mi · Things to Do
If you want to get married at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally all you need is forty dollars in cash and a valid ID. Both parties must be present which is probably…
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The First Rally T-Shirts Were All Maroon
· 18.1 mi · Things to Do
In 1940 just two years after the first Sturgis Rally someone had the idea to sell printed t-shirts advertising the event. Every single shirt was maroon. There…
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Sturgis: Nine Riders and the Birth of a Legend
· 18.2 mi · Historical
The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally began in 1938 when nine riders competed for a $500 prize on a half-mile dirt track — today it draws hundreds of thousands of riders annually to the Black Hills.
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When They Lit the Streets on Fire
· 18.2 mi · Things to Do
In the 1970s the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally had a wild streak that would be hard to imagine today. At the end of the 1975 event riders doused the streets of…
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Pappy Hoel and the Indian Motorcycle
· 18.2 mi · Things to Do
Clarence 'Pappy' Hoel ran an Indian motorcycle dealership in Sturgis and loved racing more than selling bikes. In 1938 he founded the Jackpine Gypsies…
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The Treaty That Was Broken for Gold
· 18.2 mi · Things to Do
The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie promised the Black Hills to the Lakota Sioux for as long as the grass shall grow. Six years later Custer's expedition found…
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Every Cavalry Regiment Served Here
· 18.2 mi · Things to Do
During the great western expansion nearly every cavalry regiment in the entire United States Army rotated through Fort Meade outside Sturgis. The post was one…
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Nine Riders and a Race That Changed Everything
· 18.3 mi · Things to Do
In 1938 a motorcycle dealer named Pappy Hoel gathered nine riders for a race through the Black Hills outside Sturgis South Dakota. That was the first Sturgis…
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The Horse That Survived Custer's Last Stand
· 18.3 mi · Things to Do
After the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 soldiers found a badly wounded buckskin horse standing among the dead. His name was Comanche and he had carried…
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The Colonel Who Never Saw His Town
· 18.3 mi · Things to Do
The city of Sturgis is named after Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis who commanded the 7th Cavalry at Fort Meade. Sturgis had a personal grudge against the Lakota. His…
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Wyoming Mercantile
· 19.0 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Pull over! You're looking at a piece of living history, a general store that's been continuously operating since 1896. Back then, Amos Robinson built this place, originally calling it Wyoming Mercantile. Sadly, Robinson…
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Belle Fourche Dam
· 19.3 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Imagine a landscape transformed. That's exactly what happened here with the Belle Fourche Dam. Construction on the Belle Fourche Dam, also known as Orman Dam, began in 1905 and was completed in 1911. Its primary purpose…
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The Cavalry Post That Guarded the Gold
· 19.9 mi · Things to Do
Fort Meade was built in 1878 just east of Sturgis to protect the illegal gold settlements in the Black Hills. The irony was thick. The Army was guarding miners…
