A Rapid City, South Dakota history blog by Christopher Gentry, covering the founding of the Gateway to the Black Hills, the 1972 flood, Dinosaur Park, the City of Presidents, and the people and places that built Rapid City.https://christopher-gentry.com/en-ushttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/founding-of-rapid-city-1876/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/founding-of-rapid-city-1876/How a frontier supply town on the banks of Rapid Creek grew out of the 1876 Black Hills Gold Rush to become Rapid City, South Dakota, the Gateway to the Black Hills.Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/he-sapa-lakota-black-hills/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/he-sapa-lakota-black-hills/Long before Rapid City was founded, the Black Hills (He Sapa, or Pahá Sápa) were and remain sacred to the Lakota people. The deeper history of the land that became Rapid City, South Dakota.Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/1972-black-hills-flood/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/1972-black-hills-flood/On June 9, 1972, a catastrophic flash flood tore through Rapid City, South Dakota, killing 238 people. Here is the story of the disaster and how it permanently reshaped the city along Rapid Creek.Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/mount-rushmore-construction/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/mount-rushmore-construction/The story of how Mount Rushmore was carved into the Black Hills near Rapid City between 1927 and 1941, from Doane Robinson's tourism idea to Gutzon Borglum's dynamite, drills, and four 60-foot presidents.Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/city-of-presidents/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/city-of-presidents/Since 2000, life-size bronze statues of American presidents have stood on the downtown street corners of Rapid City, South Dakota. The story behind the City of Presidents and why it fits a city in the shadow of Mount Rushmore.Sat, 09 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/dinosaur-park-rapid-city/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/dinosaur-park-rapid-city/High above Rapid City, South Dakota, seven giant green dinosaurs have watched over the Black Hills since 1936. The story of Dinosaur Park, a Depression-era WPA project that became a beloved roadside attraction.Sat, 02 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/ellsworth-air-force-base/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/ellsworth-air-force-base/How a World War II training field east of Rapid City, South Dakota, grew into Ellsworth Air Force Base and reshaped the economy and identity of the Gateway to the Black Hills.Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/hotel-alex-johnson/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/hotel-alex-johnson/The Hotel Alex Johnson has anchored downtown Rapid City, South Dakota since 1928, a railroad executive's dream blending Tudor and Lakota design, host to presidents, and home to the city's most famous ghost story.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/the-stratobowl/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/the-stratobowl/In 1935, a giant balloon rose from a sheltered valley near Rapid City, South Dakota and carried two men higher than anyone had ever flown. The story of the Stratobowl and the record-setting Explorer II stratosphere flight.Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/chapel-in-the-hills/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/chapel-in-the-hills/On the western edge of Rapid City, South Dakota stands an exact replica of a 12th-century Norwegian stave church. The story of Chapel in the Hills, built in 1969 as the home of a national radio ministry.Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/custer-expedition-1874/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/custer-expedition-1874/How Custer's 1874 expedition into the Black Hills confirmed gold and set off a rush that reshaped the region around Rapid City and the Lakota.Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/hay-camp-early-rapid-city/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/hay-camp-early-rapid-city/The 1876 settlement first called Hay Camp was founded by men shut out of the Black Hills diggings who bet on a supply town near Rapid Creek instead.Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/pennington-county-seat/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/pennington-county-seat/Early county organization in Dakota Territory and how Rapid City secured its place as the seat of Pennington County in the Black Hills.Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/fort-laramie-treaty-1868/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/fort-laramie-treaty-1868/The 1868 treaty recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation set aside for the Lakota, a promise central to Rapid City's history.Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/black-hills-act-1877/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/black-hills-act-1877/The 1877 act of Congress that seized the Black Hills from the Lakota, the broken 1868 treaty behind it, and what it meant for Rapid City.Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/us-v-sioux-nation-1980/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/us-v-sioux-nation-1980/The 1980 Supreme Court ruling on the taking of the Black Hills near Rapid City, and the compensation the Lakota have refused to accept.Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/great-sioux-war-1876/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/great-sioux-war-1876/The 1876 campaigns and battles, including the Little Bighorn, that followed the invasion of the Black Hills near Rapid City.Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/thoen-stone/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/thoen-stone/The inscribed sandstone slab found near Spearfish that hints at Black Hills gold seekers decades before Custer reached the region near Rapid City.Sat, 07 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/stagecoach-deadwood/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/stagecoach-deadwood/The freight and passenger lines that linked Rapid City to the Deadwood gold camps in the Black Hills before the railroad arrived.Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/railroad-arrives-rapid-city/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/railroad-arrives-rapid-city/How the arrival of the railroad in the mid-1880s remade the economy of Rapid City and tied the Black Hills to national markets.Sat, 24 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/crouch-line/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/crouch-line/The scenic, winding short line that climbed Rapid Canyon from Rapid City toward Mystic and the interior Black Hills.Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/doane-robinson-rushmore-idea/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/doane-robinson-rushmore-idea/The South Dakota state historian whose 1923 tourism idea set the carving of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills near Rapid City in motion.Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/gutzon-borglum/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/gutzon-borglum/How the restless sculptor Gutzon Borglum chose a Black Hills cliff near Rapid City and four presidents for the carving that became Mount Rushmore.Sat, 03 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rushmore-carvers/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rushmore-carvers/The drillers, powdermen, and call boys who did the dangerous labor on the Black Hills cliff that became Mount Rushmore, near Rapid City.Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rushmore-hall-of-records/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rushmore-hall-of-records/Gutzon Borglum's planned chamber behind the Mount Rushmore faces, meant to hold the nation's founding documents, near Rapid City in the Black Hills.Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rushmore-four-presidents/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rushmore-four-presidents/The reasoning behind the four faces on Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills near Rapid City, and the eras of American life each president was chosen to mark.Sat, 13 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/lincoln-borglum/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/lincoln-borglum/After Gutzon Borglum's death in 1941, his son Lincoln finished the carving of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills near Rapid City.Sat, 06 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/korczak-ziolkowski/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/korczak-ziolkowski/The self-taught sculptor who began blasting a Black Hills mountain in 1948 to carve the Crazy Horse Memorial, southwest of Rapid City.Sat, 29 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/standing-bear-crazy-horse/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/standing-bear-crazy-horse/How the Lakota elder Henry Standing Bear invited a sculptor to carve the Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills near Rapid City.Sat, 22 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/crazy-horse-memorial/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/crazy-horse-memorial/The decades-long, privately funded Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills near Rapid City, and the family that has carried it forward.Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/crazy-horse-leader/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/crazy-horse-leader/The life of Crazy Horse, the Oglala Lakota war leader whose name the great Black Hills memorial near Rapid City bears.Sat, 08 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/red-cloud/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/red-cloud/How the Oglala leader Red Cloud forced the United States to the 1868 treaty table, shaping the history of the Black Hills near Rapid City.Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/wounded-knee-1890/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/wounded-knee-1890/The Ghost Dance movement and the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre that ended armed resistance on the plains, in the region south of Rapid City.Sat, 25 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-city-indian-school/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-city-indian-school/The federal Indian boarding school that operated in Rapid City for decades, and the lasting legacy it left for Native families in the Black Hills.Sat, 18 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/sioux-san/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/sioux-san/The grounds of a former federal Indian boarding school in Rapid City, South Dakota, became Sioux San, a long-running health campus serving Native people.Sat, 11 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/black-hills-powwow/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/black-hills-powwow/Each fall the Black Hills Powwow fills a Rapid City, South Dakota, arena with dancers, drum groups, and families in one of the region's largest Native gatherings.Sat, 04 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/black-elk-peak/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/black-elk-peak/The highest point in the Black Hills of South Dakota was renamed Black Elk Peak in 2016, honoring the Oglala holy man over a controversial general.Sat, 27 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-city-army-air-base/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-city-army-air-base/In 1942 the Army built an air base east of Rapid City, South Dakota, training heavy bomber crews and binding the Black Hills town to military aviation.Sat, 20 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/general-ellsworth/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/general-ellsworth/How a fatal 1953 bomber crash near Newfoundland gave Rapid City, South Dakota, the name it still uses for the air base east of town: Ellsworth.Sat, 13 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/b36-peacemaker/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/b36-peacemaker/In the early Cold War, enormous B-36 Peacemaker bombers flew from the prairie east of Rapid City, South Dakota, part of the Black Hills region's nuclear watch.Sat, 06 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/minuteman-missiles/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/minuteman-missiles/For decades, Minuteman nuclear missiles waited in silos buried across the ranchland around Rapid City, South Dakota, and the Black Hills, hidden in plain sight.Sat, 30 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/minuteman-historic-site/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/minuteman-historic-site/Near the Badlands east of Rapid City, South Dakota, a preserved launch control center and missile silo let visitors stand inside the region's long Cold War watch.Sat, 23 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/air-and-space-museum/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/air-and-space-museum/At the gate of Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City, South Dakota, the South Dakota Air and Space Museum gathers the aircraft of the Black Hills region's military century.Sat, 16 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/ellsworth-economy/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/ellsworth-economy/For generations Ellsworth Air Force Base has been a major employer near Rapid City, South Dakota, and the Black Hills, and a near-closure once shook the city.Sat, 09 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/skyline-drive/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/skyline-drive/A Depression-era ridge road above Rapid City, South Dakota, Skyline Drive gave the Black Hills town its concrete dinosaurs and one of its finest overlooks.Sat, 02 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/reptile-gardens/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/reptile-gardens/A roadside snake show south of Rapid City, South Dakota, grew into Reptile Gardens, one of the best known attractions in the Black Hills tourist country.Sat, 26 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/bear-country-usa/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/bear-country-usa/Bear Country USA near Rapid City lets visitors drive among black bears and other animals of the Black Hills, a family-run park open since the early 1970s.Sat, 19 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/storybook-island/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/storybook-island/Storybook Island in Rapid City is a free, volunteer-built children's park of nursery-rhyme scenes, a Black Hills summer tradition for generations of families.Sat, 12 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/cosmos-mystery-area/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/cosmos-mystery-area/The Cosmos Mystery Area south of Rapid City is a classic Black Hills gravity-illusion attraction, drawing curious motorists since the 1950s with tilted rooms.Sat, 05 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/sitting-bull-caverns/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/sitting-bull-caverns/Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns near Rapid City was one of the Black Hills' early commercial show caves, opened to the public in the 1930s tourist era.Sat, 28 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/school-of-mines/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/school-of-mines/The South Dakota School of Mines, founded in Rapid City in 1885, grew out of the Black Hills mining frontier into a respected engineering and science school.Sat, 21 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/halley-park/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/halley-park/Halley Park in downtown Rapid City was an early gift to the city and once held its first museum, a green square at the center of Black Hills civic life.Sat, 14 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/journey-museum/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/journey-museum/The Journey Museum in Rapid City gathers the Black Hills story under one roof, from geology and Lakota culture to pioneer history and regional archaeology.Sat, 07 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/dahl-arts-center/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/dahl-arts-center/The Dahl Arts Center in downtown Rapid City is the Black Hills region's longtime community arts hub, known for its panoramic cyclorama mural of American history.Sat, 31 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/pennington-courthouse/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/pennington-courthouse/The Pennington County Courthouse has anchored civic life in Rapid City for generations, the seat of justice and government for the Black Hills region.Sat, 24 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/carnegie-library/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/carnegie-library/Rapid City's Carnegie library brought free public reading to the Black Hills in the early 1900s and later found new life as a downtown arts and cultural space.Sat, 17 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/memorial-park-berlin-wall/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/memorial-park-berlin-wall/Memorial Park along Rapid Creek rose from the 1972 flood scar and holds a piece of the Berlin Wall, a Cold War relic in the heart of Rapid City.Sat, 10 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/civic-center/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/civic-center/The Rushmore Plaza Civic Center has been Rapid City's arena and gathering place for decades, the Black Hills region's stage for concerts, sports, and events.Sat, 03 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/main-street-square/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/main-street-square/How Main Street Square became the gathering place at the center of downtown Rapid City, and what its arrival meant for the wider Black Hills hub.Sat, 26 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/art-alley/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/art-alley/The story of Art Alley, the downtown Rapid City lane where murals and graffiti turned a service alley into one of the Black Hills' most-photographed places.Sat, 19 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-creek/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-creek/Rapid Creek drew the first settlers to the future Rapid City, South Dakota, watered the Black Hills hub, and in 1972 turned against the town it had created.Sat, 12 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/canyon-lake/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/canyon-lake/Canyon Lake was a beloved Rapid City, South Dakota recreation spot until its dam failed during the 1972 Black Hills flood. The story of the reservoir and its rebuilding.Sat, 05 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/pactola-reservoir/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/pactola-reservoir/Pactola Reservoir, the largest in the Black Hills, drowned an old gold camp to secure water for Rapid City. The story of the dam west of town.Sat, 29 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-creek-greenway/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-creek-greenway/After the 1972 flood, Rapid City turned its ruined floodplain into a greenway of parks and trails. How tragedy reshaped the Black Hills hub.Sat, 22 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/m-hill/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/m-hill/The hill above downtown Rapid City carried a grim early name, Hangman's Hill, long before its big white letter. A look at M Hill in the Black Hills.Sat, 15 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-city-airport/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-city-airport/From a small municipal field to the air gateway for Black Hills travelers, the story of how Rapid City Regional Airport grew over the decades.Sat, 08 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/peter-norbeck/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/peter-norbeck/Peter Norbeck, the conservationist South Dakota governor and senator, shaped Custer State Park and the scenic roads that define the Black Hills today.Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/needles-highway/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/needles-highway/The Needles Highway, opened in 1922, threads through the granite spires of the Black Hills. Once called impossible, it remains a scenic route near Rapid City.Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/iron-mountain-road/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/iron-mountain-road/Iron Mountain Road frames Mount Rushmore through granite tunnels and loops over wooden pigtail bridges, a great scenic drive near Rapid City.Sat, 15 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/custer-state-park/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/custer-state-park/Custer State Park in the Black Hills holds a great bison herd gathered each autumn in a thundering roundup, a major draw for Rapid City and the region.Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/wind-cave/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/wind-cave/Wind Cave in the southern Black Hills near Rapid City became the first cave national park in 1903, known for rare boxwork and Lakota emergence stories.Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/jewel-cave/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/jewel-cave/Jewel Cave, west of Custer in the Black Hills near Rapid City, is one of the longest known caves on Earth, its mapped passages still growing each year.Sat, 25 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/sylvan-lake/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/sylvan-lake/Sylvan Lake near Custer in the Black Hills west of Rapid City began as an 1880s dam and became a favorite of Governor Peter Norbeck.Sat, 18 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/spearfish-canyon/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/spearfish-canyon/Spearfish Canyon in the northern Black Hills, north of Rapid City, cuts deep through limestone past waterfalls and forest. A look at its geology, history, and roads.Sat, 11 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/mammoth-site/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/mammoth-site/The Mammoth Site at Hot Springs, south of Rapid City in the Black Hills, is an ancient sinkhole that trapped dozens of mammoths and remains an active excavation.Sat, 04 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/deadwood-gold-rush/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/deadwood-gold-rush/Deadwood, the lawless gold camp in the northern Black Hills, drove the rush that shaped Rapid City, South Dakota and the whole region in the late 1870s.Sat, 28 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/homestake-mine/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/homestake-mine/The Homestake mine at Lead, in the Black Hills near Rapid City, became one of the deepest and richest gold mines in the hemisphere over more than a century.Sat, 21 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/sanford-lab/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/sanford-lab/The Sanford Underground Research Facility, in the old Homestake mine at Lead near Rapid City, hosts deep physics experiments nearly a mile beneath the Black Hills.Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/mickelson-trail/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/mickelson-trail/The Mickelson Trail follows old railroad grades the length of the Black Hills near Rapid City, a rail-trail of more than a hundred miles for walkers and cyclists.Sat, 07 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/sturgis-rally/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/sturgis-rally/The Sturgis motorcycle rally began in 1938 with a small Black Hills club near Rapid City and grew into one of the largest gatherings of riders in the world.Sat, 30 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/bear-butte/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/bear-butte/Bear Butte, called Mato Paho by the Lakota, rises near Sturgis north of Rapid City and remains a sacred site for many Plains tribes to this day.Sat, 23 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/badlands/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/badlands/The Badlands east of Rapid City, South Dakota, are a maze of eroded buttes and fossil beds where the prairie breaks into bare rock at the edge of the plains.Sat, 16 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/early-industries/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/early-industries/How mining, milling, and building materials shaped the early economy of Rapid City and the Black Hills in the decades after its 1876 founding.Sat, 09 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/black-hills-lumber/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/black-hills-lumber/Logging in the Black Hills near Rapid City, from the gold-rush sawmills to the first regulated federal timber sale in the United States.Sat, 02 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/ranching-prairie/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/ranching-prairie/The cattle country around the Black Hills and how ranching tied the grasslands to Rapid City as a market, shipping point, and supply town.Sat, 26 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/cement-plant/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/cement-plant/The story of the state-owned cement plant that operated in Rapid City for generations, an unusual experiment in public enterprise in the Black Hills.Sat, 19 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/black-hills-tourism/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/black-hills-tourism/The slogans, roadside attractions, and promoters who turned the Black Hills and Rapid City into one of the nation's enduring vacation destinations.Sat, 12 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/central-states-fair/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/central-states-fair/The late-summer fair and rodeo that has gathered ranchers, families, and carnival crowds in Rapid City, South Dakota, for more than a century.Sat, 05 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/blizzard-1949/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/blizzard-1949/The brutal winter storms of 1949 that buried western South Dakota, stranded Black Hills ranch country, and forced an emergency relief effort near Rapid City.Sat, 28 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-city-streetcars/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-city-streetcars/The brief era of electric streetcars in Rapid City, South Dakota, when a growing Black Hills town reached for the trappings of a modern American city.Sat, 21 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/sioux-pottery/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/sioux-pottery/The Rapid City pottery works and the wider trade in Native-made art that shaped how the Black Hills region marketed Lakota craft to visitors.Sat, 14 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/days-of-76/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/days-of-76/Deadwood's Days of '76 celebration and the wider habit, across the Black Hills near Rapid City, of staging the frontier past for paying visitors.Sat, 07 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/west-boulevard/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/west-boulevard/The tree-lined West Boulevard neighborhood in Rapid City, South Dakota, where early-century homes record the city's years of growing confidence.Sat, 31 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/early-floods/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/early-floods/Long before the 1972 disaster, Rapid Creek rose against Rapid City more than once. A look at the early floods in the Black Hills and the warnings the city missed.Sat, 24 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/ccc-black-hills/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/ccc-black-hills/During the Depression, CCC crews reshaped the Black Hills near Rapid City, building roads, dams, and park structures that visitors still use today.Sat, 17 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/cold-war-boom/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/cold-war-boom/After World War II, the air base and its missile mission reshaped Rapid City, South Dakota, driving the growth that made it a true regional center.Sat, 10 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rushmore-night-lighting/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rushmore-night-lighting/For decades a summer night ritual has lit the faces at Mount Rushmore and honored veterans, a quiet tradition close to Rapid City and the Black Hills.Sat, 03 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-city-journal/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rapid-city-journal/From frontier weeklies to a daily of record, the newspapers of Rapid City chronicled the Black Hills through gold, war, flood, and growth.Sat, 27 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/early-churches/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/early-churches/The first congregations in Rapid City built more than sanctuaries, anchoring community life on the Black Hills frontier through gold-rush years and beyond.Sat, 20 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/hotel-harney/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/hotel-harney/The Hotel Harney once anchored downtown Rapid City. A look at the lost buildings of the Black Hills city and what their disappearance cost.Sat, 13 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rockerville-flume/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/rockerville-flume/To work the dry placer ground at Rockerville, miners built a long wooden flume across the Black Hills near Rapid City. A look at an ambitious gamble.Sat, 06 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/coolidge-summer-white-house/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/coolidge-summer-white-house/In 1927 President Coolidge spent a long summer in the Black Hills near Rapid City, running the country from a state lodge and lending his weight to Mount Rushmore.Sat, 29 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/buffalo-gap/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/buffalo-gap/A natural break in the hogback ridge, Buffalo Gap funneled bison and then people into the Black Hills near Rapid City. A look at a quiet landmark.Sat, 22 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentryhttps://christopher-gentry.com/blog/dakota-statehood-1889/https://christopher-gentry.com/blog/dakota-statehood-1889/In 1889 the Dakota Territory split and entered the Union as two states. A look at the road to statehood and what it meant for Rapid City and the Black Hills.Sat, 15 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMTChristopher Gentry