1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (81 page)

Badlands National Park contains the world’s richest fossil beds, which date to between 25 and 35 million years ago.

Where the Buffalo Roam

South Dakota

The Lakota called them
tatanka,
the great buffalo that once migrated freely through the American prairie, influencing almost every aspect of the Plains Indians’ lives. At one time, more than 60 million bison roamed
North America, but overhunting and a government policy of extermination decimated the herds. By 1893, there were fewer than 1,000 left in the whole country; now, there are approximately a quarter million.

Named for one of America’s most famous Indian fighters (see p. 618) and dedicated to buffalo preservation, Custer State Park covers 71,000 acres adjacent to Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial (see p. 657). One of
the world’s largest publicly owned buffalo herds lives here, some 1,500 strong. Each October, the park’s annual Buffalo Roundup gives a sense of what it must have been like to see one of the great herds stampeding across the prairie when the country was young. Thousands of visitors arrive for the Roundup to watch cowboys on horseback (and rangers in pickups) bring the herds to corral. The accompanying three-day Buffalo Roundup Arts Festival brings in artists and craftspeople, traditional entertainers perform throughout the day, and hungry crowds gather for the popular one-day Chili Cookoff.

Bison can be viewed year-round as they range through the park. Mid-July through August is rutting season, while springtime sees the birth of new calves. Viewing is especially good on the 18-mile Wildlife Loop Road. You might also spot elk, coyotes, prairie dogs, eagles, and hawks along with pronghorn, white-tailed deer, and mule deer. Spectacular views can also be enjoyed on Needles Highway, a 14-mile scenic route named for the needle-like granite spires that jut from the ground, and Iron Mountain Road which takes you up to Rushmore.

The American buffalo is the largest land mammal in North America.

In a beautiful mountain valley near the park’s eastern border is the seven-room stone-and-pine State Game Lodge. It was built in 1920, and in 1927 the lodge served as President Calvin Coolidge’s Summer White House. You can stay in Coolidge’s room, but less pricey accommodations are also available in adjacent motel units and rustic cabins. Experience the local wildlife by heading out on one of the lodge’s buffalo jeep safaris into the park’s back-country for up-close bison viewing.

W
HERE
: 20 miles south of Mount Rushmore. Tel 605–255-4515;
www.custerstatepark.info
.
S
TATE
G
AME
L
ODGE
: Tel 800–658-3530 or 605–255-4772;
www.custerresorts.com
.
Cost:
from $110.
When:
early May–early Oct.
B
EST TIME
: late Sept or early Oct for the Buffalo Roundup.

Last Resting Place of “Wild Bill” Hickok

South Dakota

Established during the 1876 gold rush, Deadwood was a magnet for get-rich-quick prospectors and the kinds of businesses where they could lose those riches quick: bars, brothels, dance halls, and gambling houses
.

The latter is what brought James Butler, aka “Wild Bill,” Hickok to town. Famous as a quick-draw artist, stagecoach driver, and scout for George Custer, Hickok had enlarged his myth as sheriff of Hays City and Abilene, Kansas, and cemented it with a stint in “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild West Show. On August 2, 1876, little more than a month after he arrived in Deadwood, Hickok was shot in the back of the head as he played poker in Saloon No. 10, by a boastful no-account named Jack McCall. The cards that fell from
his hand—pairs of black aces and eights—have been known ever since as the “dead man’s hand.”

Located in the northern Black Hills, the town today looks much as it did in the 1880s, owing to preservation and gambling initiatives. Today, scores of gaming establishments line the streets, and block after block of restored Victorian buildings have earned the town a place on the National Register of Historic Places. On Main Street during the summer there are multiple daily reenactments of the murder of Wild Bill, and a play,
The Trial of Jack McCall,
takes place nightly at the Masonic Temple. You can pay your respects to Wild Bill at his grave in the Mount Moriah Cemetery. (Martha Jane Canary, aka “Calamity Jane,” is buried in the next plot.) Elsewhere in town, the Adams Museum is a repository of Deadwood and Black Hills history, and the century-old Historic Franklin Hotel, which once hosted guests like Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, still offers old-time elegance.

The Midnight Star Casino, owned by actor Kevin Costner, is the home of Jakes, considered one of the best restaurants in South Dakota. One mile north of town, an exhibition called “Tatanka: Story of the Bison” is the actor’s real pet project. The indoor-outdoor interpretive center explores the relationship between the Plains Indians and the great bison herds, and displays include a traditional encampment, art gallery, and theater.

The well-preserved streets of Deadwood give visitors the impression that they’ve traveled back to the 1880s.

Some of the most beautiful scenes in 1990’s
Dances with Wolves
were filmed in Spearfish Canyon, which runs west of Deadwood.

W
HERE
: 35 miles north of Mount Rushmore.
Visitor info:
Tel 800–999-1876 or 605–578-1876;
www.deadwood.org
.
T
RIAL OF
J
ACK
M
CCALL
: Tel 605–578-1876.
When:
summer.
A
DAMS
M
USEUM
: Tel 605–578-1714;
www.adamsmuseumandhouse.org
.
When:
closed Sun in winter.
H
ISTORIC
F
RANKLIN
H
OTEL
: Tel 800–688-1876 or 605–578-2241;
www.historicfranklinhotel.com
.
Cost:
from $67 (off-peak), from $92 (peak).
J
AKES AT THE
M
IDNIGHT
S
TAR
: Tel 800–999-6482 or 605–578-1555;
www.themidnightstar.com
.
Cost:
dinner $40.
T
ATANKA
: Tel 605–584-5678;
www.storyofthebison.com
.
When:
mid-May–Sept.
B
EST TIME
: fall for foliage.

Little Town on the Prairie

DeSmet, South Dakota

Laura Ingalls was born in Wisconsin and lived in Kansas, but the quiet town of DeSmet, South Dakota, can rightfully claim its place as the centerpiece of her life story. It was here that her family finally settled in 1879
,
here that she became a teacher at age 15, here that she met and married Almanzo Wilder and gave birth to their daughter, Rose.

The series of Little House books, which Ingalls Wilder wrote between 1932 and 1943, are American classics, depicting America’s frontier heritage and the important role women played in opening up the West. Today, visitors to DeSmet can see the sites that became the inspiration for many of the books, including
By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie,
and
These Happy Golden Years
.

In town, the Surveyors’ House was the Ingalls’s first home when they moved to DeSmet. Nearby is a replica of the Brewster School, where Laura once taught, plus the Discover Laura! learning center where kids can dress in period costume and get a hands-on experience of frontier life, picking vegetables from a garden, playing checkers, or collecting eggs. A few blocks to the west, the white-shingled Ingalls Home was the last residence of Laura’s parents. Both are buried in the local cemetery, along with Laura’s sisters Mary, Carrie, and Grace.

Just south of town, the Ingalls Homestead is the site of Charles Ingalls’s land claim. A replica of the original house shows how the family lived in the 1880s, while a reconstructed “dugout” house shows how the family lived during their years in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. On the grounds are the five cottonwood trees that Charles Ingalls planted for his wife and four daughters. Visitors can take a covered-wagon ride to the Little Prairie School, where kids can get experience learning, 19th-century–style. For several weeks each summer, actors in the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant re-create scenes from her books as the sun sets on the prairie.

DeSmet is the westernmost stop on the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway, which snakes through the Midwest, linking sites associated with the Little House books. Other notable stops include Laura’s Home in Mansfield, Missouri (where she lived from 1894 until her death in 1957, and where she wrote the series). Laura is buried here.

W
HERE
: 95 miles northwest of Sioux Falls.
D
ISCOVER
L
AURA
: Tel 800–880-3383 or 605–854-3383;
www.discoverlaura.org
.
When:
daily, June–Aug; closed Sat–Sun, Sept–May.
I
NGALLS
H
OMESTEAD
: Tel 800–776-3594 or 605–854-3984;
www.ingallshomestead.com
.
When:
daily, late May–early Sept; call for spring and fall hours.
L
AURA
I
NGALLS
W
ILDER
P
AGEANT
: Tel 800–880-3383 or 605–854-3383;
www.desmetpageant.org
.
When:
Fri–Sun nights in July.

Corny Beyond Belief

Mitchell, South Dakota

While western South Dakota is the very picture of the American West, the eastern part of the state is solid Midwestern farm country, where corn is king—and a king, of course, has got to have a castle. In 1892
, the town of Mitchell built its first Corn Palace as a home for the Corn Belt Exposition, a showcase of agricultural strength. The current building, a Moorish fantasy reminiscent of old Atlantic City theaters, is the palace’s third incarnation, dating from 1921. At first glance it appears not quite of this world, and certainly not of South Dakota, with its decorative
columns and arabesque minarets, but closer inspection reveals that the Corn Palace is very much a product of its place. The huge murals around its exterior are mosaics composed entirely of corn, grains, and local grasses—thousands and thousands of bushels of them. It’s a tradition that goes back to the very first palace, and has been repeated annually ever since, with South Dakota artists creating designs that reflect some aspect of the state’s life or history. Lit nightly in summer, the outdoor murals become a giant bird feeder from the moment of their creation—one of the main reasons new ones have to be made every year. Inside, displays explain how the murals are created, and a number of murals from past years are preserved, including those of noted Yanktonai Sioux artist Oscar Howe, once the artist laureate of South Dakota.

The Palace is also a multipurpose arena seating more than 3,000 for shows, circuses, basketball games, and other events. And each Labor Day weekend it’s the site of the Corn Palace Festival, featuring a carnival, crafts, food booths, and entertainers such as Willie Nelson, Glen Campbell, and REO Speed-wagon. Later in September accordions take over during the annual Polka Festival.