In addition to the splendid opportunity to see and study the various layers of the earth’s surface going back as far as sixty million years, the very composition of badlands formations makes any such region a veritable museum of fossils and petrified animal relics. The South Dakota Badlands have turned up absolute treasures of such paleontological finds, enabling scientists to trace the evolution of mammalian life all the way back to the appearance on earth of the first carnivorous animals—the vastly distant ancestors of the dog. And the Badlands are noted not only for the great span in geologic time of their fossil beds, but also for the number of different types which have been found in their ancient soil, more than 250 different prehistoric animals having been discovered in various stages of fossilized preservation in this general region.
The tourist, though, need not be even an amateur student of geology or paleontology to be thrilled and awed by a visit to this grotesque but beautiful area. The mere colors of the various rock strata, ever changing under the light patterns of sun and cloud, provide a never-to-be-forgotten experience. One of the most articulate tributes to the grandeur of the Badlands is that of Frank Lloyd Wright:
Speaking of our trip to the South Dakota Badlands, I’ve been about the world a lot and pretty much over our own country but I was totally unprepared for the revelation called the Badlands. What I saw gave me an indescribable sense of the mysterious otherwhere—a distant architecture, ethereal, touched, only touched, with a sense of Egyptian-Mayan drift and silhouette. As we came closer, a templed realm definitely stood ambient in the air before my astonished “scene”-loving but “scene”-jaded gaze.
Yes, I say the aspects of the South Dakota Badlands have more spiritual quality to impart to the mind of America than anything else in it made by Man’s God.
The word “badlands,” which now has a genuine scientific meaning, was taken into our vocabulary from the folk name for this very region. In the earliest days of North American exploration, far back before the Revolution, French trappers had braved this empty wasteland on their endless quest for new fur grounds, and had brought back tales of this lost world of silence and strange shapes. They were the ones who gave it the name Badlands, but they were only translating directly the Sioux name, Mako Sika, which meant, precisely, lands bad for traveling.
To the early explorers the badlands meant only that—high escarpments to be overcome; twisting, winding, endless canyons from which there were no outlets; crumbling rock underfoot on the three-hundred-foot crawls from the canyon bottoms to the table-tops; and the hot, shimmering distances of this forbidding terrain as far as the eye could see.
It was, as a matter of fact, the existence of this area that helped keep the Black Hills nothing more than an empty question mark on maps until the rumors of gold began to circulate. The first American explorers, who might have discovered the natural wonders of the Hills in the 1820’s, found their paths diverted to the north and the south by this impassable valley, and consequently missed the Hills.
The first reliable record of the wonders of this lost world was dated 1847. That year, it will be remembered, was one of great moment in the history of the western movement—the year that Brigham Young braved the high prairies and pathless mountains with his great exodus, settling an empire on the shores of Great Salt Lake. Although the Pacific trails were fairly well established by then, his was the first of the true migrations, and the gold rush to California, the Oregon excursions, and the Pikes Peak mosaid were yet to come.
In this fateful year of 1847 a certain Professor Hiram A. Prout of St. Louis came somehow into contact with a representative of the American Fur Company, which ran substantial trapping operations all up the wide Missouri and its tributaries. How this meeting came about is lost to record, but we do know that the fur trader gave Professor Prout a souvenir of his recent travels through the Badlands of Dakota—a fragment of the lower jaw of a Titanothere, the first fossil ever to be quarried out of the region and used for scientific purposes.
In that same year a second Badlands fossil turned up, this one a well-preserved head of an ancestral camel, given to or purchased by the great scholar, Dr. Joseph Leidy. With true academic ardor both of these gentlemen, Leidy and Prout, rushed their discoveries into scholarly print, describing in learned journals the nature of their trophies. Enjoying the slender circulation of academic publication, the essays which described these fossil wonders eventually found their way into the offices of the government’s geological survey, which acted quickly to dispatch an expedition to the overlooked region of their origin.
That first exploring party, the David Owen Survey, went into the field in 1849. A prominent scientist-artist, Dr. John Evans, was attached to the group, and from his pen we have several sketches of this pioneer adventure into the empty wastelands. If these drawings look more like studies of Dante’s Inferno than like the breath-taking Badlands as they really are, it must be remembered that such geological formations had never before been visited by the members of that party, and, being completely alien to the America of their knowledge, impressed them every bit as a visit to the moon might have done.
The Owens party was merely the vanguard of the great army of brave men and women who have ever since made their dangerous ways into the remotest distances of the mountain and desert West, seeking neither riches of gold nor riches of land, but only more minute bits of the knowledge of the world of our past. Archeologists, geologists, and paleontologists from universities and learned societies the world over have spent liberally of their time, energies, and personal safety to scout out the secrets of mankind’s past in such remote corners of the earth as the Badlands. Year after year additional expeditions, both governmental and privately organized, made their way into this particular area, seeking out the fossil remains which turned up in great numbers.
V. F. Hayden of the United States Geological Survey was one of the most diligent of the early explorers. He made trips into the Badlands in 1853, 1855, 1857, and 1866, carrying on detailed and exhaustive studies and eventually unraveling the story of the region’s major geologic features.
As Hayden’s reports became more and more widely circulated, various universities found projects of specific interest in one or another phase of the work of uncovering fossil beds; and from year to year Yale, Princeton, Amherst, the universities of South Dakota and Nebraska, and other institutions sent groups into the Badlands for summer work. Gradually, as these several groups exchanged information and reports of progress, it became possible for their scientists to trace back, through the skeletal remains of prehistoric animals, the very processes of the evolution of many entire families in the animal kingdom. Not only are the fossil beds of the Badlands as richly stocked with remains as any such bed in the world, but in a great many instances entire groups of three, four, and five whole skeletons have been found, making it possible for museum workers to re-create almost perfectly the animals as they existed and to set up models of the terrain at various intervals throughout its entire sixty-million-year history.
Perhaps the most noteworthy as well as view-worthy section of the Badlands is Sheep Mountain, located at the far west end of the Monument. Down from the summit runs a great canyon, the School of Mines Canyon, named for the fact that the South Dakota State School of Mines at Rapid City long ago chose that location for the bulk of its paleontological research. Under the guidance of famed Dr. Cleophas O’Harra, for many years president of that institution, groups of Mines students went on extended annual encampments on Sheep Mountain, unearthing, among other rarities, full skeletons of the prehistoric midget horse, the saber-toothed tiger, and camels. It was this last discovery that lent considerable support to the concept, conjectural at the time of Dr. O’Harra’s discoveries, that a land bridge had once connected North America and Asia, allowing the migration of peoples and animals from the old world into the new. School of Mines Canyon, while some distance off the main highway leading from Pierre to the Black Hills, is by all means worth the time required to visit it. The canyon lies only thirteen miles from the town of Scenic.
The Badlands are reached by Highway 14-16 and by State Route 40. Coming from the west, from Rapid City, the visitor can take route 40 directly to the town of Scenic, forty-seven miles distant. From Scenic, in addition to connecting with the side trip to Sheep Mountain, 40 continues along the north wall of the Badlands all the way to Cedar Pass and out the east end of the region, merging at Kadoka with Highway 16, or, by means of a nine-mile connection, with 14.
Should the weather be bad and State 40 not recommended by local informers, the route is out of Rapid City on 14-16, east fifty-five miles to the town of Wall, thence by the access road through the Pinnacles, down into the Badlands halfway between Scenic and Cedar Pass, and joining State 40.
From the east, Highway 16 goes through Kadoka, from which town State 40 should be taken, leading in through Cedar Pass, and out either through Scenic and on to Rapid City, or at the Pinnacles, through Wall and back on 14-16. Coming from Pierre on 14, the tourist must leave that highway a few miles beyond the town of Philip and make the nine-mile detour on 16 to Kadoka, from there going on to Cedar Pass as described.
Several railroads serve the Badlands and its general region, notably the Chicago & Northwestern, the Burlington, and the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul. This last road, the “Milwaukee,” offers the traveler the best view of the region, winding up the White River Valley the entire sixty-five miles between Kadoka and Scenic, and providing the passenger with unparalleled if hasty views of some of the most rugged and isolated portions of all the area.
Bibliography
Allsman, Paul T. Reconnaissance of Gold Mining Districts in the Black Hills, South Dakota. U.S. Bureau of Mines, No. 427. Washington, D. C.: U.S. Dept. of Interior, 1940.
Baldwin, G. P., editor. The Black Hills Illustrated. Philadelphia: Baldwin Syndicate, 1904.
Carpenter, F. R. The Mineral Resources of the Black Hills. South Dakota School of Mines Preliminary Report, No. 1. Rapid City: South Dakota School of Mines, 1888.
Casey, Robert J. The Black Hills. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1949.
Dick, Everett. Vanguards of the Frontier. New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1941.
Eloe, Frank. “Rushmore Cave,” Black Hills Engineer, XXIV (December, 1938), 274.
Fenton, C. L. “South Dakota’s Badlands,” Nature Magazine, XXIV (August, 1941), 370-74.
Glasscock, C. B. The Big Bonanza. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1931.
Hans, Fred. The Great Sioux Nation. Chicago: Donahue, 1907.
Hayden, F. V. and Meek, F. B. “Remarks on Geology of the Black Hills,” Academy of Natural Science Proceedings. Philadelphia: Academy of Natural Science, 1858, X, 41-59.
Hough, Emerson. The Passing of the Frontier. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921.
Kingsbury, G. W. History of Dakota Territory. Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Co., 1915.
Lake, Stuart. Wyatt Earp. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931.
Mirsky, Jeannette. The Westward Crossings. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946.
Newton, Henry. Geology of the Black Hills. Washington, D. C.: United States Geographical and Geological Survey, 1880.
O’Harra, C. C. “The Gold Mining Industry of the Black Hills,” Black Hills Engineer, XIX (January, 1931), 3-9.
——. The White River Badlands. Department of Geology, No. 13. Rapid City: South Dakota School of Mines, 1920.
Rothrach, E. P. A Hydrologic Study of the White River Valley. South Dakota Geological Survey Report. Vermillion, South Dakota: University of South Dakota, February, 1942.
Todd, James Edward. A Preliminary Report on the Geology of South Dakota. South Dakota Geological Survey, No. 1. Vermillion: University of South Dakota, 1894.
Tullis, E. L. “The Geology of the Black Hills,” Black Hills Engineer, XXV (April, 1939), 26-38.
Footnotes
Index
A B C D E F G H I J K L Mc M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
- A
- Abilene (Kan.), 84, 98
- Adams Memorial Museum, 103, 107
- Alaska, 73
- Algonkian Period, 19
- American Fur Company, 120
- Amherst College, 122
- Anchor City (S.D.), 63
- Archean Period, 17-18
- Archean sea, 20
- Atlantic (Iowa), 88
- B
- Badlands, White River, 4, 6, 42, 115-17
- Bass, Sam, 79-81, 82-83, 85, 90
- Battle Mountain, 7
- Beadle & Adams, 90, 95
- Beaver Creek, 86
- Belle Fourche (S.D.), 6
- Belle Fourche River, 56
- Belle Fourche Round-up, 46
- Big Horn Basin, 66
- Big Horn River, 53
- Bismarck (S.D.), 53
- Black Bart, 78
- Black Hills & Badlands Assn., 44
- Black Hills Range Days, 46
- Black Hills Teachers College, 12
- Black Moon (Indian Chief), 66
- Blackfeet tribe, 49
- Blodgett, Sam, 71
- Borglum, Gutzon, 37-39
- Bozeman Trail, 51-53
- Brule tribe, 49, 52
- “Broken Hand.” See Fitzpatrick, Thomas
- Buffalo Bill, 99
- Burlington Railroad, 8
- C
- Calamity Jane, 77, 90-91, 94, 107-11
- Calamity Jane, 109
- California, 47, 50, 62, 75
- Cambrian Period, 19-20
- Cambrian sea, 20
- Canyon Springs, 86, 89
- Carlsbad Caverns, 28, 43
- Carson, Kit, 55
- Cathedral Park, 33
- Central City (S.D.), 63
- Cheyenne (Wyo.), 4, 59-61, 69, 80-81, 86, 89, 99
- Cheyenne-Black Hills Stage, 69, 80
- Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage, 4, 9
- Cheyenne Indians, 7
- Cheyenne River, 116
- Chicago (Ill.), 6, 34, 49
- Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, 7
- Clarke, Dick, 93
- Colorado, 32-33, 47, 58
- Coolidge, President Calvin, 31, 38, 93
- Crazy Horse (Indian Chief), 40, 52, 54, 61, 65-67
- Cripple Creek (Colo.), 72
- Crocker, Charles, 78
- Crook, General, 59, 64-66, 110
- Crystal Cave, 23
- Custer (S.D.), 6, 9, 10-11, 30-31, 40, 42-43, 46, 59, 61, 63, 70-71, 105
- Custer, General George Armstrong, 1, 10, 54-57, 64-67, 78, 80
- Custer State Park, 19, 30
- Custer’s Last Stand, 68
- D
- Darrall, Duke, 90
- Days of ’76, 46, 92
- Dead Man’s Hand (poker), 95
- Deadtree Gulch, 71
- Deadwood (S.D.), 4, 11, 20, 46, 69, 81-84, 86, 91, 99, 101, 105-6, 110-11
- Deadwood City (S.D.), 76
- Deadwood Dick, 77, 90-94
- Deadwood Dick, Jr., 92
- Deadwood Gulch, 10, 46, 71, 73
- Denver (Colo.), 3-4, 49, 60, 96, 109
- Devonian Period, 22
- Dodge, General Grenville, 51
- Dodge City (Kan.), 84
- E
- Earp, Wyatt, 84-86
- Egan, Capt. Pat, 110
- Estes Park, 3
- Evans, Fred T., 7
- Evans Hotel, 7
- Evans, John, 120
- F
- Fair, James, 78
- Fellows, Dick, 78
- Fitzpatrick, Thomas, 50
- Fort Ellis, 64
- Fort Fetterman, 64
- Fort Laramie, 50-52, 57
- Fort Lincoln, 53, 57
- Fort Pierre, 7, 13, 80
- Fort Sully, 51
- French Creek, 57, 69, 70
- G
- Gall (Indian Chief), 66
- Game Lodge, 31-33
- Gayville (S.D.), 63
- Gibbon, General John, 64-65
- Gold, discovered in the Black Hills, 3
- Gold Discovery Days, 11, 46
- Golden Gate (S.D.), 63
- Golden Star mine, 73
- Golden Terra mine, 73, 75
- Gordon party, 60
- Great Plains, 49
- H
- Haggin, James Ben Ali, 74
- Harney Peak, 1, 19, 32, 35-36, 40
- Harney-Sanborne Treaty, 53
- Hayden, V. F., 121
- Hays City (Kan.), 98, 110
- Hearst, Senator George, 74-75
- Hearst, William Randolph, 74
- Hickok, Wild Bill, 90, 94-97, 100-102, 107-8
- Hinckley’s Overland Express, 96
- Homestake Mine, 69, 72-76, 80, 87, 89
- Homestake Mining Co., 75
- Hot Springs (S.D.), 6, 8-9, 11, 29, 34
- J
- Jefferson, President Thomas, 37, 39
- Jenney Stockade, 86
- Jennings, Dr., 7
- Jewel Cave, 11, 23, 42, 44
- Jones, Seth, 90
- Julesburg (Colo.), 97
- L
- Lake, Agnes, 99
- Laramie (Wyo.), 61
- Last Chance Gulch, 73
- Lead (S.D.), 75
- Legend of Sam Bass, 79
- Leidy, Dr. Joseph, 120
- Lincoln, President Abraham, 37, 39
- Lincoln Highway, 4
- Little Big Horn River, 10, 68
- Luenen (Germany), 12
- M
- Manuel, Fred, 73-75
- Manuel, Moses, 73-75
- Meier, Joseph, 12
- Miles City (Mont.), 6
- Minneapolis (Minn.), 6
- Minnekahta Canyon, 7
- Minnesota, 50
- Minniconjou tribe, 49
- Mississippian Period, 22
- Missouri, 97, 108
- Missouri River, 2, 6, 49, 53, 88
- Missouri Valley, 48, 50
- Mogollon (mountains), 63
- Montana, 10, 47, 51, 64
- Mount Coolidge, 41
- Mount Evans, 33
- Mount Moriah Cemetery, 103, 107, 113
- Mount Rushmore, 37, 39, 40-41
- Mount Washington, 32
- Mumey, Nolie, 109
- Murietta, Joaquin, 78
- N
- National Park Service, 28, 30, 43, 45
- Nebraska, 42, 54, 88
- Needles, The, 33
- Needles Highway, 33-35
- Nevada, 47
- Newcastle (Wyo.), 43
- Niobrara River, 54
- North America, 17, 20, 24, 75
- North Platte River, 2, 64
- Number Ten, 99-100
- O
- Oglala tribe, 49, 52, 65
- O’Harra, Dr. Cleophas, 123
- Omaha (Neb.), 4, 49
- Ordovician Period, 22
- Oregon Trail, 51
- Oregon-California Trail, 2
- Owen Survey, 120
- P
- Paha Sapa (Indian name for Black Hills), 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 48
- Paleozoic Era, 19
- Passion Play, 72
- Pearson, John, 71-72
- Pierre (S.D.), 2, 6, 51
- Pikes Peak, 58, 62
- Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, 40
- Platte River, 50
- Platte River-Oregon Trail, 49
- Platte Valley, 60, 96
- Portland-Independence Mine, 72
- Powder River Valley, 65
- Preacher Smith, 90-91, 104-5
- Princeton University, 122
- Prout, Prof. Hiram, 119-20
- R
- Rapid City (S.D.), 4, 6-7, 11, 13-14, 31, 46, 49
- Rawlins (Wyo.), 109
- Red Cloud (Indian Chief), 52-53
- Reno, Major, 67-68
- Reynolds, Charley, 57
- Rhodes, Eugene Manlove, 18
- Rio Grande Valley, 19
- Robinson, Will, 108
- Rocky Mountains, 1, 3, 15, 34, 37, 50, 62, 96, 116
- Roosevelt, President Theodore, 37, 39
- Rosebud Creek, 65
- Ross, H. N., 55
- S
- St. Joseph (Mo.), 49, 96
- St. Louis (Mo.), 49, 57
- St. Paul (Minn.), 49
- San Arc tribe, 49
- San Francisco (Calif.), 74-75
- Santa Fe Trail, 49
- Santee Sioux, 50
- School of Mines Canyon, 123
- Seventh Cavalry, 110
- Sheridan, General Phil, 56-57
- Sidney (Neb.), 13, 61, 69, 75, 80
- Sidney Short Route, 80
- Silurian Period, 22
- Silver Heels, 112
- Sioux Indians, 7, 61, 63
- Sioux War, 69
- Sitting Bull (Indian Chief), 54, 64, 66-67
- Smith, Rev. Henry. See Preacher Smith
- South Dakota, 2, 4, 13, 30, 36, 44, 93
- Spearfish (S.D.), 6, 11, 13, 48
- Spencer, Joseph, 34
- Springfield (Mo.), 97
- Standing Bear (Indian Chief), 40
- Stanford, Leland, 78
- Sunday Creek, 35
- Sylvan Lake, 33-36, 39
- T
- Ten Nights in a Barroom, 103
- Terry, General, 63-64
- Teton Sioux, 2, 49
- Texas Rangers, 79
- Thoen, Louis, 48
- Thunderhead Mountain, 40-41
- Trial of Jack McCall, The, 103
- Triassic Period, 24
- Two Kettle tribe, 49
- U
- Union Pacific Railroad, 13, 49, 58, 80
- University of Nebraska, 122
- University of South Dakota, 122
- Unkpapa tribe, 49
- Ussher, Archbishop James, 17
- Utah, 109
- W
- War Department, 59
- Washington (D.C.), 58, 61, 93
- Washington, President George, 37, 39, 91
- Wells Fargo, 74, 83-84
- Wheeler, Edward L., 91
- White, George, 109
- White River, 116
- White River Badlands. See Badlands
- Wild Bill Hickok, 90, 94-97, 100-102, 107-8
- Wind Cave, 23, 27-29, 42-44
- Wind Cave Park, 41
- Witwatersrand, 72
- Wood Lake, battle of, 51
- Wright, Frank Lloyd, 117
- Wyoming, 4, 9, 32, 42, 86