Places Welcoming You
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Beaver Lake Campground Custer, South Dakota |
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Oasis Campground Chamberlain, South Dakota |
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Chris' Camp & RV Park Spearfish, South Dakota |
Come to Custer and you’ll understand why adventurers and free spirits love this rugged region. Custer and its surrounding sites are fun-filled playgrounds steeped in Wild West history.
To the north of town, the Black Hills National Forest has welcomed visitors to enjoy its 1.2-million acres since 1897, when President Grover Cleveland established it as a forest preserve. The Black Hills also served as a home for native tribes as early as 10,000 years ago, and this dramatic landscape has remained a home to diverse species as well as being sacred land for the Lakota Sioux.
Popular activities in the forest include trout fishing, hiking and backpacking along the 450 miles of trails. Warm summer days welcome boaters and water-skiers to the forest’s 11 reservoirs.
Drives through the Black Hills reveal stunning views of the Badlands terrain, carved by wind and water and blanketed in forests of deciduous and conifer trees.
A must-see stop for history buffs is Mount Rushmore National Memorial, 20 miles to the north. The looming stone portraits of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln look out over the Black Hills and welcome roughly three million visitors each year.
Be sure to stop in at the Lincoln Borglum Visitor Center, which shows an informative film about Rushmore every 20 minutes and houses exhibits that illustrate the work and story of Mount Rushmore’s creator, Gutzon Borglum.
Bison is boss in Custer State Park, just three miles to the east of town. This 71,000-acre state park is accessed via an 18-mile loop that gives travelers the best views of the herd of 1,300 of the hefty mammals, along with a variety of other local wildlife. When you’re not filling your camera with images of bison, check out the burros that boldly approach cars in search of snacks. Trout fishing brings anglers to the park’s four lakes, and guided nature walks entertain and inform.
Custer State Park is home to many eye-catching rock formations, including Needles Eye, a tight squeeze of a tunnel that’s not for the the claustrophobic.
To see a monumental sculpture in the making, travel about five miles south of Custer to Crazy Horse Memorial. The portrait of the iconic Lakota leader is in the process of being carved and blasted out of a 6,532-foot mountain.
Visit Custer
800-992-9818
South Dakota Department of Tourism
800-732-5682