Encyclopedia
The
Black Hills are a small, isolated
mountain range rising from the
Great Plains of
North America in western
South Dakota and extending into
Wyoming,
USA. Set off from the main body of the
Rocky Mountains, the region is somewhat of a geological anomaly—accurately described as an "island of trees in a sea of grass." The Black Hills are home to the tallest peaks of continental North America east of the Rockies.
History
Native Americans have inhabited the area since at least 7000 B.C.E. The
Arikara arrived by 1500 C.E., followed by the
Cheyenne,
Crow,
Kiowa and
Pawnee. The
Lakotaarrived from
Minnesota in the eighteenth century and drove out the other tribes, claiming the land, which they called
Paha Sapa, for themselves.
After the public discovery of
gold in the 1870s, the conflict over control of the region sparked the last major
Indian War on the Great Plains, the Black Hills War. The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie had previously confirmed the
Lakota ownership of the mountain range. But with that treaty being contested, they additionally claimed rights to the land saying that in their culture it was considered the
axis mundi, or sacred center of the world. However, some consider the claim a dubious pretention to keep the gold-rich territory since the Sioux tribe had only discovered the Black Hills about 100 years earlier and that they themselves took the land by force from its previous residents in 1776.
Although rumors of
gold in the Black Hills had circulated in North America for decades , Brevet Major General
George Armstrong Custer of the
7th US Cavalry led an expedition into the Black Hills in 1874; an official announcement of the presence of gold was made through newspaper reporters who accompanied the expedition. The following year, the first detailed survey of the Black Hills was conducted by the Newton-Jenney Party. The surveyor for the party, Dr.
Valentine McGillycuddy, was the first person to ascend to the top of
Harney Peak, the highest point in the Black Hills reaching nearly 7500 feet above sea level.
During the 1875–1878
gold rush, thousands of miners went to the Black Hills; in 1880, the area was the most densely populated part of
Dakota Territory. There were three large towns in the Northern Hills:
Deadwood,
Central City, and
Lead. Around these lay groups of smaller gold camps, towns, and villages.
Hill City and
Custer City sprang up in the Southern Hills, and railroads were already reaching the previously remote area. From 1880 on, the gold mines yielded about $4,000,000 annually, and the silver mines about $3,000,000 annually.
Following the defeat of the Lakota and their
Cheyenne and
Arapaho allies in 1876, the United States "purchased" the region from the Lakota. However, no actual purchase was ever completed and the area remains under dispute to this day. In 1980, the
Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Black Hills were illegally taken and that remuneration of the initial offering price plus interest — over $100 million — be paid. The Lakota refused the settlement, as they wanted the return of their land instead. The Lakota Nation still demands the return of the Black Hills to this day; with the help of former Senator
Bill Bradley of New Jersey, a bill was introduced in
Congress for the return of a portion of the Black Hills. The bill eventually failed due to lack of support from the South Dakota congressional delegation.
Unlike the rest of the Dakotas, the Black Hills were settled primarily from population centers to the west and south of the region, as miners flocked there from earlier gold boom locations in Colorado and Montana. Today, the South Dakota side of the Black Hills is economically and socially more like Wyoming or Colorado than the Dakotas. The nearby reservations and
Ellsworth Air Force Base make for a unique diversity in population unlike the rest of Wyoming or South Dakota.
Geology
The
geology of the Black Hills is complex. A Tertiary mountain-building episode is responsible for the uplift and current
topography of the Black Hills region. This uplift was marked by
volcanic activity in the northern Black Hills. The southern Black Hills are characterized by Precambrian
granite,
pegmatite, and
metamorphic rocks that comprise the core of the entire Black Hills uplift. This core is rimmed by Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic
sedimentary rocks.
The stratigraphy of the Black Hills is laid out very much like a target as it is an oval
dome, with rings of different rock types dipping away from the center.
Precambrian
The 'bulls eye' of this target is called the
granite core. The granite of the Black Hills was emplaced by magma generated during the Trans-Hudsonian orogeny and contains abundant
pegmatite. The core of the Black Hills has been dated to 1.8 billion years. There are other localized deposits that have been dated to around 2.2 to 2.8 billion years. One of these is located in the northern hills and is called Elk Creek Granite though it has been metamorphosed into
gneiss. The other is called the Bear Mountain complex and is located in the west central part of the hills.
Making a concentric ring around the core is the
metamorphic zone. The rocks in this ring are all very old, as much as 2.0 billion years and older. This zone is very complex, filled with many diverse rock types. The rocks were originally
sedimentary rocks but 1.8 billion years ago two continents collided forming the North American continent. This collision, called the Trans-Hudsonian Orogeny, caused the original rocks to fold and twist into a vast mountain range. Over the millions of years these tilted rocks, which in many areas are tilted to 90 degrees or more, eroded. Today we see the evidance of this erosion in the Black Hills, where the metamorphic rocks end in an angular
unconformity below the younger sedimentary layers.
Paleozoic
The final layers of the Black Hills consist of sedimentary rocks. The oldest of which lies on top of the metamorphic layers at a much shallower angle. This rock called the Deadwood Formation is mosly
sandstone and was the original source of
gold found in the Deadwood area. Above the Deadwood Formation lies the Englewood Formation and Paha Sapa
limestone which is the souce of the more than 200
caves found in the Black Hills, including
Jewel Cave and
Wind cave. The Minilusa Formation is next and is composed of highly variable sandstones and limestones followed by the Opeche
shale and the Minnikata limestone.
Mesozoic
The next rock layer, the Spearfish Formation forms a valley around the hills called the red valley. It is mostly a red shale with beds of
gypsum. These shale and gypsum beds as well as the nearby limestone beds of the Minnikata are used in the manufacture of
cement at a cement plant in
Rapid City. Next is the shale and sandstone Sundance Formation which is topped by the
Morrison Formation and the Unkpapa sandstone.
The outermost feature of the dome stands out as a hogback ridge. This ridge is made out of the Lakota Formation and the Fallriver sandstone which are collectivly called the Inyan Kara Group. Above this the layers of rocks are less distinct and are all mainly grey shale with three exceptions, the Newcastle sandstone, the Greenhorn limestone which contains many shark teeth
fossils, and the Niobrara Formation which is composed mainly of
chalk. These outer ridges are called
cuestas.
Cenozoic
The preceding
layers were deposted in a horizontal manner. All of them can be seen in core samples and well logs from the flatest parts of the
great plains. It took a period of uplift to bring them to their present topographical levels in the Black Hills. This uplift called the Laramide orogeny began around the beginning of the Cenozoic and left a line of
igneous rocks through the northern hills superimposed on the rocks already disscused. This line extends from Bear Butte in the east to
Devils Tower in the west. Evidance of Cenozoic
volcanic eruptions, if this happend, has long sence been erodid away.
The Black Hills also has a 'skirt' of
gravel covering it in areas called erosional terraces. Formed as the waterways cut down into the uplifting hills, they represent the former locations of todays rivers. These beds are generaly around 10,000 years old or younger judging by the artifacts and fossils found. There are a few places mainly in the high elevations were older, as old as 20MY according to camel and rodent fossils found, gravels have been found but for the most part these older beds have been eroded away.
Biosystems
As with the geology, the biology of the Black Hills is complex. Most of the Hills are a fire-climax
Ponderosa Pine forest, with
Black Hills Spruce occurring in cool moist valleys of the Northern Hills. Oddly, this endemic variety of spruce does not occur in the moist Bear Lodge Mountains, which make up most of the Wyoming portion of the Black Hills. Large open parks with lush grassland rather than forest are scattered through the Hills, and the southern portions of the Hills, due to the rainshadow of the higher elevations, are made up of dry grassland and scrub pine and juniper. Wildlife is both diverse and plentiful, with trout and other species in the creeks, while the forests and grasslands offer good habitat for buffalo, deer, antelope, big-horn sheep, mountain goats, mountain lions, and a variety of smaller animals, including prairie dogs. Biologically, the Black Hills is a meeting and mixing place, with species common to regions to the east, west, north and south all sharing a common habitat. The Hills do however, support some endemic faunal taxa, the most famous of which is White-winged Junco . The furthest point from the sea in the North America is located in the Black Hills.
Tourism and economy
The region is home to
Mount Rushmore National Memorial,
Wind Cave National Park,
Jewel Cave National Monument,
Harney Peak ,
Custer State Park , Bear Butte State Park,
Devils Tower National Monument, and the
Crazy Horse Memorial . The Black Hills also hosts the
Sturgis Motorcycle Rally each August. Started in 1940, the 65th Rally in 2005 saw more than 550,000 bikers visit the Black Hills; the rally is a key part of the regional economy.
The George S. Mickelson Memorial Trail is a recently opened multi-use path through the Black Hills. It follows the abandoned track of the historic railroad route from Edgemont to Deadwood. The train used to be the only way to bring supplies to the miners in the Hills. The trail is about 110 miles in length, and can be used by hikers, cross-country skiers, and bikers. The cost is two dollars per day, or ten dollars annually.
Today, the major city in the Black Hills is
Rapid City, with an incorporated population of over 70,000 and a metropolitan population of 125,000. It serves a market area covering much of five states: North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. In addition to tourism and mining , the Black Hills economy includes ranching , timber , Ellsworth Air Force Base, and some manufacturing, including jewelry , cement, electronics, cabinetry, guns and ammunition. In many ways, the Black Hills functions as a very spread-out urban area with a population of 250,000. Other important Black Hills cities include
Belle Fourche, a ranching town;
Spearfish, home of Black Hills State University; Deadwood, a historic and well-preserved gambling mecca; its twin city of Lead, home of the now-closed Homestake Mine ; Keystone outside Mount Rushmore;
Hill City, a timber and tourism town in the center of the Hills;
Custer, a mining and tourism town and headquarters for Black Hills National Forest; Hot Springs, an old resort town in the southern Hills; Sturgis, originally a military town ; and Newcastle, center of the Black Hills petroleum production and refining.
Black Hills in film
Several major motion pictures have been filmed in the Black Hills including
North by Northwest is a 1959 [i] MGM [i] thriller [i] by Alfred Hitchcock [i] and is generally consi ...
,
How the West Was Won,
A Man Called Horse,
Lakota Woman and
Dances with Wolves is a 1990 [i] epic film [i] which tells the story of a United States [i] cavalry [i] ...
. The Black Hills has been the setting of still more movies or portions thereof, including
Walt Disney's "The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band" and several movies based on
Louis L'Amour novels.
Steven Spielberg's "Into the West" includes a story line involving the discovery of gold in the Black Hills. The Black Hills is also the setting for the popular
HBO series
Deadwood, although the show is actually filmed in
California. However, the City Fathers of Deadwood have created a wooden "false front" street similar to the television set and the original town — a series of fires in the late 1800s destroyed all the original log and frame buildings, which were replaced with the brick and stone structures which grace the city today.
The film
Calamity Jane included the song "The Black Hills of Dakota," a salute to the mountains that the characters were traveling through.
See also
- The Needles
- Scenic roads in the Black Hills
References
External links
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