Custer State Park

Named for the officer whose 1874 expedition broke a treaty and triggered a gold rush into land promised to the Lakota, Custer State Park today protects one of the largest public bison herds in the world across some of the most dramatic terrain in the Black Hills.

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 had granted the Black Hills to the Lakota Sioux, but in 1874 Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led a military expedition into the region that confirmed the presence of gold, setting off a rush of prospectors that the U.S. government did little to stop, in direct violation of the treaty. The influx of miners and settlers that followed would lead to further conflict and, eventually, the loss of the Black Hills to the Lakota entirely.

Decades later, South Dakota set aside a large tract of the Black Hills as Custer State Forest and Game Sanctuary in 1912, redesignating it Custer State Park in 1919. The park, spanning roughly 71,000 acres, became a refuge for wildlife nearly extirpated from the region, including bison, which were reintroduced and carefully managed to rebuild a sustainable herd.

That herd has grown into one of the largest publicly owned bison populations in the world, roughly 1,300 animals, managed since 1965 through an annual fall Buffalo Roundup that brings the herd together for health checks and population control. The park's scenic Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Road, cut through dramatic granite spire formations, include tunnels deliberately aligned to frame distant views of Mount Rushmore, linking the park visually to its more famous Black Hills neighbor.