History

The Black Hills region has a rich natural and human history.

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History Details

The Black Hills National Forest covers area 125 miles long and 65 miles side, from South Dakota into part of Wyoming. The name comes from the Lakota word "Paha Sapa," or "hills that are black," because the pine forests appear black against the light green of the surrounding prairie. The Black Hills region has two kinds of geologic formations: volcanic and sedimentary. Some of the older rock formations in the area are the result of early mountain-building stages, where mountains formed under intense heat and pressure. Younger formations occurred over time as oceans grew and receded, depositing layers of sediment that eventually solidified into rock. Some rocks, like limestone and pegmatite are more resistant to erosion, whereas schists and other weaker rocks have succumbed to wind and weather, forming valleys. Wind Cave is part of the Madison Limestone formation, a large bed of limestone that was deposited as sediment over many years by a long-vanished ocean. As the ocean underwent patterns of expansion and recession, pockets of gypsum inside the limestone reef expanded and contracted, creating fissures that further expanded with period "uplift" periods in the Black Hills mountains. Over time, the gypsum combined with fresh rain water and got converted to calcite, freeing up its sulfur ions to produce sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid dissolves limestone, creating the caverns we see today. For thousands of years, the Black Hills was a place where Native American tribes went to vision-quest and purify themselves. In 1874, General George A. Custer discovered gold in the Black Hills region; settlement quickly followed, and soon the area was filled with mining and logging operations. In 1897, President Grover Cleveland named Black Hills a National Forest Reserve, and in 1905 the land was taken over by the Forest Service and became Black Hills National Forest. Wind Cave is named for the phenomenon created by a pressure differential: when the air pressure inside the cave is less than the pressure outside the cave, air rushes into the opening; when the pressure inside the cave is greater than the pressure outside, air rushes out of the cave. Hundreds of years ago, before modern excavation, Wind Cave's only exit to the terrestrial world was a small hole in the ground. The Lakota Sioux tribe considered this hole sacred, because of the loud wind that blew from it, and build tipi circles around it. Years later, the South Dakota Mining Company bought the land as a mining claim and hired J.D. McDonald to explore the cave for gold. McDonald was too scared to go down himself; his son Alvin took the plunge, instead. But Alvin wasn't interested in gold; he was interested in exploring and mapping out the cave. No gold was ever found, and in 1903 Wind Cave became the eighth U.S. national park.

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