Black Hills, South Dakota continued

Custer, South Dakota

This quaint, small, western type town is close to all major attractions of the Black Hills, like Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore.

The population of Custer totaled 1987 on the 2010 census.

Gold was discovered in 1874, which initiated the Black Hills Gold Rush.

Custer was all but  abandoned in 1876, when the much larger gold strike was discovered a few miles away in Deadwood Gulch.

Custer claims to have the widest Main Street in the United States. Wide enough for a 19th century oxen team, pulling a wagon to completely turn around.

After strolling down Main Street, we chose Bitter Ester's Brew House for lunch.

Besides being a craft brew house, home made sausage is their specialty. I had an Asian Sriracha patty sandwich, and it was awesome and different. Alan was more traditional and chose the bratwurst sausage patty sandwich. Both were excellent, as was the service and some of the beers.

The main street is adorned with awesome, bison (buffalo) art.





Wind Cave National Park

During Theodore Roosevelt's term in office,  Wind Cave was the first cave to be designated a national park,

Wind Cave National Park features the world’s largest concentration of rare boxwork formations along with a 28,295-acres of South Dakota wildlife sanctuary on the surface

This formation is called popcorn, as in popcorn ceilings.

 

 Back in days of the early cave explorers, it was customary to inscribe your name on the rock, as shown here from some explorers  from 1919.

Today, touching or defacing the rock formations is forbidden.

Unfortunately, due to lack of light, these flash photos do not do justice to this cave.

 

Deep into the cave, the Ranger turned off the light and we experienced total darkness. We learned that absence of all light will turn a person blind in a very short period of time.