Page 443 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - USA

SOUTH D AK O T A  441

The eroded gullies as seen from Changing Scenes Overlook in Badlands National Park
The road loops back north gunfighters, and medicine- This was the last in a series of
to I-90 near Sage Creek show hucksters. mis understandings concerning
Wilderness Area, where golden The sprawling Buffalo Gap the ceremonial Ghost Dance,
eagles, hawks, and various National Grassland lies south, which the tribe believed would
songbirds gather in a vast west, and east of Wall. Its visitor reunite them with their
expanse of steep grasslands, center describes the ecological ancestors, bring the buffalo
festooned each summer and cultural history of the back, and help them regain
with wild-flowers. The park- grasslands. Exhibits outline the their lost lands. A lone stone
managed buffalo herd can be various habitats and illustrate monument, about 10 miles
seen grazing on large stretches the astonishing biodiversity of (16 km) east of the town of
of prairie. the shortgrass, mixed-grass, and Pine Ridge, marks the site.
tallgrass prairies, which once The Red Cloud Heritage
covered most of the region. Center, on the Red Cloud
Indian School campus near
P Wall Drug Pine Ridge, contains the
510 Main St. Tel (605) 279-2175. gravesite of Chief Red Cloud.
Open 7am–5:30pm daily (extended It also displays a range of
summer hours). ∑ walldrug.com Native American artifacts
} Buffalo Gap National and contemporary art.
Grassland Visitor Center
n 708 Main St, (605) 279-2125. P Red Cloud Heritage Center
Wall Drug, a shopping and Open Memorial–Labor Day: 8am– 4.5 miles (7 km) N of Pine Ridge
entertainment complex 5pm daily; Labor Day–Memorial Day: Village on Hwy 18. Tel (605) 867-
8am–4pm Mon–Fri. 7 8257. Open 9am–7pm Mon–Fri,
0 Wall 11am–5pm Sat, Sun. Closed public
* 800. @ n 501 Main St, (888) q Pine Ridge hols. 7 ∑ redcloudschool.org
852-9255. ∑ wall-badlands.com Reservation
Wall has been a thriving tourist n Oglala Sioux Tribe, Pine Ridge,
trade town since 1936, when (605) 867-6075.
local pharmacist Ted Hustead
put up signs along the highway Home to the Oglala Sioux tribe,
offering free ice water. This the Pine Ridge Reservation is
primitive road side advertising the nation’s second-largest
tactic soon grew into a state- Native American reservation.
wide slew of billboards, which The reservation lands abut the
still line I-90 all the way across South Dakota–Nebraska border
South Dakota. Hustead’s small- and extend west into the
town pharmacy, Wall Drug, is badlands region. The Oglala and
now a sprawling Wild West their chief, Red Cloud, were
shopping and enter tainment relocated here in 1876. On
complex. Along with Western December 29, 1890, the US
and Native American souvenirs Army’s 7th Cavalry massacred
are interactive exhibits of about 300 Lakota men, women, The Red Cloud Heritage Center at the Pine
cow boys, homesteaders, and children at Wounded Knee. Ridge Reservation

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