Rising out of the prairie, the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming
had long been rumored to have promising quantities of gold. Sacred to
the Lakota, the Black Hills was part of the land reserved for them in
the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. However, the tide of prospectors
seeking their fortune in the Black Hills was difficult to stem. Members
of the 1874 Custer expedition, lead by Gen. George Armstrong Custer,
found gold. In 1875, scientists Henry Newton and Walter Jenney conducted
an expedition and confirmed the rumors. By 1876, the trickle of
prospectors and settlers coming to the Black Hills was a flood. The US
government realized that keeping the interlopers out was impossible, and
in 1877 the Black Hills was officially opened to settlement. In this
sequel to their Black Hills Gold Rush Towns book, the authors expand
their coverage of Black Hills towns during the gold-rush era.