Planning a Trip to South Dakota & Wyoming

Rafter J Bar Ranch is a very nice cg in Hill City SD and the bike trail you mentioned runs right next to it. Hill City and several other small towns in the area are also interesting. Custer SP is great with the wildlife loop and the Needles area but DO NOT take your RV on these areas or Iron Mtn. Rd. If you do not see many bison stop at the small ranger station on the loop and they generally can tell you what dirt road to go down to see them. Walk the Mt. Rushmore park to get the real feeling and value of this monument. The Corn Palace may be hokey to some but I had never seen anything like it before and really enjoyed it.

SDcampowneroperator wrote:
Demoted lt. col. Custer not Gen. ( for his attack on non belligerents) against Gen. staff orders attacked the native encampment on little big horn river in Montana, June 25-26 1876.
(snip) I am a student of the land I Iive on and ( wrongly? ) own.

Actually, if you want to be accurate, the info is not correct about Custer. Custer never held the official rank of General. Custer's rank of general (LtGen and Major General) during the Civil War was a brevet rank. Brevet ranks were very common back then. They are not permanent ranks but temporary appointments to be held for the duration of a certain period. A lot of officers during the Civil War were appointed to brevet ranks. A person appointed to a brevet rank knows it is not permanent and they will lose the brevet rank at the end of the period. A brevet rank cannot be made permanent. His permanent rank all during the Civil War remained Captain. After the Civil War basically was a reduction in force of active military units. Since the brevet rank was a temporary appointment for the duration of the war Custer went back to his permanent rank of Captain. He was later promoted to LTC which is the rank he held at the time of his death. Custer was never demoted because he never held the permanent rank and could not keep the brevet rank after the war.
Just a bit of military trivia. For those never in the military or who never studied such things it sounds a bit confusing since they don't understand officer rank structure, particularly as it was handled back then.

Horsedoc wrote:
Not recommending staying there, but if you do, you are visiting history in the area. Right across the barbed wire fence on the side road of Wheels West is where Custer camped on his expedition to ostensibly to run the white men out of the Black Hills. There is a monument to one of his men who died and is buried there. Just up the road a couple hundred yards is where his expedition found gold on French Creek leading to the Indians being driven from their sacred hills. Across hiway 16 and again on the banks of French Creek is the site of the original Stockade settlement the trespassers had built before Custer arrived.

Now the RV Park itself has a great little café for breakfasts and the food is fantastic. There may be a couple of good sites, but the one we were in is too narrow and one could actually fall off the site pad and down an embankment.
Easy access to the area, but not a place we will stay again.

close description, but wrong historical years. Custers expedition was in 1874, the discovery of gold in French Creek at the site of the Wheels West Camp by a prospector in his expedition is what started the rush. In 1875, the first group of gold seekers came to Custer and built the stockade in violation of the 1868 ft. Laramie treaty. In 1876 the massive rush to the Black Hills precipitated the tribes to unite to respond to the invasion of their lands. In response Pres. Grant sent the army under Gen.s Miles and Crook to regotiate a peace with show of force and promise of cooperation to remove the invaders of treaty lands. Demoted lt. col. Custer not Gen. ( for his attack on non belligerents) against Gen. staff orders attacked the native encampment on little big horn river in Montana, June 25-26 1876. The natives were wronged. SCOTUS has awarded the tribes $$$$$$'s judgement for the lands, for which the tribes refuse to accept, demanding the return of all federal lands in the 1868 treaty to their ownership as 'sacred'.
I am not a native american My ancestors came from over there like yours.
I am a student of the land I Iive on and ( wrongly? ) own.

Horsedoc wrote:
Not recommending staying there, but if you do, you are visiting history in the area. Right across the barbed wire fence on the side road of Wheels West is where Custer camped on his expedition to ostensibly to run the white men out of the Black Hills. There is a monument to one of his men who died and is buried there. Just up the road a couple hundred yards is where his expedition found gold on French Creek leading to the Indians being driven from their sacred hills. Across hiway 16 and again on the banks of French Creek is the site of the original Stockade settlement the trespassers had built before Custer arrived.

Now the RV Park itself has a great little café for breakfasts and the food is fantastic. There may be a couple of good sites, but the one we were in is too narrow and one could actually fall off the site pad and down an embankment.
Easy access to the area, but not a place we will stay again.

and a few miles down the dirt road across the highway criss-crossing French Creek, you'll find where I played Davey Crockett as a young kid ... :) or Davey Crockett played me?
Disclaimer - I know history tells us that Davey Crockett was not in the Black Hills ... but I did have a coonskin cap :)

gkainz wrote:
Flintstone Village is now closed but I believe the campground is still in operation as Buffalo Ridge Camp Resort. I don't know anything else about that change except I think it was purchased by an old high school classmate. I guess I don't have any young high school classmates any more ... :)

Ya. We stayed there back in 05 and both the theme park and campground were looking run down! Too bad, it was a decent place to stay!

Not recommending staying there, but if you do, you are visiting history in the area. Right across the barbed wire fence on the side road of Wheels West is where Custer camped on his expedition to ostensibly to run the white men out of the Black Hills. There is a monument to one of his men who died and is buried there. Just up the road a couple hundred yards is where his expedition found gold on French Creek leading to the Indians being driven from their sacred hills. Across hiway 16 and again on the banks of French Creek is the site of the original Stockade settlement the trespassers had built before Custer arrived.

Now the RV Park itself has a great little café for breakfasts and the food is fantastic. There may be a couple of good sites, but the one we were in is too narrow and one could actually fall off the site pad and down an embankment.
Easy access to the area, but not a place we will stay again.

Flintstone Village is now closed but I believe the campground is still in operation as Buffalo Ridge Camp Resort. I don't know anything else about that change except I think it was purchased by an old high school classmate. I guess I don't have any young high school classmates any more ... :)

Yes Custer is a good choice. we stayed at Flintstones Bedrock City when the kids were little. they loved checking out all the displays even though they didn't even know who the Flintstones were. then on the way back from Glacier NP we stayed at Horse Thief Campground on Needles HWY just outside Hill City. Hill City is more centrally located.

Roy&Lynne wrote:

We were at Devils tower this summer and I would suggest not to take your rig in as there were tons of people and its an old park with tight parking

I agree on the parking but there is a KOA right outside the gate that is pretty nice and reasonably priced.

I would consider using the town of Custer as my base. Its a nice little town and centered right in the middle of everything you want to see

Agree. We stayed in Custer's Gulch for a week. Would go back there.