Custer

Custer: 1881 Courthouse Museum

Custer, city, seat (1875) of Custer county, southwestern South Dakota, U.S. It lies in the southern Black Hills on French Creek, 5,318 feet (1,621 metres) above sea level. Custer is about 40 miles (65 km) southwest of Rapid City.

The town, the oldest in the Black Hills, was laid out in 1875 after gold was discovered (1874) in French Creek by miners accompanying Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer’s reconnaissance expedition. The community experienced a short-lived population boom, but soon the miners headed north to other gold centres such as Deadwood and Lead.

Today tourism is the basis of the economy. There are mineral resources in the area, including feldspar, mica, and gemstones, but extraction of many minerals declined in the late 20th century. There is some logging in Black Hills National Forest, of which Custer is the headquarters. Nearby are Custer State Park (headquartered in the city), Norbeck Wildlife Preserve, Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Jewel Cave National Monument, Wind Cave National Park, and Black Elk Peak, the state’s highest point (7,242 feet [2,207 metres]). Badlands National Park is to the east, and Buffalo Gap National Grassland is east and south. Located 5 miles (8 km) north of Custer are the Indian Museum of North America and Crazy Horse Memorial, an unfinished colossal statue carved out of a mountain; American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski (1908–82) began carving the monumental portrait of the Sioux chief Crazy Horse in 1948 (the face was completed in 1998). Other museums display frontier and wood-carving memorabilia; a log cabin built in 1875 is preserved as a pioneer museum. Inc. 1883. Pop. (2010) 1,999; (2015 est.) 1,952.