50 Fun Facts About Badlands National Park

Which famous carved memorial lies about 60 miles west of Wall, the park's gateway town?

Its opening in the 1930s sent a stream of thirsty motorists past Wall on the way to the Black Hills.

Besides eroded buttes and pinnacles, the park protects the largest undisturbed example of what in the US?

Grasses there range from ankle-high to waist-high, a transition zone between the wetter tallgrass prairies to the east and the shortgrass plains to the west.

The Lakota name for the area, Makȟóšiča, translates literally as what?

French-Canadian trappers called it 'les mauvaises terres pour traverser', bad lands to travel through; extreme temperatures, no water and rugged terrain earned both names.

The park's South Unit, or Stronghold District, is co-managed by the NPS and which tribe?

The unit lies on the Pine Ridge Reservation; plans for a tribally run national park there have been discussed for years but have not yet happened.

Which president signed the 1929 law authorising Badlands National Monument on his final day in office?

The conditions included buying up private land and building a 30-mile highway, so it took a full decade before Franklin Roosevelt could proclaim the monument in 1939.

In which year was Badlands redesignated from a national monument to a national park?

Its decade-long creation in the 1930s ran in parallel with the carving of the presidents in the Black Hills, part of a federal push to develop western South Dakota for tourism.

What is the highest point in the park?

At 3,340 feet it stands in the South Unit; the Sharps Formation, the youngest layer, caps the park's highest peaks.

The park's main visitor center is named after Ben Reifel. Who was he?

A Sicangu Lakota born in a log cabin on the Rosebud Reservation, he served five terms as a Republican from 1961 to 1971 and was the only Native American in Congress during the 1960s.

The Ben Reifel Visitor Center was built in 1957–58 under which National Park Service programme?

The ten-year plan aimed to modernise park facilities by the Service's 50th anniversary in 1966.

Which 1990 Best Picture winner was partly filmed in the park?

Kevin Costner's epic won seven Oscars; the bison hunt was shot at a buffalo ranch near Fort Pierre.

Where was the 1868 treaty promising the Badlands would forever belong to the Sioux signed?

The government broke it in 1889; a 1980 Supreme Court ruling awarded compensation, but the Sioux have refused to take the money.

One of the last Ghost Dances of 1890 was held on which flat-topped mesa in the park's South Unit?

The area is revered by the Sioux as a ceremonial site rather than a place to live; the dancers returned to Pine Ridge as winter closed in.

The Ghost Dance movement of 1890 followed the vision of which Paiute prophet?

Also known as Jack Wilson, he said he fell into a trance during the solar eclipse of 1 January 1889 and saw the dead return and the white man vanish.

Ghost Dance followers wore special shirts believed to have what power?

The prophecy said the buffalo and the dead would return; the movement collapsed after the killings of December 1890.

Chief Spotted Elk's band crossed the Badlands Wall in December 1890 on the way to which tragedy?

Nearly 300 Lakota and 30 soldiers died; it was the last major clash between Plains Indians and the army until the American Indian Movement standoff on the same ground in 1973.

Which people, now part of North Dakota's Three Affiliated Tribes, hunted the Badlands before the Lakota?

Charcoal from their campfires and the tools they used to butcher bison and rabbits still erode out of the stream banks.

The Badlands hold the richest known deposits of mammal fossils from which geological epoch?

They give a glimpse of life about 33 million years ago; the Lakota had already deduced from the bones and shells that the land was once under water.

Physician Hiram Prout attributed the first published Badlands fossil, an 1846 jaw fragment, to what creature?

Joseph Leidy renamed it Titanotherium prouti in 1849; by 1854, 77 of the 84 fossil species known in North America came from the White River Badlands.

Which Yale professor visited in 1870 and pioneered better ways to extract near-complete skeletons?

The South Dakota School of Mines has sent researchers almost every year since 1899 and remains one of the most active institutions working the beds.

The park's oldest rock, the Pierre Shale, was laid down 75 million years ago at the bottom of what?

The Western Interior Seaway left fossils of ammonites and mosasaurs; it drained away as the Rockies rose and was gone by the time of the dinosaur extinction.

The colourful band called the Yellow Mounds is what, geologically?

It formed on the old marine rocks before the river sediments of the White River Group buried it between about 37 and 23 million years ago.

Roughly how fast do the bare Badlands slopes erode in summer thunderstorms?

The loose White River sediments soak up little rain, so brief downpours strip them fast; the landscape is only about two million years old and still actively wearing away.

The ash beds preserved in the upper rock layers came from volcanic eruptions in which region?

Repeated eruptions to the west dusted the floodplains; the Brule Formation between them dates to about 32 to 26 million years ago.

Which critically endangered mammal, once declared extinct, was reintroduced to the Badlands Wilderness?

About 100 now live in the park's Conata Basin; the species was written off in 1979 until a ranch dog in Meeteetse, Wyoming turned one up in 1981.

The park's reintroduced ferrets depend almost entirely on which animal for food and shelter?

One scat study found they made up 87% of the ferret's diet; the ferrets also raise their young in the burrows, which is why sylvatic plague in the towns is so dangerous to them.

The park's bison herd began in 1963 with 50 animals shipped from which other national park?

The herd has grown past 1,200; in 2019 its range was expanded by 22,000 acres with 43 miles of new fencing.

Which endangered bird has a small, non-self-sustaining wild population in the park?

It shares the endangered list with the ferret; more common park birds include the black-billed magpie.

The most common grass in the park is also South Dakota's official state grass. What is it?

It grows one to three feet tall; trees and shrubs occur, but grasses dominate the whole landscape.

Which of these animals is NOT on the park's wildlife list?

Bison, elk, coyotes, bobcats, porcupines and prairie rattlesnakes are all present; the bighorn population has climbed to about 233.

The Badlands Wilderness, designated in 1976, covers about what fraction of the park?

There are no designated trails and camping is allowed anywhere; hunting, bicycles and any motorised vehicles are banned under the 1964 Wilderness Act.

What was the standard size of a homestead when settlers first tried farming the Badlands?

Far too little to feed a family in the semi-arid wind; it was raised to 640 acres in the western Dakotas in 1916, and the Dust Bowl drove most settlers out anyway.

A 1929 South Dakota advertisement trying to lure settlers to the Badlands rebranded the area as what?

It promised 'marvelous scenic and recreational advantages'; the sod houses those settlers built were abandoned within a decade.

During World War II the Army Air Force turned most of today's Stronghold District into what?

Pilots from Ellsworth Air Force Base bombed plowed bulls-eyes 250 feet across; unexploded ordnance still litters the ground.

What did wartime crews use as ground targets on the Badlands range?

Planes also towed 60-by-8-foot screens and 'target drones' as moving targets; at least a dozen aircrew died in crashes there.

Among the 125 families forced off the bombing range in the 1940s was Dewey Beard, notable as what?

Neighbours who stayed recalled diving under tractors while cutting hay as bombs fell miles outside the boundary; a church and post office in Interior were hit by shells.

What extreme high temperature has been recorded at the park's Interior weather station?

The record low is −31 °F, an 145-degree swing; annual precipitation averages just under 20 inches, most of it in June.

The park has two campgrounds: Cedar Pass and which other?

Cedar Pass Lodge adds cabins and a restaurant; the short trails near the visitor center include the Door, Notch and Window trails.

Wall Drug, the tourist emporium beside the park, first drew crowds in the 1930s by advertising what?

Ted Hustead's wife Dorothy had the idea for motorists heading west to the newly opened memorial in the Black Hills; by 1981 the store claimed to hand out 20,000 cups a day in summer.

What towering figure at Wall Drug can be seen from Interstate 90?

Sculptor Emmet Sullivan, who also built Rapid City's Dinosaur Park, designed it; the store also has a chapel and a western art gallery.

How big was the town of Wall when pharmacist Ted Hustead bought its drugstore in 1931?

He was looking for a small town with a Catholic church and admitted he had picked 'the middle of nowhere'; his grandson Rick runs the store today.

The Cold War historic site near Wall, South Dakota, preserves the last intact example of which missile system?

About 450 of the newer Minuteman III missiles remain on duty in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming; the South Dakota silos were chosen for the historic site partly for being close to I-90 and the park.

Dances with Wolves (1990) was the first Western to win Best Picture since which 1931 film?

Only two Westerns have won since: Unforgiven in 1992 and No Country for Old Men in 2007.

Which Canadian province has a famous badlands region around Drumheller and Dinosaur Provincial Park?

The Red Deer River valley there is home to the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology; the Spanish term malpaís, by contrast, means rough lava country, not eroded clay.

Roughly how large is Badlands National Park?

That is about 379 square miles, spread across the North Unit along the Badlands Wall and the larger South Unit on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Besides Dances with Wolves, which 1992 thriller was partly filmed in Badlands National Park?

Val Kilmer's FBI agent investigates a murder on a Sioux reservation in a story loosely inspired by the 1970s Wounded Knee standoff.

How far south of the park is Wounded Knee, on the Pine Ridge Reservation?

The 1890 massacre there was the last major clash between Plains Indians and the US military until the 1973 standoff at the same site.

From which sequence of sediments, laid down 37 to 23 million years ago, are the badlands eroded?

From oldest to youngest it comprises the Chamberlain Pass, Chadron, Brule and Sharps formations, the last capping the park's highest peaks.

Which institution has sent researchers to the White River Badlands almost every year since 1899?

It remains one of the most active research bodies working the fossil beds, which have drawn scientists from around the world.

Which of these hiking trails starts near the Ben Reifel Visitor Center?

The Door, Notch and Window trails are the park's other established short walks off the Loop Road.

Roughly how many bighorn sheep live in the park after recent population growth?

They share the mixed-grass prairie with bison, pronghorn, swift foxes and prairie rattlesnakes.