Q 01/05

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

A) Mount Rushmore

B) Crazy Horse Memorial

C) Devils Tower

D) Chimney Rock

Answer · why

A) Mount Rushmore

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

Q 02/05

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

A) Old-growth ponderosa forest

B) Mixed-grass prairie

C) Alkali salt flat

D) Cottonwood river bottom

Answer · why

B) Mixed-grass prairie

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 th...

Q 03/05

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

A) Striped hills

B) Dry water

C) Bad lands

D) Bone country

Answer · why

C) Bad lands

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

Q 04/05

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

A) Crow

B) Northern Cheyenne

C) Mandan

D) Oglala Lakota

Answer · why

D) Oglala Lakota

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.

Q 05/05

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

A) Herbert Hoover

B) Calvin Coolidge

C) Woodrow Wilson

D) Warren Harding

Answer · why

B) Calvin Coolidge

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 m...