Location: Meade Country, South Dakota
Park entrance license required: $5/day/vehicle or $23 for an annual
pass. Participants in religious activities exempt.
Camping &
Fees: $6/site. 16 sites (all non-electrical). Horse Camp: $8/site. 4
sites (all non-electrical). No showers. Water. Picnic shelter.
Bear Butte is a natural geologic formation in Meade Country, South
Dakota near a town of Sturgis. Bear Butte was designated as a State
Park in 1961. Before the arrival of white settlers Bear Butte was
revered as a religious site. Bear Butte was formed in the Eocene
Epoch 56 to 34 million years ago as an active volcano. Magma rose
from the depths of the Earth and solidified once it reached cooler
surface. In the subsequent years the volcano eroded away due to
natural erosion, but sold rock was left in place in distinct cone
like shape. Today it reaches a height of 1254 feet or 382 meters
above the surrounding plain, but it keeps eroding and its height
decreases.
First human settlements in the region date back
to 10,000 BC. It is unclear whether ancient people worshipped, but
Cheyenne and Lakota Sioux regarded it as a spiritual place.
Prominent leaders of Plains Indians came here on their pilgrimage.
It included chief Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and many
others. In 1857 a council of many Indian tribes and nations gathered
here to discuss encroachment of white settlers on the plains.
Cheyenne called it Noaha- vose (giving hill) or Nahkohe- vose (bear
hill), while Lakota called it Matho Paha (bear mountain). The name
stuck with the arrival of the European settlers. Originally US
government signed a treaty in 1868 that prohibited white people from
entering sacred lands of the natives, but it was broken almost as
soon as it became a law. Thus most notably George Armstrong Custer
camped near Bear Butte during his expedition to the Black Hills
where he confirmed deposits of gold.
After removal of the
native population the area was settled by farmers. Local resident
Ezra Bovee who owned lands in the proximity submitted requests to
give this geologic formation an official recognition. Finally his
family succeeded when in Bear Butte was turned into a Bear Butte
State Park in 1961 and added to the list of National Historic
Landmarks in 1965.
Camping & Fees: $6/site. 16 sites (all non-electrical). Horse Camp: $8/site. 4 sites (all non-electrical). No showers. Water. Picnic shelter.
The Indian tribes of the Great Plains, since their earliest recorded
history, have always maintained a strong spiritual connection to Bear
Butte. On this mountain the Cheyenne prophet Sweet Medicine (Sweet
Medicine in English-Motsé'eóeve in the Cheyenne language) received from
the Spirits the sacred arrows and the divine laws that would forever
guide the path of his people. The Cheyenne called that place Nóávóse
(Sacred Mountain), while for the Lakota it was Matȟó Pahá, (Bear
Mountain) a reference to the fact that his profile resembles that of a
sleeping bear. Bear Butte is often associated with the names of great
Indian chiefs, such as Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, and Spotted Tail. The
Lakota, in fact, gathered on this hill for their annual gatherings as
they believed that it represented the center of the Earth and the center
of the Great Circle of life. And it was during one of these gatherings
that Crazy Horse, the great Oglala war chief, was born in that region.
The name of the mountain was translated into English only in the
mid-nineteenth century by the cartographers who followed the expeditions
that began to explore the territories of Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.
The consequence of these expeditions was that in the summer of 1857
on Bear Butte there was a large gathering of the Sioux nations to decide
on how to counter the growing penetration of whites into the sacred
territory of the Black Hills.
The worst came in 1874, when a
military and scientific expedition led by George A. Custer entered the
Lakota territory still largely unexplored by the whites to verify, among
other things, the veracity of the rumors that spoke of the existence of
gold on the Blacks. Hills. The confirmation of the existence of the
precious metal on those hills exerted a strong appeal on thousands of
adventurers and Bear Butte, due to its particular shape, became a
certain point of reference for gold seekers and settlers who poured into
that region.
Even today, Bear Butte plays a significant role in
Native American spirituality and continues to be a place of pilgrimage
and mystical rituals for them. All along the path that winds up the
mountain, almost every tree is decorated with pieces of colored cloth
and with small bags containing tobacco - a herb considered sacred by the
Indians - left as offerings that represent the prayers raised during
their spiritual and purification rites.
In 1961, Bear Butte
became a well-developed state park with scenic hiking trails, horseback
riding, fishing and camping. Since 1973 the park has been listed as a
National Historic Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places
(NRHP) and since 1981 also as a National Historic Landmark.