Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns was a limestone cave complex nine miles south of

Rapid City, South Dakota Rapid City is the county seat of Pennington County, South Dakota, United States. It is located on the eastern slope of the Black Hills in western South Dakota and was named after Rapid Creek (South Dakota), Rapid Creek, where the settlement deve ...

on the way to

Mount Rushmore The Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a National Memorial (United States), national memorial centered on a colossal sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore (, or Six Grandfathers) in the Black Hills near Keystone, South Dak ...

and by the

Wind Cave National Park Wind Cave National Park is a national park of the United States located north of the town of Hot Springs in western South Dakota. Established on January 3, 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, it was the sixth national park in the U.S. and t ...

. From 1934 to 2015, the cave was open for the public to tour daily from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend. The cave was discovered by the Duhamel family, Alex and Mamie and their sons, Bud and Pete, in 1929, at their property in Rockerville Gulch. The gulch is a red rock canyon east of Rockerville. They organised tours and the Duhamel Sioux Indian Pageant to promote the caverns with a friend,

Black Elk Heȟáka Sápa, commonly known as Black Elk (baptized Nicholas; December 1, 1863 – August 19, 1950), was a ''wičháša wakȟáŋ'' (" medicine man, holy man") and '' heyoka'' of the Oglala Lakota people. He was a second cousin of the war lea ...

, who chose the name of the caverns in honor of his friend

Sitting Bull Sitting Bull ( ; December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota people, Lakota leader who led his people during years of resistance against Federal government of the United States, United States government policies. Sitting Bull was killed by Indian ...

. Black Elk held the show for over a decade from 1934 to educate people about

Lakota Lakota may refer to: *Lakota people, a confederation of seven related Native American tribes *Lakota language Lakota ( ), also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan languages, Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of ...

culture. In 1992, Bud received the Ben Black Elk Award for "promotion of Native American culture." When he was 93 he retired and passed operations of the cave to his grandson, Peter Heffron. In 2015, remaining family members decided that they no longer wanted to operate the business, and the cave was closed to the public on September 27, 2015. At that time, the cave and about 730 acres of land were put up for sale. In early September 2020, developer Pat Hall from

purchased the site for an undisclosed amount.

References

External links

Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns
Caves of South Dakota Limestone caves Landforms of Pennington County, South Dakota Show caves in the United States Tourist attractions in Pennington County, South Dakota {{US-cave-stub