Named by the Lakota Indians for the dark appearance given to the slopes by the thick covering of Ponderosa pines, the Black Hills is an ancient mountain chain covering 6,075 square miles of the southwestern part of South Dakota and eastern part of Wyoming.
Whether this patch of mountains was sacred to the Indians is a subject of much debate; it was, however, used as a barrier for diverting the great buffalo herds.
When the Custer Expedition went in search of gold in the Black Hills, they expected to find an armed Indian fortress, but the Black Hills, or Paha Sapa, was more a kind of Indian wilderness preserve. Indians came here for teepee poles, water, game, and worship, but they did not stay or live here.
Harney Peak is the highest point in the Black Hills at 7,242 feet. When Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and his expedition were here in 1874, they camped nearby, and Custer, with his staff climbed the peak nearly to the summit, leaving a copper cartridge shell case with their names enclosed on a slip of paper to mark the spot.
The region was settled by Europeans in the 1870s, when the discovery of gold started a mining boom. Mineral production in the Black Hills has exceeded $350 million, and gold mining continues to yield millions of dollars a year. Feldspar, lithium, mica and carnotite ores are also mined in the area. Timber is also one of the region's major industries.