Black Hills National Forest

Black Hills National Forest
IUCN category VI (protected area with sustainable use of natural resources)
The Needles from Black Elk Peak in Black Hills National Forest
Location	South Dakota and Wyoming, U.S.
Nearest city	Rapid City, South Dakota
Coordinates	43°56′11″N 103°43′40″W / 43.93639°N 103.72778°W / 43.93639; -103.72778Coordinates: 43°56′11″N 103°43′40″W / 43.93639°N 103.72778°W / 43.93639; -103.72778
Area	1,253,308 acres (5,071.96 km2)
Established	February 22, 1897
Governing body	U.S. Forest Service
Website	Black Hills National Forest

Black Hills National Forest is located in southwestern South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming. The forest has an area of over 1.25 million acres (5,066 km²) and is managed by the Forest Service. Forest headquarters are located in Custer, South Dakota. There are local ranger district offices in Custer, Rapid City, and Spearfish in South Dakota, and in Sundance, Wyoming.

Predominantly ponderosa pine, the forest also includes hard woods like aspen, bur oak, and birch. The lower elevations include grassland prairie, but the National Forest System lands encompass most of the mountainous region known as the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. Within the forest is Black Elk Peak which is the tallest mountain in South Dakota and the highest peak east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States.

After a series of devastating wildfires in 1893, U.S. President Grover Cleveland created the Black Hills Forest Reserve on February 22, 1897. U.S. President William McKinley issued a presidential proclamation on September 19, 1898 appending the Black Hills Forest Reserve geographic boundaries while acknowledging the forest preservation decrees established by the Timber Culture Act and Forest Reserve Act of 1891. Upon the creation of the Forest Service in 1905, the reserve was transferred to the new agency under the United States Department of Agriculture and redesignated as a National Forest two years later. Lakota words pahá sápa meaning "hills that are black" (literally "black hills" as the adjectives (sápa) follow the noun) may be one of the factors in the regions naming. Early settlers and explorers called the Laramie Range the Black Hills prior to Lt. G. K. Warren's expedition in 1857. Prior to explorations by the La Verendrye brothers in 1742, many tribes frequented the Black Hills including Ponca, Kiowa Apache, Arapaho, Kiowa and Cheyenne for at least the past 10,000 years. The smallpox epidemics of 1771 to 1781 broke the will of the Arikara who prior to that time held the Sioux east of the Missouri. American Horse's winter count of 1775-76 is interpreted as depicting the Sioux discovery of the Black Hills. The mountains and other key features in and around the Black Hills and now within the Forest were considered sacred to indigenous peoples and many came here on vision quests, for hunting and for trade.