Rockerville

Rockerville is a small unincorporated community in Pennington County in the Black Hills of the U.S. state of South Dakota. Originally established as a mining camp, it was named for the "rockers" which were used to separate placer gold from stream gravel.

Rockerville was founded in 1876 as the result of a gold rush.

It was a tourist town in the 1950s and 1960s because of its key location on US Highway 16 between Rapid City and Mount Rushmore National Memorial. It had a variety of tourist attractions, including a "Mellerdrammer" (Mellodrama) live theatre, a "Ghosttown" of various buildings with tourist shops and small amusements, "It's a Small World" Museum (featuring a 1880 Tiny Town model and other miniature collections), a motel, campgrounds and RV parks. However, in the conversion of US Highway 16 to four lanes in the mid-1960s, the original townsite was placed literally between the two separate roadways, as there was no way to widen the original highway through the town without completely destroying it. The construction of at least three exits into the town from both directions, the town continued to be a vibrant tourist attraction in the 1970s and 1980s. The tourist could take in daily wild west shows, shootouts, stagecoach rides and gold panning. Fine dining was and still is available at the Gaslight Restaurant. Travelers could stay in town at the local Trading Post Motel, buy groceries and gas up their cars at the Rockerville Trading Post.

In the 1990s, the town virtually died. A poor local economy was due mainly to low visibility to tourist. Travelers on their way to and from Mount Rushmore never saw the town when whizzing past at 55 miles per hour. Every business closed, and many remain abandoned to this day, although the "Gaslight Saloon" remains a local restaurant and attraction. This severe local economic damage today is sometimes referred to in South Dakota as "Rockerville Syndrome" and has had a significant bearing in the construction of new bypasses and highway improvements as recently as 1998 and 2001, in and around such small towns as Hill City and Corson.

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