The Historic Mount Rushmore Area

Mount Rushmore Tour

Mount Rushmore Tour

Explore 2.5 billion years of South Dakota history on your trip to Mount Rushmore and Rapid City. Local monuments and museums span dinosaurs and mammoths to the Gold Rush, Western exploration and modern politics.

General Mount Rushmore and Rapid City Activities & Attractions

Most visitors to Rapid City beeline to the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, and its four larger-than-life-sized busts of our greatest presidents. The Mount Rushmore Tour takes you right to the monument where you will discover the sculpting process, from start to finish, and see renovations first hand. You'll also stop at the Borglum Historical Center and learn about the artist who designed and handled the project. Travel to Harney Peak, the site originally chosen for the memorial. You will also catch a glimpse of history in the making at the Crazy Horse Memorial, our largest mountain carving work in progress.

More attractions await those drawn to early history. Discover the world of the wooly mammoth at Hot Springs' Mammoth Site. Learn about the impressive creatures that walked the Black Hills millions of years ago, and the people who lived with them. Stop in at the Journey Museum in Rapid City, where you'll see five collections in one. The Museum of Geology and the Archaeological Research Center dive into prehistory. See dinosaurs, plate movement and the first North American people. The Sioux Indian Museum and Duhamel Collection of Native American Artifacts demonstrate daily living, as well as major historical figures, of the Lakota Nation. At the Minnilusa Pioneer Museum, you'll get a look at the first Europeans to straggle West, and the changes they brought with them.

Mount Rushmore and Rapid City Dining & Lodging

• Lodging and dining selections also take you into the past. The Historic Franklin Hotel and Day Spa contains one of South Dakota's oldest restaurants. Less than an hour from Mount Rushmore, the hotel built in 1903 now houses a lounge and bar, gambling area, and live entertainment.

• The Alex Johnson Hotel enjoys a place on the National Register of Historic Places. Construction on the Rapid City spot started just one day before work on the Mount Rushmore monument. Home to an Irish pub, a landmark restaurant, gambling machines and lounge, the Alex Johnson is also one of few area hotels to welcome pets.

• Lovers of the Wild West will enjoy the Chuckwagon Dinner at the Circle B Ranch. Walk the streets of a village set in the 1800s and watch as reenactments occur at the drop of a ten-gallon hat. Shop. Drink. Look in on artisans making their crafts, and listen to music from the Civil War era. Take a ride by pony or covered wagon. Even stop to pan for gold before enjoying a traditional chuckwagon meal.

Mount Rushmore and Rapid City 1880 Train

Chug into the 1800s aboard an authentic 19th Century steam engine, the 1880 Train. Tour the aging passages of the Big Thunder Gold Mine in Keystone, visit the mining museum, and keep all the gold you can pan from the river. Learn about one of the worst massacres of the times at Wounded Knee: The Museum.

Sculptor David Adickes

The area provides an additional feast of information on our nation's leaders too. Sculptor David Adickes' 20-foot busts of the presidents line the paths of President's Park. A beautiful walk becomes a lesson in history, as markers offer trivia from each term of office. The National Presidential Wax Museum in Keystone boasts an amazing array of memorabilia, and souvenirs, along with life-size wax replicas of our presidents and their wives.

Whether your love of history is focused on prehistoric or fairly recent, you'll find enough to quench your tastes on a trip to the Black Hills. Dining, lodging and attractions combine, and prove the majesty of Mount Rushmore is just the tip of the iceberg.