Custer State Park, Custer County, South Dakota, USAi

Regional Level Types
Custer State Park	State Park
Custer County	County
South Dakota	State
USA	Country

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Custer State Park is a “must see” for any visitor to the Black Hills. It is a jewel of Black Hills scenery, however, collecting is not allowed. In the old days prior to the “no collecting” rule, local collectors would remove agates from a limestone outcrop that is now in the park. In fact June Culp Zeitner once wrote a small rockhound guide that gave the location. They are called “State Park Agates” and sometimes show up in old collections.

There are two scenic roads in the park, the Wildlife Loop Road and the Needles Highway. The Wildlife Loop is unfenced and gives access to rolling prairie hills and buffalo herds. The Needles Highway (No. 87) passes through granite/pegmatite spires to Sylvan Lake the trail head for a hike up Black Elk Peak. In 1927 the State Game Lodge was the summer White House for President Coolidge and is still in service today.

The agates shown here were collected prior to the early 1960’s before the prohibition of collecting in Custer State Park. Like Teepee Canyon, the documentation of this in-situ location of banded agates in the limestone formations that encircle the Hills provides valuable information on the source of Fairburn Agates that abound in the alluvial gravels that are strewn through the grasslands and badlands southeast of the Black Hills.
71,000-acre wildlife preserve

Commodity List

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Mineral List

Mineral list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities

55 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

Rock list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities