A few years ago Rapid City went through a sort of miniature identity crisis. The city had long branded itself the "Star of the West," and why not? Rapid City is about as far west as you can go in South Dakota—almost as far west as Denver—and surrounded by unmistakably Western towns such as Deadwood and Spearfish.
"There are communities here that are absolutely branded and thrive because they’re the Old West—they are the West. Deadwood has gunfights in the streets, and Calamity Jane is buried there," says Michelle Lintz, executive director and senior vice president at the Rapid City CVB.
Mount Rushmore is nearby, and tons of gold, silver and other minerals were mined from the surrounding country. When you check your watch, you’re on Mountain Standard Time. All that’s missing is John Wayne riding his horse through downtown Rapid City in hot pursuit of outlaws.
But then a funny thing happened, according to Lintz.
"We realized in working with some ad agencies—and especially with meeting planners—that they did not consider us in the West," she says.
Lintz says the CVB spent some time with their agency a few years ago and decided to change from "Star of the West" to "Real. America. Up Close."
"I know there are some local people who are still mad at us," she says.
But the newer campaign seems to fit Rapid City well. It has become the urban anchor for a cluster of communities that offer a microcosm of America’s westward expansion.
Although Rapid City’s population is just 60,000, its downtown street grid boasts a surprising number of restaurants, shops and hotels, plus a clear dedication to public art. That shows up most clearly in the City of Presidents, a privately funded series of life-size bronze statues of U.S. presidents that greet passers-by from several downtown corners. Five western South Dakota artists have spent years creating iconic likenesses of every U.S. chief executive—for example, Harry Truman smiling as he holds up the inaccurate "Dewey Defeats Truman" newspaper and Ronald Reagan in Western garb while enjoying time on his ranch.
"You can drive by any time of day or night and there are people taking pictures of the presidents," Lintz says.
Rapid City also has many non-presidential attractions, though, including a memorial park with a section of the Berlin Wall and the Stavkirke Chapel, an exact copy of an 830-year-old medieval church in Norway.
Other cultural draws include the Black Hills Playhouse, Black Hills Symphony Orchestra and Art Alley, a showplace for local artists.
Visitors may also enjoy the Dahl Arts Center, featuring the 180-foot Cyclorama Mural of American Economic History, and the Journey Museum, offering numerous exhibits on the Black Hills area’s geology, native flora and fauna, and Native American peoples.
But it’s Rapid City’s setting amid a much larger set of natural and manmade attractions that draws hordes of visitors each year.
On the manmade side, the Wild West towns of Deadwood and Spearfish are nearby, and visitors can also tour the South Dakota Air and Space Museum next to Ellsworth Air Force Base.
On the natural side, Rapid City was named a 2008 Adventure Town by National Geographic. That’s partly because wherever you find granite—and the surrounding Black Hills have tons of it—you find rock climbers. And with 13.5 miles of bike trails in town and 6,000 miles of fire trails, logging roads and railroad grades that take you through back-country canyons and out into the Black Hills, Rapid City is also becoming a mountain biking mecca.
"We’ve become very involved in some of the sporting events," Lintz says. "We have a Fat Tire Festival that our parks and recreation department has put on in the past four years, and that has become increasingly popular throughout the country. We also hosted Primal Quest two years ago. It’s a human endurance race where they’re climbing the mountains, running, walking, kayaking—everything they possibly could do in an area such as this."
Meanwhile, nearby Badlands National Park and Black Hills National Forest offer enough scenic variety to please even jaded outdoors types, while Custer State Park commemorates the Custer Expedition’s discovery of gold and features a large herd of that most iconic American animal, the bison.
Somewhere in between natural and manmade lies Mount Rushmore, with its towering, 60-foot granite portraits of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Visitors should consider visiting South Dakota’s most famous attraction from May through September for a dramatic early-evening lighting ceremony, complete with a short film.
However, Rushmore may get a run for its money as the Crazy Horse Memorial continues to take shape nearby. Since 1948, workers have been blasting and carving a gigantic memorial to Crazy Horse, the Oglala Lakota warrior who led some of the last large actions against U.S. troops during the 1870s. This carving of a mounted Crazy Horse pointing into the distance has become a rallying point for Native American educational and cultural events and, when completed, will be the world’s largest sculpture.
Outfitters can take groups on horseback trips in the backcountry, while several lodges operated by concessionaire Custer State Park Resort offer a combination of beautiful lodgings, meeting space and fun group activities such as chuck-wagon cookouts and mountain biking.
Rapid City has a rich stock of meetings-friendly hotels.
The historic Hotel Alex Johnson recently finished a top-to-bottom renovation. The revamp included all 110 guest rooms, plus the lobby, furniture, meeting space, Native American artwork and other features that have persuaded a half-dozen U.S. presidents to stay here.
The Best Western Ramkota Conference Center and Hotel is Rapid City’s largest meetings-friendly property, with 296 Western-themed guest rooms. The Holiday Inn Rapid City-Rushmore Plaza hosts many conferences thanks to its proximity to the city’s Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, while the modern Radisson Hotel Rapid City/Mt. Rushmore has 177 guest rooms and five meeting rooms. Rapid City also offers the new Comfort Inn I-90 near the interstate.
Additionally, in two years Rapid City will have an all-new town square complete with a water fountain that converts to an ice rink in winter. It will be a new focal point for people meeting downtown, Lintz says.
Paul D. Kretkowski writes frequently about travel, food and sports. He is also the founder of Beacon, a blog about foreign policy.
