9places
9businesses
1874oldest
7still open
2gone
4with photos
Custer on When It Was is 9 addresses and the 9 businesses that have occupied them, the oldest from 1874. 7 are still open today; 2 are gone. Every entry below opens a page with the full history of that address, and the map lets you slide the year and watch the city change.
Start here
Custer City
Downtown Custer (US-16/US-385) · 1875–present
Originally christened "Stonewall" by trespassing gold-boomers, this French Creek camp became the very first white settlement in the Black Hi…
Flintstones Bedrock City
US-16/US-385 jct (Bedrock City) · 1966–2015
For nearly 50 years, kids could ride a miniature train past a papier-mache volcano named "Mt. St. Wilma" and pose beside a giant Dino at thi…
Jewel Cave National Monument
11149 US Highway 16 · 1900–present
Two prospector brothers chasing cold air out of a canyon crack in 1900 found what has since grown, mile by surveyed mile, into one of the lo…
Sylvan Lake
Sylvan Lake, Custer State Park · 1891–present
This granite-ringed "jewel of the Black Hills" predates Custer State Park by three decades — and in 2007 it stood in for a secret cavern beh…
1874 French Creek Gold Discovery Site
French Creek near Custer · 1874–present
On French Creek near this spot, prospectors riding with Custer's 1874 expedition panned the first flecks of gold that touched off the Black …
Custer State Park & State Game Lodge
US Highway 16A (State Game Lodge) · 1919–present
President Calvin Coolidge ran the country from a rustic Black Hills lodge for three months in 1927, sleeping a stone's throw from a bison he…
Custer, decade by decade
- 1870s
- 1890s
- 1900s
- 1910s
- 1920s
- 1960s
Still here, and gone
Still open (7)
- 1874 French Creek Gold Discovery Site 1874–present
- Gordon Stockade 1874–present
- Custer City 1875–present
- Sylvan Lake 1891–present
- Jewel Cave National Monument 1900–present
- Custer State Park & State Game Lodge 1919–present
- Needles Highway 1922–present
Gone (2)
- Flintstones Bedrock City 1966–2015
- Spokane (ghost town) 1890–1940
By kind of place
State Park (2)
Sylvan Lake · Custer State Park & State Game Lodge
Historic Site (2)
1874 French Creek Gold Discovery Site · Gordon Stockade
Scenic Road (1)
National Monument (1)
Historic Town (1)
Roadside Attraction (1)
Ghost Town (1)
Collections that cover Custer
Every place in Custer (9)
- 1874 French Creek Gold Discovery Site French Creek near Custer · 1874–present
- Custer City Downtown Custer (US-16/US-385) · 1875–present
- Custer State Park & State Game Lodge US Highway 16A (State Game Lodge) · 1919–present
- Flintstones Bedrock City US-16/US-385 jct (Bedrock City) · 1966–2015
- Gordon Stockade US-16A, Custer State Park (near Stockade Lake) · 1874–present
- Jewel Cave National Monument 11149 US Highway 16 · 1900–present
- Needles Highway SD Highway 87 (Needles Highway) · 1922–present
- Spokane (ghost town) Spokane townsite (~16mi NE of Custer) · 1890–1940
- Sylvan Lake Sylvan Lake, Custer State Park · 1891–present
Know Custer? Add a place we’re missing, an old photo, or a correction — it takes a minute on the map.
Add a place in Custer