The Story
Sturgis began in 1878, right after Fort Meade was built to guard the Black Hills gold rush. A camp of saloons and brothels sprang up to serve soldiers and prospectors, doing business so briskly that locals nicknamed it "Scoop Town" for how easily vendors scooped up miners' and cavalrymen's money. Business leaders relocated the settlement about a mile and a half west and founded Sturgis City, named for Col. Samuel D. Sturgis. The Commercial Block — nine contributing stone and brick buildings on the south side of Main between roughly 1000 and 1028 — is the surviving core of that boomtown street, added to the National Register in 1975.
Surprising Facts
→ Early Sturgis was nicknamed "Scoop Town" for how fast saloon and brothel operators scooped up soldiers' and miners' money.
→ Six of the nine buildings have cut-stone facades — unusually formal for a frontier boomtown.
→ It joined the National Register in 1975, decades before the rally became the town's identity.