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Historic place

Nemo (Homestake timber camp)

Nemo Rd / Vanocker Canyon Rd, Nemo, SD

A tiny Black Hills valley town founded to feed the Homestake Gold Mine's timber appetite became the site of the first regulated government timber sale in U.S. history — and today it's a favorite scenic ride for Sturgis Rally bikers.

📅 1877–present🏛️ Ghost TownRepurposedBuilt 1877
Open on the mapSlide back to 1877
Nemo (Homestake timber camp), Nemo Rd / Vanocker Canyon Rd, Nemo, SD
Nemo, South Dakota · Robert Ashworth from Bellingham, WA., USA, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The story

Nemo Township formed in 1877 along Boxelder Creek. In 1898 Homestake established a timber camp there to cut mine timbers, and that year the federal government executed "Case No. 1" — the first timber sale ever conducted under federal forest-reserve regulation, setting a precedent for regulated logging on public land. The town grew to near 500 residents with a hotel, school, and store, served by a narrow-gauge rail spur. After Homestake shifted milling to Spearfish, the population collapsed by the late 1930s. Several 1890s buildings survive, now a guest ranch and pizza pub. Nemo and Vanocker Canyon Roads are among the most popular rally rides.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

The 1898 "Case No. 1" timber sale at Nemo was the first ever conducted under U.S. federal forest-reserve regulation.
Homestake needed roughly 8 trainloads of timber and cordwood a day.
Several original 1890s buildings still stand, now a guest ranch and pizza pub.

Connected places

Whitewood Historic District

Whitewood, SD
Black Hills

Mount Rushmore National Memorial

Keystone, SD
Black Hills

Needles Highway

Custer, SD
Black Hills

Sylvan Lake

Custer, SD
Black Hills

Custer State Park & State Game Lodge

Custer, SD
Black Hills

Explore the full web of connections on the map.

Nearby history

Silver City

Head of Pactola Lake (US-385) · 13.1 km away
Founded in the 1876 silver rush and originally called "Elkhorn Prairie" by Custer's own expedition, Silver City dodged t

Mystic (ghost town)

Castle Creek, Rapid Canyon (Mickelson Trail #7) · 17.0 km away
First named "Sitting Bull," this Rapid Canyon mining camp got its own private railroad — the "Crouch Line" — and a $1 mi

Rochford (mining town)

Rochford (off FS Rd 17) · 18.8 km away
Discovered by accident when three Deadwood hunters stumbled on gold-bearing rock in 1876, Rochford grew to around 1,000

Galena (silver camp)

Galena Rd (Bear Butte Creek) · 18.9 km away
Galena boomed as the Black Hills' first major silver camp — its Sitting Bull Mine alone produced over $750,000 in silver

Canyon Lake Dam & the 1972 Rapid City Flood

Canyon Lake Park, Canyon Lake Drive · 22.8 km away
On the night of June 9, 1972, a debris-clogged dam above downtown Rapid City gave way and sent a wall of water through t

Rapid City Indian School (now Oyate Health Center)

3200 Canyon Lake Drive · 22.9 km away
A campus built in 1898 to strip Lakota, Cheyenne, and Crow children of their language and culture spent the mid-20th cen

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Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo,_South_Dakota