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Historic place

Sylvan Lake

Sylvan Lake, Custer State Park, Custer, SD

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 behind Mount Rushmore in "National Treasure: Book of Secrets," even though it's actually five miles away.

📅 1891–present🏛️ State ParkStill hereBuilt 1891
Open on the mapSlide back to 1891
Sylvan Lake, Sylvan Lake, Custer State Park, Custer, SD
Sylvan Lake, Custer (2009) · Jennifer L. Sovanski from United States of America. Cropped and color-corrected by..., CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The story

Sylvan Lake was created in 1891 when Theodore Reder dammed Sunday Gulch Creek to draw early Black Hills tourists — nearly thirty years before Custer State Park was established in 1919. The lake wasn't absorbed into the park until 1921. Ringed by wind-sculpted granite domes at the west end of the Needles Highway, it got a national spotlight in 2007 when "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" digitally positioned it right behind Mount Rushmore — a Hollywood geography trick, since the real lake is about five miles southwest.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

The lake is man-made — formed by an 1891 dam built to boost early tourism.
It existed for 28 years before Custer State Park was created, and wasn't added until 1921.
"National Treasure 2" places it right behind Mount Rushmore; in reality it's five miles away.

Connected places

Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF)

Lead, SD
Black Hills

Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway

Spearfish, SD
Black Hills

Roughlock Falls

Savoy, SD
Black Hills

Custer State Park & State Game Lodge

Custer, SD
Black Hills

Explore the full web of connections on the map.

Nearby history

Needles Highway

SD Highway 87 (Needles Highway) · 1.6 km away
Governor Peter Norbeck personally walked and rode horseback over every foot of the route before a single machine touched

Crazy Horse Memorial

12151 Avenue of the Chiefs · 4.8 km away
Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear told sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to k

Gordon Stockade

US-16A, Custer State Park (near Stockade Lake) · 8.9 km away
Twenty-eight illegal prospectors — including the first white woman known to enter the Black Hills — built this log fort

Custer City

Downtown Custer (US-16/US-385) · 9.2 km away
Originally christened "Stonewall" by trespassing gold-boomers, this French Creek camp became the very first white settle

1874 French Creek Gold Discovery Site

French Creek near Custer · 9.3 km away
On French Creek near this spot, prospectors riding with Custer's 1874 expedition panned the first flecks of gold that to

The 1880 Train (Black Hills Central Railroad)

222 Railroad Ave · 9.6 km away
The oldest continuously operating standard-gauge steam railroad in America runs on tracks originally laid during the 189

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Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvan_Lake_(South_Dakota)