Around Rapid City

April lends ample time to explore Rapid City. Albeit wintry, the largest city for 300 miles is not swollen with tourists. On a blustery Friday afternoon, the streets were only full of people leaving work for the weekend. All the restaurants were accessible. You could walk into Firehouse Brewing and land a table. The same held true for breakfast at Colonial House. Named for the settlement that preceded Rapid City, Hay Camp Brewing was lightly populated for an afternoon happy hour. 

Rapid City’s nicknames include the City of Presidents, not because it can claim any. Rather than salute a single president, downtown Rapid City honors them all. Peppered through a few blocks of downtown, the city has status of all presidents through Barack Obama. 

I say life-size because Bill Clinton appears tall, and James Madison seemed much less than his reported 5 feet four inches. While I did not see them all, they remain a striking bunch, even the lesser-known and embarrassing presidents. James Monroe tips his top hat. Eisenhower stands in his military uniform. The Thomas Jefferson statue depicts him with a quill at his desk, likely writing the Declaration of Independence. 

We get Ronald Reagan in cowboy gear. Gerald Ford stands next to his dog Liberty. The Jimmy Carter statue seemed queued up for a high-five, so I gave him one. He didn’t budge and kept on smiling. Rapid City could have stuck with Calvin Coolidge, who summered in Rapid City during the late 1920s. Here Coolidge announced his plans not to run for president again in 1928. The Coolidge statue shows him tipping a Stetson to an imagined crowd and standing next to a saddle. LBJ sits pensively. Washington looks just as solemn as he does on Mount Rushmore. 

Jaunty Madison

High-five for the peanut farmer

Intense Jefferson

Pleasant Coolidge

Black Hills Natives

Along Main Street stands another statue, a Plains Indian woman and her child, a stark reminder about to whom the Black Hills belonged. The tribes have turned down monetary settlements after Courts ruled in the favor, wanting the return of their historic summer hunting grounds. But they are still waiting. The town’s name comes from Rapid Creek, which descends quickly from the Black Hills in a series of cascades. Native names for the river translate to Rapid Creek, just as the Lakota call these sacred mountains Paha Sapa, the Black Hills. The pine forests that top the mountains make them look black.

Rapid Creek ran through town, its wide floodplain a result of a catastrophic 1972 flood that killed 238 people and injured 3,000. A storm dumped 15 inches of rain on the Black Hills and Rapid Creek overran its banks in Rapid City. Thousands of homes and cars were destroyed, with dozens of cars left in piles by the raw power of the floodwaters. Homes and hotels destroyed in Rapid Creek’s floodplains, along with most businesses, were not reconstructed. Most of that land was restored to parkland and natural uses. 

Immediately south of downtown, Rapid Creek cuts through Memorial Park, Roosevelt Park and Founders Park. In Memorial Park, a small area includes a section of the Berlin Wall donated by a unified Berlin. Informative displays explain the history of the wall to the oblivious and didn’t grow up when it still divided the German city. A placid pond sits in the park, the winter wind adding some ripples. More parks lie west along the creek. 

West of Canyon Lake Reservoir, unpaved paths lead into forested stretches of floodplain. A few fins of ice stuck to the banks of the swift-flowing creek. Birdsong was thick, and a great blue heron took flight as soon as we approached the banks. 

Other unseen creatures had been at work along the banks. Dozens of trees were toppled or had their trunks chewed away. Beavers had worked hard here. Whether beavers were still at work or not, I couldn’t say. But the floodplain of Rapid Creek bore deep evidence of their handiwork. 

Some Rapid attractions would have to wait for another trip, along with Jewel Cave (one cave tour per trip seems reasonable, and Wind Cave won out). In the city lies the Dinosaur Park, an attraction on the hills separating neighborhoods. But construction closed the park till late spring. Each night during twilight, the hilltop sauropod still cut a might figure above the north end of the Black Hills, standing watch over presidents, beavers, and a lively town.

Rapid Creek, Memorial Park

Beaver handiwork, Rapid Creek floodplain