Rapid City
| Rapid City | |
|---|---|
 Downtown Rapid City |
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| Rapid City in South Dakota | |
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| Basic data | |
| Foundation : | 1876 |
| State : | United States |
| State : | South Dakota |
| County : | Pennington County |
| Coordinates : | 44 ° 5 ′ N , 103 ° 14 ′ W |
| Time zone : | Mountain ( UTC − 7 / −6 ) |
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Inhabitants : - Metropolitan Area : |
74,048 (as of 2016) 145,661 (as of 2016) |
| Population density : | 641.1 inhabitants per km 2 |
| Area : | 115.7 km 2 (approx. 45 mi 2 ) of which 115.5 km 2 (approx. 45 mi 2 ) is land |
| Height : | 976 m |
| Postal code : | 57709 |
| Area code : | +1 605 |
| FIPS : | 46-52980 |
| GNIS ID : | 1265333 |
| Website : | www.rcgov.org |
| Mayor : | Steve Allender |
Rapid City ( Lakota Mni Lúzahaŋ Otȟúŋwahe, City of Rapid Water) is the second largest city in the US state of South Dakota with around 74,000 inhabitants (as of July 1, 2016, US Census Bureau ). The city is 976 meters high and is the administrative seat of Pennington County .
When the Canyon Lake dam broke in 1972, the city was badly devastated, 238 people were killed.
Population development
| year | Residents¹ |
|---|---|
| 1980 | 46,492 |
| 1990 | 54,523 |
| 2000 | 59,607 |
| 2010 | 67,956 |
¹ 1980-2010 : census results
Tourism and economy
In the city center you can see the life-size bronze statues of all 43 US presidents . These are at the intersections along Main Street and Saint Joseph Street (between 4th and 9th Street). Information about the tour can be obtained from the President's Information Center on Main Street and 7th Street.
On the outskirts of town is a replica of Borgund stave church . Other sights include a historic fire brigade building, the Dinosaur Park with dinosaur figures placed on a hill, and a piece of the Berlin Wall. The most important economic factor in the city is tourism . Near the city is Mount Rushmore , one of the most famous monuments in the United States, visited by approximately two million people each year. About 20 kilometers east of the city is Ellsworth Air Force Base , another important employer in the structurally weak region. The South Dakota Air and Space Museum is also located there .
Furthermore, the Crazy Horse Memorial is currently being built 15 km south of Mount Rushmore .
history
The first Sioux Indians reached the Rapid City area around 1775. The Sioux were actually based in Minnesota to the east . The Sioux migrated for several reasons. One was that the warring Cree Indians had been armed with rifles by the French, while the Sioux continued to fight with bows and arrows. Originally, the Sioux were semi-settled, practiced agriculture to a limited extent and lived from hunting and fishing. In 1776 the first Lakota Sioux Indians reached the area and the Black Hills to the west . The culture and life of the Lakota changed. Her life was now dominated by bison hunting. Tipis replaced earth dwellings and horses began to play an important role in their culture. The Black Hills are sacred mountains for the Lakota Sioux . They are also the subject of numerous Lakota myths. Even today, some tribesmen visit the spiritual places in the mountains to practice their religion.
At that time, the French claimed the area. Except in the fur trade, they were not particularly active. Except for a few scattered trading posts, they developed no further settlement activities. In 1803, the United States bought the area from the French as part of the Louisiana Purchase . Even these did not initially show any major settlement activities. The Sioux were feared as warriors, and development was long considered impossible.
After the Red Cloud War (1866–1868), which ended happily for the Sioux , the Sioux negotiated with the American federal government. They reserved large areas for themselves through the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 . The treaty laid the area of the entire present-day US state of South Dakota west of the Missouri, including the Black Hills (from the northern border in Nebraska to the 46th parallel and from Missouri in the east to the 104th meridian in the west) as Indian land unrestricted and unmolested use and settlement by the Great Sioux Nation . The Great Sioux Reservation was born. This area also included the Rapid City area.
An expedition under George Armstrong Custer, illegal under the Treaty, explored the Black Hills in 1874 and found gold in the mountains . After the gold was discovered, the government tried to persuade the Lakota to cede the mountain range, but without success. Gold prospectors illegally entered the area and a gold rush developed . However, the reservation Indians under Red Cloud declined to sell. Certain groups under Sitting Bull , Crazy Horse and Gall had never recognized the contract of 1868 anyway and stayed outside the Sioux reservation in the non-ceded hunting areas. In December 1875 the government decided to wrest the Black Hills and thus the area around Rapid City from the Indians by force. She gave the Indians an ultimatum to “return” to the reservation in the middle of winter and thus to clear the Black Hills for the whites. Aside from the fact that many Sioux and Northern Cheyennes were not from reservations to return to, they would have been unable to meet the ultimatum in the dead of winter. Conflicts in the winter of 1875/76 led to the renewed deployment of Custers and the 7th Cavalry Regiment and the Battle of Little Bighorn in June 1876. After the final defeat of the Indians in the autumn of the same year, the great Sioux reservation was smashed in 1877 and the Lakota the entire area around Rapid City withdrawn.
Rapid City, which was originally called "Hay Camp", was founded in 1876 by disappointed gold prospectors. They advertised their settlement as the "Gateway to the Black Hills". John Richard Brennan and Samuel Scott, with a few other men, set the site for the new settlement in February 1868, on Rapid Creek, a mountain stream. An area of one square mile was staked out and a business district designed. Rapid City primarily served to supply the gold miners in the Black Hills. Due to its ideal location on the edge of the low mountain range, Rapid City became a railway junction in the 1890s.
Sports
The city is home to the Rapid City Rush ice hockey team . She played in the Central Hockey League between 2008 and 2014, and has played in the East Coast Hockey League since October 2014 and plays her games at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center .
education
Rapid City is home to the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology , founded in 1885 , a technical college specializing in economics. The mascot of this college is the so-called hard rocker.
The city has 16 elementary schools , five middle schools, and three high schools: Stevens and Central High Schools and the RCAS Academy.
Twin cities
Rapid City has three twin cities :
Postal codes: 57701, 57702, 57703.
Climate table
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Average monthly temperatures and rainfall for Rapid City, South Dakota
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sons and daughters of the town
- Lawrence Lessig (* 1961), legal scholar
- Diane Gaidry (1964-2019), actress
- Lincoln McIlravy (born 1974), wrestler
- Becky Hammon (born 1977), basketball player
- Emily Graslie (* 1989), online science writer
- Tomi Lahren (* 1992), journalist
- Tamara Gorman (* 1996), triathlete
- Taylor Knibb (* 1998), triathlete
Web links
- Rapid City Area Chamber of Commerce (English)
- Rapid City Convention & Visitors Bureau (English)
- Rapid City Area Schools (English) - The school administration
Individual evidence
- ^ Jan F. Ullrich: New Lakota Dictionary , 2nd. Edition, Lakota Language Consortium, Bloomington, IN 2014, ISBN 978-0-9761082-9-0 . Archived from the original on October 18, 2016 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed May 28, 2016).
- ^ History of South Dakota Herbert S. Schell, 2004, South Dakota State Historical Society Press, ISBN = 0-9715171-3-4
- ↑ Contract text in English
