2nd November: South Dakota

Today is South Dakota Admission Day. Here are ten facts about South Dakota.

1. The origin of the name Dakota is a Native American word meaning friends or allies. Nicknames for South Dakota include the Mount Rushmore State, the Coyote State, the Sunshine State (and also, conversely, the Blizzard State), the Artesian State (because there are a lot of artesian wells there), the “Land of Plenty" and "The Land of Infinite Variety."
2. The capital, Pierre, has been the capital since 1889 when it won a referendum against a rival contender for capital, Mitchell. It is the second least populous state capital in the USA and the only one which doesn't share a single letter with the name of the state. The largest city is Sioux Falls.
3. The famous sculpture of Mount Rushmore, where the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln are sculpted into the side of the mountain, is in South Dakota. Until 1884, the mountain didn't have an official name and was referred to as Mountain of Rock - until a lawyer from New York, Charles E. Rushmore, came out on a business trip to check the legal titles on properties. When he asked a local what the mountain was called. the local replied "Never had a name but from now on we'll call it Rushmore." Construction of the sculpture by Gutzon Borglum began in 1927. It took 14 years and cost $1 million. It may soon have a rival for the greatest mountain sculpture in the world, though, if they ever complete the Crazy Horse Monument, which started construction in 1948 and will be 17 feet taller than the presidents' heads.
4. Other landmarks you might want to take in during a visit are the world’s only Corn Palace, in Mitchell, which is made of 3500 bushels of corn; the Anne Hathaway Cottage at Wessington Springs, the only structure in the Midwest US that features a thatched roof, and Woonsocket, known as The Town with the Beautiful Lake. Lake Prior sits in the middle of the town. There's also the annual Mashed Potato Wrestling contest in Clark.
5. South Dakota is also home to Harney Peak, the highest point in the United States east of the Rockies, and the world's third longest cave, Jewel Cave, which gets its name from the calcite crystals which have formed inside. There's also Wind Cave, another long cave which is famous for a rare rock formation called boxwork. It also has the largest underground Gold mine, in a town inappropriately called Lead.
6. It's a paradise for palaeontologists. The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs has the largest concentration of Columbian mammoth and Woolly mammoth bones discovered intact in the world, which have been left untouched. Badlands National Park has a unique bed of fossil evidence dating back 35 million years, including a three-toed Horse, a saber-toothed cat and a dog-sized Camel. Faith has one of the largest, most complete, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex skeletons, affectionately known as "Sue". The state fossil, however, is Triceratops.
7. Other state symbols are as follows: Insect: Honey Bee; Tree: Black Hills Spruce; Bird: Ringneck Pheasant; Flower: Pasque Flower; Animal: Coyote; Gem Stone: Fairburn Agate; State Sport: Rodeo; Mineral: Rose quartz.
8. In 1959, Belle Fourche, South Dakota was designated the geographical centre of the United States.
9. Famous people from South Dakota include actresses January Jones and Cheryl Ladd, Laura Ingalls Wilder lived there, and several famous names from the Wild West - Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.
10. It is illegal to fall asleep in a Cheese factory or show a film which shows police officers being treated badly. It is perfectly legal, however, to shoot Native Americans if more than five of them show up on your property.

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