2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 7; Rockerville, SD, the ghost town surrounded by US Route 16

After leaving Mount Rushmore I headed east on South Dakota State Route 244 to US 16A near Keystone. I traveled eastbound on US 16A to US 16 which headed towards I-90 near Rapid City. Along the way I stopped in Rockerville a small ghost town in Pennington County located uniquely between the travel lanes of the US 16 expressway.

This blog post is the 7th in the 2016 Summer Mountain Trip series, Part 6 can be found here:

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 6; Mount Rushmore

Rockerville was founded during 1876 at the height of the Black Hills Gold Rush and reached a peak population of about 1,000 by 1880. Rockerville would see a decline after mining had dwindled in the Black Hills until US 16 became a tourist destination to drive traffic to the Mount Rushmore Area. US 16 originally traversed Rockerville along Main Street until the modern expressway bisected the community in the 1970s. Oddly the US 16 expressway wasn't routed along a single side of Rockerville but rather split the community in half leaving Main Street largely intact.

Rockerville had been surviving off tourist traffic until the US 16 expressway was built. All the road side attractions largely shuttered after US 16 was moved off of Main Street leaving a husk of former tourist traps scattered on the side of the road.

Part 8 of the 2016 Summer Mountain Trip series can be found here:

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 8; Badlands National Park and former US 16A on SD 240

Comments

Crescent City Connection (New Orleans, LA)

The Crescent City Connection is a massive dual-span steel truss bridge that spans the lower Mississippi River at downtown New Orleans, about 95 river miles upstream from the mouth of the great river at the Head of Passes Light. If counted as a single bi-directional highway bridge, the parallel spans combine to form the single busiest bridge on the Mississippi River and its importance as a linchpin in the region’s transportation network cannot be overstated. While there have been various schemes over the years to construct bridges downriver from Algiers Point, this bridge has been the southernmost bridge on the Mississippi River since its initial construction in the 1950s. The years immediately following the end of World War II were a transformational period in the history of New Orleans. Already one of the great economic and cultural centers of the American Deep South, it was recognized at this time that major changes and improvements to the city’s transportation infrastructure would b...

Old US Route 99 through Tipton, Tulare, and Tagus Ranch

This summer I had a look into the alignment history of US Route 99 through the Tulare County communities of Tipton, Tulare, and Tagus Ranch. While this slab below might seem like much it is one of the few remaining reminders of how US Route 99 was during the 1920s in Tulare County. This blog is part of the larger Gribblenation US Route 99 Page. For more information pertaining to the other various segments of US Route 99 and it's three-digit child routes check out the link the below. Gribblenation US Route 99 Page Part 1; the history of US Route 99 in Tipton, Tulare, and Tagus Ranch Tipton and Tulare were both founded in 1872 as sidings of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The Southern Pacific Railroad laid the groundwork for development of southern San Joaquin Valley. Previous to the Southern Pacific Railroad travel via wagon or foot in Central California tended to avoid San Joaquin Valley in favor of the Stockton-Los Angeles Road. The Stockton Los Ange...

Winnemucca to the Sea Highway

The Winnemucca to the Sea Highway was conceived as an idea to establish a continuous, improved route branching from what was then US Highway 40 (now I-80) in Winnemucca, Nevada to the Pacific Coast in Crescent City, California . This highway was to span 494 miles as it crossed through deserts, mountains and forests on its way to the Pacific Ocean. Community leaders from points along this proposed highway formed the Winnemucca to the Sea Highway Association, which worked with state and local governments to obtain funding for the planning, construction and upgrade of the highway. The original proposal was to create one highway, numbered 140, which was to be applied to the complete route as the parent major US highway was coast-to-coast US-40, the Victory Highway. However, this idea never fully came to fruition. Currently, a traveler driving on the Winnemucca to the Sea Highway actually follows seven different highway numbers, which are US 95, NV 140, OR 140, US 395, OR 62, I-5, US 19...

Gribblenation

Search This Blog