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

Morgan Territory Road

Morgan Territory Road is an approximately 14.7-mile-long roadway mostly located in the Diablo Range of Contra Costa County, California. The roadway is named after settler Jerimah Morgan who established a ranch in the Diablo Range in 1857. Morgan Territory Road was one of several facilities constructed during the Gold Rush era to serve the ranch holdings. The East Bay Regional Park District would acquire 930 acres of Morgan Territory in 1975 in an effort to establish a preserve east of Mount Diablo. The preserve has since been expanded to 5,324 acres. The preserve functionally stunts the development along roadway allowing it to remain surprisingly primitive in a major urban area. Part 1; the history of Morgan Territory Road During the period of early period of American Statehood much of the Diablo Range of Contra Costa County was sparsely developed. Jerimah Morgan acquired 2,000 acres of land east of Mount Diablo in 1856 and established a ranch in 1857. Morgan Territory Road is

The 1915 Fine Gold Creek Bridge (Madera County)

The 1915 Fine Gold Creek Bridge is an early era arch concrete structure found alongside modern Madera County Road 200. The structure was modeled as a smaller scale of the 1905 Pollasky Bridge (still in ruins at the San Joaquin River) and was one of many early twentieth century improvements to what was then known as the Fresno-Fresno Flats Road. The 1915-era bridge was replaced with a modernized concrete span during 1947 but was never demolished. The original concrete structure can be still found sitting in the brush north of the 2023 Fine Gold Creek Bridge. Part 1; the history of the 1915 Fine Gold Creek Bridge The 1915 Fine Gold Creek Bridge lies near the site of the former mining community of Fine Gold. Mining claims were staked at Fine Gold during the Mariposa War during 1850. The community was never very large but became a stopping point on the stage road between the original Fresno County seat at Millerton and Fresno Flats (now Oakhurst). The stage road eventually bypas

Old Sonoma Road

Old Sonoma Road is an approximately five-mile highway located in the Mayacamas Mountains of western Napa County. The roadway is part of the original stage road which connected Napa Valley west to Mission San Francisco Solano as part of El Camino Real. Much of Old Sonoma Road was bypassed by the start of the twentieth century by way of Sonoma Highway. A portion of Old Sonoma Road over the 1896 Carneros Creek Bridge (pictured as the blog cover) was adopted as part of Legislative Route Number 8 upon voter approval of the 1909 First State Highway Bond Act. The 1896 Carneros Creek Bridge served as a segment of California State Route 37 and California State Route 12 from 1934 through 1954. Part 1; the history of Old Sonoma Road Old Sonoma Road has origins tied to the formation of Mission San Francisco Solano and the Spanish iteration of El Camino Real. Mission San Francisco Solano was founded as the last and most northern Spanish Mission of Alta California on July 4, 1823. The new M

Gribblenation

Search This Blog