Every city has its share of dark secrets, shadowy history and skeletons lurking in the closets. Some have more than others…much more. Today we’ll go visiting…underground…to a location near the heart of Rapid City where you’re liable to find the remains of…well, just about anything.
You might think this is an unlikely place for a bone repository…just across the street from the Rapid City Police Department…and just down the block from the Pennington County Courthouse. But you’d be wrong.
For it’s in this non-descript, one-story brick building that THE secrets of South Dakota’s past are kept.
“My name is Katie Lamie. I’m the Repository Manager at the South Dakota State Historical Society Archeological Research Center.”
It‘s a long title and, yes, Katie does fit it all on her business card. And that pretty much gives you an idea of just what her job comprises – all things archeological in South Dakota.
“The Records Manager maintains the library and also keeps files on each site reported in South Dakota,” Lamie explains. “Right now we have about 24,000 files for 24,000 archeological sites across the state of South Dakota.”
“Well…we don’t have to go through all of them,” I respond.
Suffice to say that South Dakota is an archeologists’ dream.
“There are mammoth kill sites that are 12,000 years old…in the badlands region,” comments Lamie. “There’s some paleo-Indian on the periphery of the Black Hills…and then beautiful, huge earth lodge villages along the Missouri River. And then we’re even interested in historic homesteads, historic sites….basically, anything that’s older than 50 years.”
Katie assures me that I’m safe from an archeological investigation, but does note that the general public can visit the Research Center with their own finds for examinations. After all, she says, you never know what might be just below the surface in your own back yard.
Related (longer) story:
http://listen.sdpb.org/post/touring-state-historical-society-archeological-research-center