Peter Norbeck

The preserve on this bronze is older than its 1949 date. Congress created it on June 5, 1920, while Norbeck was still governor, as the Custer State Park Game Sanctuary: up to 30,000 acres of the Harney National Forest beside his state park, set aside to protect game animals and birds and to serve as their breeding ground. A 1924 amendment let the President enlarge it to 46,000 acres, and proclamations of 1920, 1925 and 1929 drew its lines. The act of October 6, 1949 changed only the name, honoring the senator thirteen years after his death.

What the plaque says

Norbeck Wildlife Preserve Created by Act of Congress, 1949 Peter Norbeck 1870-1936 Well driller, Statesman, first native Governor of South Dakota, U.S. Senator, founder of Custer State Park, sponsor of Mount Rushmore Memorial, road builder, art lover, poet of nature, patriot, gentleman. His was the heritage of cold, strong lands: his the pioneer vision which saw far ahead, far beyond. He felt the strong heart throb of his beloved people commanding him to do greatly and be great. In these mountains he found a wilderness for them and labored to preserve its beauty unspoiled for them and for their children's children. He is still present in every mile of road that he built, in the noble pines and towering rocks he loved, and in the hearts of the multitudes who will enjoy them.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mount Rushmore National Memorial — 1.9 mi
  Four faces blasted out of a sacred mountain by 400 workers in fourteen years, with a Jefferson that had to be dynamited off and a hall of records never finished.
• Black Elk Peak — 4.9 mi
  The highest summit in the Black Hills, renamed in 2016 for an Oglala holy man after carrying, for 150 years, the name of the general who attacked a Sicangu camp in 1855.
• Needles Highway — 6.8 mi
  Fourteen miles that Governor Peter Norbeck laid out on foot and horseback through the granite spires, threading a tunnel eight feet wide.
• State Game Lodge — 7.0 mi
  The lodge where Calvin Coolidge spent the summer of 1927, fishing for trout, dedicating Mount Rushmore, and deciding not to run again.

More markers nearby

• The Father of Mount Rushmore — 0.7 mi
• The Pigtail Bridges — 0.8 mi
• Gutzon Borglum — 1.6 mi
• Civilian Conservation Corps Camp - Lodge — 3.6 mi