The Pigtail Bridges

Cecil Gideon left school after the eighth grade, and his family's 1991 bronze calls him master builder, architect, craftsman and lawman. He came to the Black Hills in 1918 to manage construction of the State Game Lodge, supervising convict laborers, and stayed on to build Peter Norbeck's roads. Here the Iron Mountain Road falls too steeply for an ordinary grade, so his log bridges carry it down in loops that pass over themselves. A tunnel on the same road carries his name. He died in 1958.

What the plaque says

The Pigtail Bridges In 1932, Cecil Clyde Gideon forged ahead with the design of the Pigtail Bridges when many felt it could not be done. C.C., as he was called, was a pioneer in the Black Hills, making his mark as a master builder, architect, craftsman, lawman, and highway designer. Riding horseback from his home at the Game Lodge, Gideon and Senator Norbeck spent long hours laying out the Iron Mountain Road, the tunnels that frame Mount Rushmore and these bridges. Norbeck wanted a rustic look but the elevation drop presented complex engineering problems. These bridge surfaces are neither straight, level nor flat and rustic log work has great variation in quality. Logs were selected from nearby, cut to fit, sea- soned, then put in place. With the completion of the bridges more scenic beauty of the Black Hills became available for all people to enjoy. C.C. Gideon turned vision into reality. Erected in 1991 by the Gideon family, the South Dakota State Historical Society and the South Dakota Department of Transportation.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mount Rushmore National Memorial — 1.4 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 — 4.8 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 — 7.6 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 — 7.8 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 — steps away
• Gutzon Borglum — 1.0 mi
• Civilian Conservation Corps Camp - Lodge — 4.4 mi
• Mount Rushmore Inspiration — 5.3 mi