Custer State Park

South Dakota's largest state park — over 71,000 acres of prairie grassland and rugged mountain terrain — began with 36 bison purchased in 1914. That founding herd has grown to around 1,400 today, culled each year at a September auction that draws crowds of up to 20,000 to watch 50 or 60 riders push the animals across a five-mile trail. The Civilian Conservation Corps built the road infrastructure here in the 1930s. Calvin Coolidge spent the summer of 1927 on these grounds. The bison are still the reason to come.