The location of Rapid City was initially occupied by Native Americans before European American settlers arrived. White settlers started heading to this area in 1874 due to the discovery of gold in the Black Hills.
In 1876, a group of 11 settlers made camp at what would become known as Founder Rock. This is where these men laid out the original plan for Rapid City. The founders’ initials can still be located on the sandstone outcropping.
The men laid out a one-square-mile business district, originally called Hay Camp. It would later become Rapid City, naming it after the creek that ran through the town. During the late 1800s, it became a transportation hub for stagecoaches, wagons and rail traffic. Later, Rapid City would be advertised as the “Gateway to the Black Hills”. The nickname is still used today.
Historical Marker Inscription
Near a perpendicular sandstone cliff a short distance North of here and across Rapid Creek (a marker denotes the site) was the first camp of those hardy pioneers who founded Rapid City. Here John R. Brennan, Martin Persinger, Thomas Ferguson, W. P. Martin, Albert Brown, William Marston, Samuel Scott, the surveyor, J. W. Allen, James Carney, Major Hutchinson and William Nuttal made their camp on February 24, 1876 and the name of Brennan, where he carved it in the sandstone cliff, is still to be seen.
The following day the town site, a mile square, was laid out by these men under the direction of Samuel Scott. One of the pioneer writers of the period said: “As makers of the history of the West, their names will be handed down to posterity while summer clouds shall wrap old Harney’s Brow and Black Hills waters run down to the sea.”
Location
Founders Park, 1236–1420 W Omaha St, Rapid City, SD 57701, United States
44° 5’ 4.690” N, 103° 14’ 34.788” W
Historical Markers of the World 