Image by Yawapi via FlickrScenic, South Dakota is the real deal - an old west town on the western edge of Badlands National Park. In the early 1900s, Scenic was a siding - a railroad stop on the way to Rapid City and the Black Hills. Adjacent to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the town grew up as a watering hole and meeting place for cowboys and Indians alike.In its heyday, Scenic was a thriving frontier town with a church, bank, post office, grocery stores, hotel and even a high school. The town began to decline in the 1930s with the end of the Black Hills gold rush and the beginning of the Great Depression. There was not enough jobs to go around and families began leaving, first in a trickle, then in droves. The closing of the railroad line to Rapid City set Scenic on the road to becoming a ghost town.
Today, only eight residents remain in Scenic. There are a couple businesses on the main street through town - a curio store called the Tatanka Trading Post, a museum, the Longhorn Fuel and Convenience Store and the Longhorn Saloon. As of this writing, only the Tatanka Trading Post remains open.
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