Belle Fourche
(French: Beautiful Fork) was settled at the forks of Haycreek, Redwater, and Belle Fourche River
Belle Fourche is an authentically western town founded in the late 1800s. It has a rich history full of cowboys, pioneers and cattle and sheep dynasties. It is also the Center of the Nation and the home of one of the oldest rodeos in South Dakota: the Black Hills Roundup.
Belle Fourche is one of the most important livestock shipping rail-heads in the West. The wool shipping warehouses are the largest in the US even today. The city is the trading center for a three-state agricultural area encompassing 21,000 square miles in NW South Dakota, NE Wyoming, and SE Montana known as the Tri-State Area. A hub for livestock auctions and wool shipping, Belle Fourche also is the center of a bentonite mining industry. The downtown area’s architecture retains the aura of the early 1900s
City Information
Belle Fourche Chamber of Commerce – Belle Fourche has been welcoming trail weary travelers with it’s own brand of western hospitality for more than a century.
Arts/Museums
Tri-State Museum – The monument behind the visitor center is open 24/7. It is in a park setting and always available for viewing and photos. The Center of the Nation Visitor Center’s summer hours are 9am to 5pm Monday through Saturday and 1pm to 4pm on Sunday.
The National Geodetic Survey designated Belle Fourche as the town closest to the actual site and the monument was placed there. The 21-foot diameter monument is located next to the Center of the Nation Visitor Center and the Tri-State Museum and is accessible year-round.
Parks/Attractions
PaleoAdventures – Independent, commercial paleontology company dedicated to helping preserve the important vertebrate fossils (DINOSAURS, MARINE REPTILES, etc.)