Car Enters Iron Creek Tunnel, Custer State Park

Vehicle passing through Iron Creek Tunnel, a rock passage in Custer State Park, South Dakota.
Vehicle passing through Iron Creek Tunnel, a rock passage in Custer State Park, South Dakota.

Iron Creek Tunnel carries the Needles Highway through a granite outcrop in Custer State Park, South Dakota. The highway was built in the 1920s under the direction of Governor Peter Norbeck, who helped design the route himself to showcase the park's granite spires. Its narrow, low clearance tunnels, blasted by hand rather than heavy machinery, were intentionally sized to slow traffic and frame views of the surrounding rock formations. Custer State Park, established in 1919, spans more than 71,000 acres and is one of the largest state parks in the country.

Photo taken in July 2019.

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Custer State Park
Bison along Wildlife Loop Road, granite spires on the Needles Highway, and trails to Black Elk Peak in the Black Hills
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