Scenic

Scenic sits along Highway 44 on the northern edge of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, platted in 1907 as a railway shipping point and never growing beyond a small cluster of buildings. The town became known for a saloon operating near reservation land where alcohol sales were otherwise restricted, drawing travelers who otherwise passed through on their way to Badlands National Park. Today only a handful of year-round residents remain, and most of the structures that once lined the townsite have been abandoned or demolished. The Badlands formations that draw visitors to the surrounding area are the product of millions of years of sedimentary layering and erosion, and the adjacent grasslands remain ecologically active despite the near-ghost-town status of Scenic itself.