For 125 years the deepest gold mine in North America defined the town of Lead and much of the region. To understand South Dakota is to sit with the heritage of the people who shaped it.

Homestake produced gold from 1876 until it closed in 2002.

What sets it apart

Its shafts reach nearly 8,000 feet below the surface of the Black Hills. That detail is easy to overlook, but it helps explain the pull this place has on locals and visitors alike.

The old workings now host an underground physics laboratory studying the universe.

Why it matters

What ties it all together is a distinctly South Dakota balance between the wild and the worked-over. It is a heritage still very much alive in the communities and gatherings of today's South Dakota.