Badlands National Park

Badlands National Park is located in South Dakota comprised of nearly a quarter million acres which includes a vast Wilderness area. This region has been occupied since prehistoric times, with the Native Americans using the Badlands as hunting grounds. From the ancient paleo-Indians to the more recent Lakota, only the Native Americans roamed South Dakota using the land for their hunting grounds for more than 11,000 years. Eventually trappers discovered the Badlands; the name originated when Indians stated this was a 'bad land' to cross. Eventually homesteaders arrived, along with fossil hunters, the American Army, paleontologists and archeologists. The fossil hunters discovered the large resources of the Badlands were covered with fossils. Today fossil hunting is for the paleontologists and archeologists at authorized digs, uncovering extinct animals and fossils dating back over thirty million years. Badlands National Park administers the pristine wilderness area where the endangered b