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History of Custer, South Dakota

Custer is generally considered to be the oldest established town and the "mother city" of the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. The site of one of the major encampments of the Black Hills Expedition of Brevet Major General (a largely ceremonial title, his official rank was Lt. Colonel) George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry in 1874 and the location of the first public discovery of gold in the Black Hills, it was first established as the town of Stonewall (after Stonewall Jackson) by illegally trespassing gold-boomers in 1875, but the town was renamed quickly. Almost abandoned in 1876 when word of the much larger gold strikes in Deadwood Gulch spread, Custer City later became an established city, if smaller and less wealthy than the Northern Hills cities of Deadwood and Lead.