Harney Peak Lookout

by Greni Graph

Title

Harney Peak Lookout

Artist

Greni Graph

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Photograph - Photography

Description

Harney Peak is the highest natural point in South Dakota and is located in the Black Elk Wilderness area, in southern Pennington County, in Black Hills National Forest. At 7,242 feet (2,207 m), it is also the highest summit in the United States east of the Rocky MountainsThe peak was named in the late 1850s by Lieutenant Gouverneur K. Warren in honor of General William S. Harney, who was commander of the military in the Black Hills area in the late 1870s. The first European Americans believed to have reached the summit were a party led by General George Armstrong Custer in 1874, during the Black Hills expedition. Custer, along with five other men rode on horseback much of the way, and Custer forced his mount higher after the others in his party had dismounted, which one of the party, engineer W. H. Wood, later described as "cruel." Harney Peak is the site of the Sioux Native American Black Elk's "Great Vision" which he received when nine years old and the site to which he returned as an old man, accompanied by writer John Neihardt, who popularized the medicine man in his book Black Elk Speaks. Neihardt recorded Black Elk's words regarding his vision as follows: "I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world," he is quoted as saying in Neihardt's book. "And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being."dakota, light, photography, south dakota, black hills, highest peak, lookout, tower, lookout tower, rock, structure, building, wpa, works progress administration, new deal, ccc, civilian conservation corps #201207098050

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August 18th, 2012

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