Center of the Nation — Belle Fourche, Spearfish & the Northern Hills

The northern Black Hills gather up an outsized share of Western heritage in a compact triangle of towns an hour or so from Rapid City. This three-day loop begins in Belle Fourche, the cattle-shipping capital that became — with the admission of Alaska and Hawaii — the official geographic center of the United States, a distinction it marks with a granite compass and celebrates each summer at its Black Hills Roundup rodeo. From there it works south and east through Spearfish, where a Victorian fish hatchery and a restored 1906 opera house anchor a lively canyon-mouth town, and into Sturgis, the ranching community whose name became synonymous with the largest motorcycle rally on earth. Along the way the High Plains Western Heritage Center draws together the cowboy, Lakota, and pioneer strands of the five-state region into one panoramic story.