Palisades State Park

Palisades State Park, just south of Garretson along Split Rock Creek, is one of South Dakota’s smallest state parks but among its most distinctive. Its pink Sioux Quartzite, about 1.2 billion years old, rises in cliffs and formations above the creek on the Coteau des Prairies, and also contains catlinite used by many Native American groups for ceremonial pipes. Settlement began in 1865, and the creek later powered a flour and feed mill around which the town of Palisades grew. A short-lived silver rush followed in 1886, but after Garretson became a railroad junction in 1889, the area’s scenic landscape outlasted its industrial ambitions.

South Dakota · United States