Along the Cheyenne River, South Dakota’s western heritage appears in structures shaped by regional history: eight skyward-thrusting pillars merge in the framework of a tipi, reflecting the Plains Indian home and the spartan lifestyle of the nomadic Lakota (Sioux) Nation, while isosceles triangles beneath each tipi form a thunderbird pattern, another traditional Indian symbol. A nearby building takes its form from the sod houses and dugouts that dotted the South Dakota prairie during pioneering days. This broad area along the Cheyenne River was once suitable cattle country, and in the early 1880’s it provided range for large cattle outfits with herds numbering tens of thousands, though ranches of comparable size no longer exist here. Nearby on the west side of the Cheyenne stands Wasta, founded in 1906-07 on the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad and named by South Dakota’s first state historian, Doane Robinson, from the Sioux word for “good.” Typical of many prairie communities that endured severe hardship, Wasta survived a 1914 fire that destroyed its business district. The Cheyenne River flows just west of here, and its two branches envelop the Black Hills and drain them into the Missouri River about 100 miles northeast.