Cedar Pass Developed Area: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Badlands National Park
Regions 3, 4, & 5 Cultural Landscapes Program. 2021. Cedar Pass Developed Area: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Badlands National Park. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 500850. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. NPS Midwest Regional Office, Omaha, Nebraska / CRIS-CL Database
Inventory Unit Description: Badlands National Park is comprised of two units, the North Unit and the South Unit. The Cedar Pass Developed Area sits within the southeastern portion of the North Unit of the park. It is partially surrounded on the north and east by the Badlands Wall formation, with smaller formations located around the maintenance area to the south and a single peak between the Cedar Pass Lodge and campground. Open grasslands sweep across the remainder of the site, continuing southwest beyond the post and wire fence demarcating the park boundary. This protected position at the foot of the wall with open views to the southwest, presents visitors with both close views of the formations and distant views across the prairie. The Cedar Pass Developed Area is a designed landscape and is a relatively complete example of a Mission 66 developed area. Though, the design style was new, the way in which the plan fit the land allowed for visitor interaction with the park’s important resources reflected ideas espoused during earlier private tourism initiatives and the New Deal era. The residential and utility uses were zoned into clusters and partitioned from visitor use areas. Loop roads formed the armature for each of the individual zones, connecting clusters of buildings associated with administration, residential, utility, and campground use areas. Based on work conducted on behalf of the Cultural Landscape Report (CLR), the Cedar Pass Developed Area appears to possess state-level significance as a historic district under National Register Criteria A and C for 1) early tourism associated with western landscapes and parks; 2) CCC development and New Deal Master Planning; and 3) the National Park Service’s Mission 66 initiative within the areas of Architecture, Landscape Architectures, Social History/Tourism, Recreation and Community Planning and Development during the period 1928 through 1966. In 2004, the South Dakota State Historic Preservation Officer concurred on the National Register eligibility Cedar Pass Developed Area.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Regions 3, 4, & 5 Cultural Landscapes Program
- Date of Issue
- 2021-09-08
- Publisher
- U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
- Units
- BADL , MWR
- Keywords
- American Indian, amphitheater, architecture, Ben Millard, Ben Reifel Visitor Center, campground, CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps, community planning, designed landscape, employee housing, fossil, grassland, landscape architecture, lodge, Loop Road, maintenance facilities, Master Planning, Mission 66, Native American, New Deal, paleontology, prairie, recreation, social history, South Dakota, tourism, transportation