South Dakota: Little-known Facts and Trivia

If you plan to write a script for a movie set in South Dakota, you can forget about showing police officers being beaten, struck or treated in an offensive manner. According to South Dakota Fun Facts and Trivia, such movies are forbidden in the state. It's also illegal to lie down and fall asleep in a cheese factory there.

Pierre, South Dakota is the only state capital that doesn't share any letters with its state. "Under God the People Rule" is the state motto. In 1978, the honey bee was named the state insect.

Mr. Rushmore didn't always have that name. Before someone carved presidential faces on the stone, it was known as Mountain of Rock. Carrie Ingalls, the youngest sister in the "Little House on the Prairie" series, lived in South Dakota most of her adult life. Other famous residents include newscaster Tom Brokaw, Calamity Jane, Theodore Roosevelt, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Wild Bill Hickok was killed in 1876 in Deadwood.

While it's primarily known for agriculture, the state hosts the Sturgis Rally and Races during the first full week of August. Motorcyclists from all over the world participate in hill climbing and racing events. Total attendance tops 650,000.

The state also boasts the world's largest petrified wood park at Lemmon. Visitors can see the remains of life 50 million years ago arranged in unusual forms. Some 60,000 people in nine official tribes make up one of the largest Native American populations in the United States.

The next time you note sawdust on the floor of a bar or saloon in a movie, think of Deadwood, South Dakota. This is supposedly where the tradition of putting sawdust on the floors began due to the amount of gold dust that fell to the floor. Proprietors used the sawdust to hide the gold, which was swept up at the end of each night.

South Dakota is well known for its Black Hills Gold. The name derives from the Lakota words for "hills that are black". From a distance, the pine-covered hills, which rise to several thousand feet above the prairie, look black. They are home to Jewel Cave, which is the fourth largest in the world.

Visitors come to Mitchell each year to visit the world's only Corn Palace, constructed using 3,500 bushels of ears of corn.

South Dakota has a special requirement for inmates of its prisons. They're required to pay for the costs of incarceration if they have no other financial obligations. Parents are responsible for paying for juvenile offenders.

Despite the carving of the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln on Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Hose Mountain carving promises to be the world's largest sculpture, at 563 feet high and 641 feet long. According to 50states.com, it was created as the focal point of an educational and cultural memorial for the North American Indian. The state is home to the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota tribes, which comprise the Sioux Nation.

Site of a big gold strike in 1875, Deadwood still has the atmosphere of a mining town. Custer State Park is presently the home of 1,500 free-roaming bison. Sage Creek Wilderness is the spot where the black-footed ferret - the most endangered land mammal in North America - was introduced to nature.

South Dakota State University, the largest public university in the state, makes its home at Brookings. Yankton was the original Dakota Territory capital. Sioux Falls exists as a city due to land speculators. They staked town site claims in 1857 while looking for the cascades of the Big Sioux River.

Fans of vintage autos will want to take in the Pioneer Auto Museum in Murdo, home to more than 250 rare automobiles such as the Tucker and the Edsel. Archaeology enthusiasts will find many well-known sites throughout the state. Faith is the site of several excavations and one of the largest and best-preserved sets of Tyrannosaurus Rex remains.

Visitors to Split Rock Creek near Garretson can see deposits of dark red pipestone and quartzite spires dating back 1.2 billion years. Various parts of the state were created by glaciers. When exploring on foot in the warmer months, though, be on the look out for the prairie rattlesnake. It's the only venomous snake in South Dakota.