Tigerville or Tiger City (1878–1885) is a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

in the

Black Hills The Black Hills is an isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, United States. Black Elk Peak, which rises to , is the range's highest summit. The name of the range ...

of Pennington County,

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state, state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota people, Dakota Sioux ...

, United States. The old

mining town A mining community, also known as a mining town or a mining camp, is a community that houses miners. Mining communities are usually created around a mine or a quarry. Historical mining communities Australia * Ballarat, Victoria * Bendig ...

exemplifies the boom-and-bust fate of many Western towns.Parker, Watson, and Hugh K. Lambert. ''Black Hills Ghost Towns.'' First ed. Vol. 1. Chicago, IL: The Swallow Press Incorporated, 1974. 188. 1 vols. Print.

Naming

The town's name might have come from the Bengal Tiger Mine, located 2–3 miles away. Others say that the name came from the unpatented Lucky Tiger claims Numbers 1, 2, and 3; though these do not show up on maps, locals say that the claims were nearby the town.

History

Tigerville was founded in 1878 in the King Solomon Mine area, which was known for its

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

and

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

placer deposit In geology, a placer deposit or placer is an accumulation of valuable minerals formed by gravity separation from a specific source rock during sedimentary processes. The name is from the Spanish language, Spanish word ''placer'', meaning "alluviu ...

s. It had a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

, two stores, three

saloons Saloon may refer to: Buildings and businesses * One of the bars in a traditional British pub * An alternative name for a bar (establishment) * Western saloon, a historical style of American bar * The Saloon, a bar and music venue in San Francis ...

, blacksmith, school, and a stage barn, which was a stop on the Cheyenne-Custer-Deadwood line. The nearby Bengal Tiger Mine, despite reportedly having promising mineral deposits, was never successfully mined. In 1880, the town reached 200 residents, and was able to send six delegates to the South Dakota Republican Convention; seeing as

Rapid City, South Dakota Rapid City is the county seat of Pennington County, South Dakota, United States. It is located on the eastern slope of the Black Hills in western South Dakota and was named after Rapid Creek (South Dakota), Rapid Creek, where the settlement deve ...

had only ten at the time, this was a notable accomplishment for the town. The town eventually grew to about 500 citizens. When the town hit its bust, and the mines closed in 1885, many of the miners settled on nearby

ranch A ranch (from /Mexican Spanish) is an area of landscape, land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of farm. These terms are most often ap ...

es or moved to other towns."Tigerville 1878-1885."
HistoryQuest. AmericanHeritage.com, n.d. Web. 23 Aug. 2013. In 1974, only one house and the sawmill remained.

Geography

Tigerville is located in the

of western Pennington County. The old town site is located approximately 4.5 miles northwest of Hill City, at the junction of roads leading to Hill City, Deerfield Lake, and

Rochford Rochford is a town and civil parish in the Rochford (district), Rochford District in Essex, England, north of Southend-on-Sea, from London and from Chelmsford. At the 2011 census, the Civil parishes in England, civil parish had a population ...

References

{{Pennington County, South Dakota Ghost towns in South Dakota Populated places established in 1878 1878 establishments in Dakota Territory Former populated places in Pennington County, South Dakota Mining communities in South Dakota 1885 disestablishments in Dakota Territory Populated places disestablished in 1885