We had a fun couple of hours going through the old buildings and looking at the old time…read morememorabilia. There is so much to read and learn about the Old West. Staff was very nice and helpful. We definitely would bring others here. It was a lot of fun. Excellent photo opportunities.

So much fun, only a couple of other people here so we could walk around feeling like we owned the…read moretown, get great photos and read all the interesting snippets of historic information scattered among the thousands of artifacts. The owner is dressed up as Poker Alice, and looks like her. There is a town building for everything, over 50 in total. The town is designed around history, humor and old fashioned horse sense. The doors of the buildings are open so people can experience the feeling of pioneer living. This really is an amazing acquisition of artifacts, junk and dust down to meticulous detail. It's wonderful and worth every penny to get in. If you are expecting a fancy museum all pristine and clean then you and your granola need to stay at home. Pioneer living was a grim dirty business.

This dinosaur fossil museum is so much more than I expected. I love dinosaurs and fossils. I did…read morenot realize it was Frank Garcia, Paleontologist. He told us stories and showed us around his museum. A must for a dinosaur and fossil enthusiasts.

This Museum is a must visit. Every time you go you learn something new. Frank Garcia,…read morePaleontologist welcomes you each time you come visit, and will tell you stories about his life, discoveries, and show you things you never thought you'd ever see in your lifetime. I will always have this place in my heart, definitely will return and visit again! The gift shop had wonderful crystals, fossils for sale at reasonable price as well, we left with a few treasures.

I would highly recommend this history museum it has a lot of history about Mount Rushmore. This is…read morea great location. This has a movie that tells you about Mt Rushmore. The staff is very friendly and helpful.

Borglum's studio is located at Mt. Rushmore and is certainly worth seeing but unlike what can be…read morelearned at Mt. Rushmore, the Gutzon Borglum Historical Center gives you a complete picture of the artist, family and friends. Teddy Roosevelt was among Borglum's admirers. Borglum was Danish in decent and the child of a Mormon father who married two sisters, the younger of the two was Borglum's mother.He attended Harvard technical school and studied in Paris where he was influenced by Rodin. The museum is well organized and professionally curated., The audio-guide is clear and precise and can be paused and rewound. There is also a video of period clips narrated by Senator Tom Daschle who knew that Borglum was such a prolific sculpture with works at Stone Mountain Georgia, General Philip Sheridan in Washington DC, Wars of America in Newark, NJ's Military Park, Thomas Paine sculpture in Paris, bronze memorial to Sacco & Vanzetti in Boston and Woodrow Wilson statue in Poland to name a few. The full sized eye of Lincoln lends a sense of scale to what you will see at Mt. Rushmore and the seated Lincoln out front is a nice photo-op.The museum is located in Keystone, a western style city which is about three miles from Mt. Rushmore and an interesting stop in itself. Hours are 8:30-4, Mon-Sat and closed Sunday during June, July and August. May, Sept and October hours vary so call ahead.. . The Mt. Rushmore Borglum Museum is a worthwhile enrichment to what you will see at Mount Rushmore.

We were staying at the little hotel right next door (which is amazing, by the way), but it was an…read moreeasy walk from that parking lot to this one, and so we decided to go here, even though it was not on my itinerary originally. If you don't know me, which I'm almost positive you don't, swaying from my itinerary is not something that I usually do or something that I take lightly...so it kind of has to be awesome for me to do that. I came because a few of the reviews said that this place was even better than they had expected, and I am very happy to report that this is true. This entire place looks and feels like a labor of love. We didn't get to watch the entire movie in the theater, but whatever we did see, shows how much of an effort it was to go through and make this building and exhibition. This is the kind of place that makes you feel like you are a homeschooler, which I love. I loved how educational it was, and how much we learned during the trip here. The QR codes are awesome to go at your own pace and learn at each different station. There were people there that were willing to answer any questions and others that were digging up at the site and it felt like a very interactive experience. Because I had not already planned for this in advance, we were only able to give the site around an hour and a half, but I think to fully enjoy it, you would need to have around 3 hours worth of time available to come here. I'm grateful that we were even able to go for as long as we did. It was well worth the trip. The gift shop was also great. And we got binoculars and cute little magnets to take with us.

Well done! Very informative displays and easy to navigate. QR codes at each site play a narrative…read moreof what you are looking at during the self guided tour. Takes about 1-2 hours to see everything. Gift shop is okay and there is a snack shack out front selling hotdogs/hamburgers/ chicken strips and nachos. I would highly recommend stopping by The Mammoth Site if you are in the area.

As little house on the prairie fans we had to stop and see what they had preserved from Carrie…read moreIngalls. They had a room filled with curated items that we saved prior to Carrie's house burning down. They also have a room filled with local keystone historical items from both settlers and Native Americans. GPS brought us close but not directly to the location but we could easily see how to get the last few hundred feet. Another hidden gem. The volunteer at the door helped guide us and gave us background that wasn't written on any of the exhibits. The classrooms upstairs look like the students just left the room. Great place to visit for local history.

Great place with great volunteers So neat to learn so much…read moreabout Keystone, and Carrie Ingalls

first of all, they charge $5 to park in the parking lot, even if you go to the museum or not, or…read morejust want to walk around the town or check out the stores. And its on the honor system as well. but we paid and used the restroom, which was horrible, you can smell the mold and mildew as you walk in it. But the outside Dahls Chainsaw Art was so awesome, and so was walking around the town!!

Great collection of historical information. Nicely layed out. Enjoyed the movie narrated by Tom…read moreDaschle. They need a gift shop, though.

Great little museum, and the gift shop is wonderful. Beautiful jewelry at great prices, and the…read morestaff was so helpful and patient with us as we looked thru everything! Highly recommend!

They are not accommodating to people with medical exemptions for masks. I brought my 4 kids for a…read morefun field trip because they love dinosaurs so much, but we were turned away at the door because I'm not able to wear a mask. They offered a face shield as the only option. That is discrimination against people with disabilities and I will not be supporting this museum in the future.

**June 2025: Monday Afternoon Visit**…read more When I was researching things to do in and around Hill City, this shop/musuem came up highly recommended. Hours: 9am-6pm Adults $7.50 Admission There's parking right alongside the museum and on my visit the area was not very busy. The museum is very small and I think the gift shop is actually the same size or slightly bigger than the exhibit; however, they had a pretty impressive selection of T-Rex skulls, other dinosaur bones, and misc fossils. Some were real and some were accurate size replicas, but the size of these dinosaurs were pretty intimidating and honestly I'd probably be terrified if these ever came to life. I think I spent maybe an hour or so inside reading all the cards and seeing all the bones. I think if you're looking for things to do you could add this, but it would be a if I had extra time in my South Dakota agenda. Enjoy!

My son is a big dinosaur fan (well, let's be honest, I am too) so of course we had to stop by here…read moreduring our MEA Fall Break vacation in 2021 to South Dakota. They were closed on the first day we tried to come (make sure to check time availability) but we wanted to check this place out so we made another trip from Rapid City on another day. This place isn't very big but they pack a lot of specimens into it. I was impressed by how many T. Rex specimens they had on display and the variety of dinosaurs shown. I had watched the Dinosaur 13 documentary a few months before coming to this place (it is actually how I found out about it) so it was interesting viewing this place and the town from that narrative. My kids were fascinated by the scale of the fossils and had a blast getting up close to the fossils. You have to pay admission (moderate price per person) to see the fossil displays but you can walk around the gift store for free. The gift shop is stocked with so many dinosaur lover gifts and fossils and was a big hit with the family. It made for a fun afternoon. Tip - Make sure to visit the giant open pit mine in the next town over, we made a day of visiting both.