South Dakota Highway 87
highway in South Dakota
South Dakota Highway 87 (SD 87) is a 37.894-mile-long (60.984 km) state highway in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of South Dakota. It travels through the Black Hills region. The highway's southern terminus is at an intersection with U.S. Route 385 (US 385), about 6 miles (9.7 km) southeast of Pringle, within the southwestern part of Wind Cave National Park. Its northern terminus is at an intersection with US 16/US 385 about 3 miles (4.8 km) south-southwest of Hill City, within the east-central part of the Black Hills National Forest.
The highway travels through Wind Cave National Park. The northern 14 miles (23 km) of the highway is also known as the Needles Highway. The Needles Highway, along with the concurrency with US 16A, are also part of the Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway. Portions of the highway are also a section of Custer State Park's Wildlife Loop.
Route description
Because of the highway's mountainous, curving nature, it is closed during the winter.
South of US 16A
Highway 87 begins at US 385 in Wind Cave National Park, east of Pringle and west of the park headquarters.
“South Dakota Highway 87” enters the record as highway in South Dakota. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what South, Dakota and Highway can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“South Dakota Highway 87” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, South, Dakota and Highway provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 24, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q809104. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “South Dakota Highway 87”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow South Dakota Highway 87 primary sources, South Dakota Highway 87 archive and South research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “South Dakota Highway 87”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “South Dakota Highway 87” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.