A new initiative in tourism development …. South Dakota's Oyate Trail

Business America, April 5, 1993 by David L. Edgell, Sr., Susan Edwards

South Dakota is a state of sharp contrasts. Divided almost equally by the Missouri River into eastern and western halves, it is a land of rich wheat and cattle farms, small towns, and the hardworking people that settled the agricultural West. At the same time, it is a land of dramatic scenery, rugged landscapes, and thick forests. The southwestern part of the state has contributed to the legend of the Wild West, with tales of gold miners striking it rich, gunfighters shooting it out, and gamblers staking their lives on the turn of a card.

This remarkable state has two massive granite mountain sculptures--Mount Rushmore, into which the faces of four popular American presidents have been carved in stone, and the Crazy Horse sculpture, a similar memorial to the great Sioux Indian Chief Crazy Horse.

South Dakota has a magnificent rural environment and a rich history and culture that is currently receiving special attention through a new initiative in tourism development.

In May 1992, a group of South Dakotans--including arts supporters, tourism leaders, historic preservation officials, private business owners, and tribal representatives--met in the Mission, South Dakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, to formulate an economic and cultural development plan for developing tourism in southern South Dakota.

Taking into consideration the area's existing assets, the group devised a strategy to inventory, develop, and promote cultural, artistic, and historic resources along Highway 18/50, a southern passage across South Dakota. Because of the significance of the Dakota and Lakota Sioux culture and its appeal to visitors, the group named the project area the Oyate Trail to reflect its cultural diversity. Oyate (oh-YAH-tay), in the Dakota/Lakota language, means people or nation. Ochanku (ohCHAHNG-koo) means well traveled road. Therefore, Oyate Ochanku serves as the project's working title.

The proposed 388-mile route, with its planned scenic, cultural, and arts tour loops, has over a dozen established arts institutions that provide unique cultural opportunities for off-the-Interstate travelers. Arts organizations and attractions along the Oyate Trail are as varied as the scenery. The route includes such sites as the world famous Shrine to Music Museum in Vermillion; a Czechoslovakian arts festival in Tabor; cowboy poets in Martin; Dakota Territory's first capital in Yankton; and Native American powwows, museums, and arts centers on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservations.

Oyate Trail development has been the inspiration for many diverse groups of South Dakotans to join forces. The South Dakota Arts Council, working very closely with the state departments of Tourism and Economic Development, has taken the lead in the project. The South Dakota Presidential Council on Rural Development and chambers of commerce from Vermillion to Hot Springs are also lending support. And, the project's diverse steering committee includes representatives from Indian tribes, local arts agencies, state offices, private businesses, and nonprofit organizations.

Recently completed research studies will be used to help inventory tourism resources along the Oyate Trail. Project coordinators will analyze the results of the South Dakota Planning and Development District III inventory of the 14 counties encompassed by this project, the Oglala Sioux Tribe's cultural resources study of the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation, and the South Dakota Department of Tourism's study of Missouri River resources.

The effort by South Dakota is a unique and far-sighted endeavor which combines two crucially important emerging areas in international and domestic tourism development in the United States--rural tourism and multicultural tourism. Rural and multicultural tourism development in the 1990s are major initiatives of the Department of Commerce's United States Travel and Tourism Administration (USTTA).

The Oyate Trail, by means of its proposed locations and theme, unites these two tourism development approaches and can serve as a model for similar projects in other under-utilized rural areas of the United States.

The above project is an example of a larger framework that demonstrates that tourism can be an important economic development tool in rural and culturally rich areas as part of the Administration's goal of building a strong and vital and competitive economy. The Travel and Tourism Administration's programs are designed to support U.S. states, cities, regions, and private industry with special emphasis on small business, cultural, and ethnic communities, and rural areas.

The problems of rural areas are well documented. The decline of family-owned farms, the failure of various industries, and the loss of mineral resources have created population loss, especially among better educated youth and skilled workers.

Residents of rural communities lag behind in education. Across the country, the economic competitiveness of rural areas is declining, in part because rural communities are dependent upon too few sources of income. Much of rural America is, and historically has been, poor. Yet, the federal government has provided record levels of price and income support to farmers over the last decade. The "farm crisis" has now spread beyond the farm into businesses which traditionally have catered to the farmer.