ABSTRACT
Compared with other parts of the country, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana were slow to react to the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), even though federal lands and resources are an integral aspect of the landscapes the this chapter. The chapter discusses the review of the manuscript files at the State Historical Society of North Dakota (SHSND), South Dakota State Historical Society (SDSHS), and Montana Historical Society (MHS). Approximately 38" of the manuscripts in the SDSHS are documents about cultural resource activities associated with US Forest Service (USFS) activities in the Black Hills, Custer, and Nebraska National Forests and the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, 26" in the Black Hills National Forest alone. Systematic cultural resource investigations in the Northern Plains began with the Smithsonian Institution River Basin Surveys (RBS) and the National Park Service (NPS) Interagency Archaeological Salvage Program (IASP). Passage of the NHPA has directed the management of cultural resources, archaeological, historic, and historic architectural.
