French Creek is an intermittent stream located in the Black Hills region of western South Dakota, USA. It is a tributary of the Cheyenne River.
It rises approximately 5 miles (8 km) northeast of Custer, South Dakota and extends for a length of 62 miles (100 km). It flows on a general eastward direction through Custer State Park and empties into the Cheyenne River near Red Shirt, South Dakota.
Gold was discovered in French Creek during an expedition led by George Armstrong Custer in 1874. This discovery triggered the Black Hills gold rush of the late 1870s.
Famous quotes containing the words french and/or creek:
“He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned.”
—14th-century French proverb, first recorded in English in A. Barclay, Gringore’s Castle of Labour (1506)
“It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm bounds and cottage lights. For my own part, but for the geographers, I should hardly have known how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Harbor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)