BHI puts print at former winery

The Black Hills Institute of Geologic Research (BHI) now has an entire campus located on the site formerly housed by Prairie Berry Winery and Addie Camp General Store. While the property was under contract at one point and was even about to be divided, the entire 17.5 acre parcel was purchased and will eventually house a three- story museum and gift shop as well as a food and beverage space and event center, the latter of which is already accepting reservations. 

The Prairie Berry Winery building will house the new museum, the Natural History Museum of the Black Hills, with 40,000 square-feet of exhibit space. BHI president Pete Larson estimates gaining eight or nine times as much exhibit space over its current downtown Hill City museum, with Adam Weaver, CFO for BHI, saying, “almost the entire building is exhibit space.” 

The finished museum, which will open in June of 2027, will feature three modern floors, loads of display cases, catwalk viewing platforms, a theater showing videos and films and of course lots and lots of dinosaurs. 

The new BHI campus has 200 parking spaces as opposed to the six spaces   BHI currently has downtown. 

“We want to maintain our presence there, and we figure this is still Hill City,” Larson said.

Both buildings on the new BHI campus, the Natural History Museum of the Black Hills and Eras, (the former Addie Camp)  were immediately outfitted with solar panels to cut down on the site’s carbon footprint. The BHI campus  already has its own class two water plant.

Scull Construction is handling the changes to the former Prairie Berry building, which include demolishing walls, cutting into walls, creating new stairs, installation of an elevator, erecting glass walls and adding additional bathrooms. 

Larson had no idea how tall the Prairie Berry space was. 

“When we came to do the tour I’m thinking, ‘Holy (expletive). This is perfect.’” Larson said. “I’m not a good poker face. I was just blown away. It was perfect. I could not imagine a better facility. We could not build something like this, everything flows into these rooms, which are just naturally made for things we’re putting into it.”

The wine equipment came with the purchase of the property and is being sold to various entities.

“We’re working through that,” Weaver said, joking, “it’s a process. It’s very similar if we sold our business to Prairie Berry and Matt Keck had to sell our dinosaurs.” 

Keck is a former manager and owner of Prairie Berry.

Weaver said he is “very grateful” to Keck, who continues to answer questions.

Weaver joked that “almost every brewery and wine vendor in South Dakota has benefited from this project already.” 

While he calls Prairie Berry one of the finest wineries in the United States, he said getting rid of the equipment is “very hard.”

Some tanks have been sold to California. Larson joked that they’re “taking offers” on a bottling machine. 

The former Addie Camp space, now known as Eras, plural for era, meaning a point in history in time, will be multi-functional. Two classrooms will offer space for educational programming for children. That space has been outfitted with new flooring. 

However, Eras will primarily be used as an event center and can accommodate all sorts of occasions,  including reunions, corporate retreats and weddings. As a wedding venue, it features a separate room for both bride and groom, a state of the art commercial kitchen with a full walk-in cooler and walk-in freezer,  an oversized bar and seating for 150 guests. Weddings can be held outdoors as well in a forestlike setting. Wedding parties also have the option of renting an entire house for guests or honeymoons.

When the museum is open, Eras will also sell refreshments and beverages  for museum patrons. 

The former location downtown will become a showroom which will look like a museum but will be a display for the 211 different  products BHI currently makes. 

“They’re all dinosaurs. There’ll be a room of dinosaurs where you can walk in and be like, ‘I would love to have this Stegosaurus replica and you can take it home,’” Weaver said.

Large mineral specimens will also be available for purchase at that location. 

An open house and ribbon cutting will be held at Eras Feb. 21 at 4 p.m. The public is invited to attend.