In 1945 the Black Hills was proposed as a site for the world headquarters of the United Nations. The architect Luvine Berg was hired to plan a Black Hills dream city for the U.N.

    From Berg's blueprints and drawings we can trace his vision of one Black Hills valley transformed into a world capital. That valley is still known as America's Center, because for Berg it was the center of North America. America Center is three miles east and two miles north of Custer.

    Berg designed a map to prove the Black Hills were the most interior spot on the continent, and the most remote from oceans. A big circle on the map touches the Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and Hudson's Bay, and has as its center the Black Hills. In every direction, it is 1100 miles to a salt water sea.

    Berg planned a colossal United Nations headquarters at America Center. His drawings show spiral avenue, some 170 feet wide and lined with embassies of all nations, ending in a massive capitol building. The capitol building was to have a million square feet of office space, and a 20,000 seat auditorium. Atop its 30th story sat a huge globe.

    Berg felt that many peaceful Black Hills canyons would allow for exclusive national villages. He wrote of his plan as being "...so colossal a place that it may well accommodate the capital of Jupiter."

    A bizarre three-dimensional model of the planned city gathered dust in Berg's former studio. That studio is located, of course, at America Center.

    Another post-war scheme called for a world Highway, which berg worked into his city plan as main street. This highway would have passed near the Hills in connecting South Africa with Argentina! The only gap in the highway was to have been the Bering Straits separating Russia and Alaska.

    But neither the World Highway nor the Black Hills U.N. was ever built. This despite the efforts of Luvine Berg and Paul Bellamy-men who dared to dream the biggest Black Hills dream ever.

10/01/03