The Black Hills is a small mountain range in the Great Plains region of the United States, stretching from South Dakota to Wyoming. The hills were covered in evergreen trees, giving them a dark appearance from a distance, hence their nickname. In 1776, the Lakota settled in the Black Hills after conquering the Cheyenne, and, in 1868, the United States government exempted the Black Hills from white settlement in the Treaty of Fort Laramie, which ended Red Cloud's War. However, white settlers discovered gold there in 1874, leading to a gold rush and an influx of white miners. This resulted in the Great Sioux War of 1876, which resulted in the defeat of the Sioux tribes; in 1889, the US government reassigned the Lakota to five smaller reservations in western South Dakota. Miners from Colorado and Montana settled in the region, and the tourism and hospitality industries replaced the mining and timber industries in the late 20th century.