When Friends of Rapid City parks hosts the second annual “Memory Walk” this Sunday to commemorate the 1972 flood, and celebrate the legacy of parks that city leaders built from its destruction, walkers will have a chance to look forward as well as back.
Coming soon to bike path interpretive signs: links to web based information.
During the stroll of about 2 miles from Sioux Park to the bridge at Omaha Street and Mountain View Road, we will demonstrate two or three of what eventually will be about a dozen QR codes, or smart phone links that connect users of the bike path interpretive signs to web-based information. As a participant in the planning for last year’s Remembrance & Renewal commemoration, Friends worked with the committee to develop the signs that were installed along the bike path as part of the 40th anniversary observance of the flood.
When our board first discussed the sign project, our main concern was that the target audience for the information is the generation who did not experience the 1972 Black Hills Flood. Demographers estimate that about three-fourths of Rapid City’s current residents either didn’t live here or were not yet born in 1972. The signs and the QR codes offer an opportunity to inform people who are now aged 20 to 40, or who have moved to Rapid City in the past 30 years, and are not familiar with flood history. The codes also provide a mechanism to link users to current information that can be updated and refreshed without the need to refabricate the signs themselves.
Codes will add web-based content to the signs at locations in Braeburn Park, across from Baken Park, at Omaha and Mountain View, and at the Fairgrounds. Audio, video, photos, and links to historic information will pop up on smart phone screens, as well as brief facts and figures about the site where the viewer is standing. The next stage of the project will add QR codes to sign installations at Meadowbrook Golf Course, Storybook Island, Memory Lane, and at East and Omaha.
Friends are collaborating with the Rapid City Public Library and its Flood Wiki archive to develop the material, and have received support for the project from the Flood Commemoration Committee. The library is developing links for the remaining sign locations at Canyon Lake, Sioux Park, Founders Park, Executive Golf Course, and the Sixth Street Bridge.
Last year’s walk during the 40th Anniversary Remembrance & Renewal commemoration drew more than 30 participants.