What’s in a Name? South Dakota Towns and Their Surprising Origins
As a lifelong history nerd, I love digging into the history of the places I live. Growing up in western Nebraska, I spent many afternoons in the library reading about the Sidney-Black Hills Trail.
That was a stagecoach route during the 1870s Black Hills gold rush. Miners would find their gold and send it south from Deadwood, SD, to Sidney, Nebraska. That was the quickest route, at the time, to the transcontinental railroad. The gold would go from there to banks in the east and west.
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Named After People: Local Legends and Railroad Officials
One of my favorite bits of history trivia is where towns get their names. Out here on the plains, lots of our towns get their names from people who worked for the various railroads. Makes sense, a lot of our towns around here exist because of the railroad.
Other towns get their names from prominent people in the area, or are named after places settlers came from, back east, or in Europe.
READ MORE: The 10 Smallest Towns in South Dakota According to the Latest Census
Natural Features That South Dakota Place Names
Places in South Dakota, like Sioux Falls or Hot Springs, take their names from local natural features.
But what about other towns and cities in the Sioux Empire? Where do they get their names?
Some South Dakota Town Name Origins
Historical Sources: How We Know These Stories
Source: Unless otherwise noted, much of this information is from the book A History of the Origin of the Place Names Connected with the Chicago & North Western and Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railways (1908) by the Chicago and North Western Railway Company.