Brookings County, South Dakota

Brookings County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Brookings
Year Organized: 1892
Square Miles: 794

Court House:

314 6th Avenue
County Courthouse
Brookings, SD 57006-2057

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Brookings is named after Wilmot Wood Brookings, a politician and pioneer of southeastern South Dakota.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

The history of Brookings County begins with the act, which authorized its first boundaries on April 5, 1862. Its area at that time included parts of Moody, Lake and Kingsbury Counties but was reduced to its present dimensions in 1873. On January 13, 1871 the first Commissioners were appointed to organize the county and Governor Burbank named Medary as the county seat. The town of Brookings was laid out in early October, 1879. There was a rush to the new town and Medary was moved almost bodily to Brookings. The question of the county seat came up at the November election and Brookings won over two other contestants. Bitter feelings and accusations of fraud followed, but Brookings became the legal county seat and the records were moved to the new town during the closing days of 1879. The establishment of the Agricultural College and experiment station at Brookings was by an act of the Territorial Legislature on February 21, 1881.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 805 square miles (2,084 km²), of which, 794 square miles (2,058 km²) of it is land and 10 square miles (27 km²) of it (1.28%) is water

Neighboring Counties:

Deuel County, South Dakota - north
Lincoln County, Minnesota - east
Moody County, South Dakota - south
Lake County, South Dakota - southwest
Kingsbury County, South Dakota - west
Hamlin County, South Dakota - northwest

Cities and Towns:

- Afton	township
- Alton	township
- Argo	township
- Aurora	town	Incorporated Area
- Bangor	township
- Brookings (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Bruce	city	Incorporated Area
- Bushnell	town	Incorporated Area
- Elkton	city	Incorporated Area
- Lake Hendricks	township
- Lake Sinai	township
- Laketon	township
- Medary	township
- Oak Lake	township
- Oakwood	township
- Oslo	township
- Parnell	township
- Preston	township
- Sinai	town	Incorporated Area
- Sterling	township
- Trenton	township
- Volga	city	Incorporated Area
- White	city	Incorporated Area
- Winsor	township

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."