Minnehaha County, South Dakota

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

County Seat: Sioux Falls
Year Organized: 1862
Square Miles: 809

Court House:

415 N. Dakota Avenue
County Administration Building
Sioux Falls, SD 57104-2412

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Minnehaha's name is taken from a Native American word meaning river waterfall.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Minnehaha County was created in 1862, organized in 1862, and reorganized in 1868. Minnehaha is an Indian word used to describe a falls in a river. The county seat is located in Sioux Falls, one of the first town developments in the county.

History of Minnehaha County, South Dakota by Dana R. Bailey (1899)

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 814 square miles (2,107 km²), of which, 810 square miles (2,097 km²) of it is land and 4 square miles (10 km²) of it (0.49%) is water. The Big Sioux River flows through it.

The County of Minnehaha is situated in the southeastern part of South Dakota, and is about equidistant from the northern and southern limits of the famous Sioux Valley. It is bounded on the east by Rock county, Minnesota; on the south, for a distance of seven miles, by Lyon county, Iowa, and by Lincoln and Turner counties; on the west by McCook county, and on the north by Lake and Moody counties, South Dakota. It is twenty-four miles in extent north and south, and thirty-four miles east and west, and contains twenty-four townships, the eastern tier being fractional. The general surface is undulating, or what is usually termed rolling prairie; except to a limited extent along the larger streams where it rises abruptly and is more or less broken. The soil is a rich black loam from one to three feet deep, with a fertile porous subsoil. For the growing of cereals and vegetables the soil is unsurpassed, and its productive properties are not appreciably diminished by successive crops without the use of fertilizers. Two valleys along the banks of the Big Sioux river and Skunk creek extending nearly through the county, north and south, are worthy of mention.

Neighboring Counties:

Moody County, South Dakota - north
Rock County, Minnesota - east
Lyon County, Iowa - southeast
Lincoln County, South Dakota - south
Turner County, South Dakota - southwest
McCook County, South Dakota - west
Lake County, South Dakota - northwest

Cities and Towns:

- Baltic	city	Incorporated Area
- Benton	township
- Brandon	city	Incorporated Area
- Burk	township
- Colton	city	Incorporated Area
- Crooks	city	Incorporated Area
- Dell Rapids	city	Incorporated Area
- Edison	township
- Garretson	city	Incorporated Area
- Grand Meadow	township
- Hartford	city	Incorporated Area
- Highland	township
- Humboldt	town	Incorporated Area
- Logan	township
- Lyons	township
- Mapleton	township
- Palisade	township
- Red Rock	township
- Sherman	town	Incorporated Area
- Sioux Falls (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Split Rock	township
- Sverdrup	township
- Taopi	township
- Valley Springs	city	Incorporated Area
- Wall Lake	township
- Wayne	township
- Wellington	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."