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Buffalo County, South Dakota

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

7historic places

—earliest paper

1864formed

1,948pop. 2020

9cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 7 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1966; 2 are also National Historic Landmarks. Most listings are in or near Gann Valley, Fort Thompson, Chamberlain.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for South Dakota is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Buffalo titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

2 of 7 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

7 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Bank of Buffalo County	Gann Valley	Building	1999
Crow Creek Site NHL	Chamberlain	Site	1966
Duncan Church	Gann Valley	Building	1999
Fort Thompson Archeological District	Fort Thompson	District	1986
Fort Thompson Mounds NHL	Fort Thompson	District	1966
Long View Stock Farm	Gann Valley	Building	2018
Talking Crow Archeological Site	Fort Thompson	Site	2003

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Buffalo was formed in 1864 (1864-01-06) from BRUGUIER (Dakota Territory, extinct), Charles Mix.

BUFFALO created by Dakota Territory in present South Dakota from BRUGUIER (Dakota Territory, extinct), CHARLES MIX, and non-county area.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Buffalo County population from 1870 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1870	1880	1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
246	63	1,790	1,715	1,853	1,615	1,547	1,795	2,032	1,948

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

9 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 9 of 9 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Christ Episcopal Cemetery	44.05785	-99.44253
Crow Creek Cemetery	43.95832	-99.21231
Elm Creek Cemetery	44.16493	-99.22617
Lake View Cemetery	44.063	-99.46406
Presbyterian Cemetery	44.04774	-99.39809
Saint John The Baptist Episcopal Cemetery	43.96881	-99.26951
Saint Joseph Cemetery	44.06326	-99.46491
Saint Placidus Catholic Cemetery	44.18112	-99.05672
Spring Hill Cemetery	44.03554	-98.97592

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Buffalo County, South Dakota

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.