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Butte County, South Dakota

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

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

39historic places

—earliest paper

1883formed

10,243pop. 2020

13cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 39 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1976. Most listings are in or near Belle Fourche, Newell, Fruitdale.

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 Butte titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

31 of 39 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

39 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Belle Fourche Band Shell	Belle Fourche	Structure	2016
Belle Fourche Commercial Historic District	Belle Fourche	District	1982
Belle Fourche Dam	Belle Fourche	Structure	1977
Belle Fourche Experiment Farm	Newell	Building	1976
Bolles, Charles, House	Belle Fourche	Building	1982
Butte County Courthouse amd Historic Jail Building	Belle Fourche	Building	1998
Butte-Lawrence County Fairgrounds	Nisland	District	1986
Chambers Dugout	Belle Fourche	Building	2019
Ditchrider House	Nisland	Building	2002
First Congregational United Church of Christ	Belle Fourche	Building	2013
Fruitdale School	Fruitdale	Building	1986
Fruitdale Store	Fruitdale	Building	1986
Gartner, Carl Friedrick, Homestead	Newell	Building	1986
Gay, Thomas Haskins, House	Belle Fourche	Building	1982
Harris, Fred S., House	Belle Fourche	Building	1988
Hay Creek Bridge	Belle Fourche	Structure	1993
Hoover Store	Hoover	Building	1986
Hoover, Alexander, House	Hoover	Building	1986
Johnson, William, House	Fruitdale	Building	1986
Kenaston, William G., House	Newell	Building	1984
Langdon School	Nisland	Building	1986
Lincoln School	Belle Fourche	Building	2001
Minnesela Bridge	Belle Fourche	Structure	1993
Newell Depot Bridge	Newell	Structure	1999
Newell High School	Newell	Building	1986
Roosevelt School	Belle Fourche	Building	2019
Scotney, John Aaron, House	Belle Fourche	Building	1978
Small, Charles and Eleanor, House	Belle Fourche	Building	1991
Snoma Finnish Cemetery	Fruitdale	Site	1985
Soper-Behymer Ranch	Belle Fourche	District	1986
South Dakota Dept. of Transportation Bridge No. 10-109-360	Belle Fourche	Structure	1993
South Dakota Dept. of Transportation Bridge No. 10-270-338	Newell	Structure	2000
Stonelake Bridge	Newell	Structure	1986
Tri State Bakery	Belle Fourche	Building	1993
Vale Bridge	Vale	Structure	1999
Vale Cut Off Belle Fourche River Bridge	Belle Fourche	Structure	1986
Vale School	Vale	Building	1984
Viken, Nicholas Augustus, Homestead	Newell	District	1986
Wide Awake Grocery Building	Belle Fourche	Building	1978

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

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Butte was formed in 1883 (1883-03-06) from Lawrence, MANDAN (Dakota Territory, extinct).

BUTTE created by Dakota Territory in present South Dakota from LAWRENCE and MANDAN (Dakota Territory, extinct).

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Butte County population from 1890 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1890	1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
1,037	2,907	6,819	8,004	8,161	8,592	8,372	9,094	10,243

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

13 cemeteries and 1 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 13 of 13 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Danish Cemetery	44.6409	-103.64917
Maass Cemetery	44.71875	-103.46373
Minnesota Cemetery	44.655	-103.80861
Newell Cemetery	44.70415	-103.42712
Nisland Cemetery	44.67694	-103.55801
Old Vale Cemetery	44.61866	-103.43784
Pine Slope Cemetery	44.64609	-103.86714
Riverside Cemetery	44.66303	-103.86408
Saint Anthony Cemetery	45.18387	-103.42684
Saint Pauls Cemetery	44.64768	-103.86424
Snoma Finnish Cemetery	44.63303	-103.68491
Vale Cemetery	44.61387	-103.40573
Wilson Cemetery	44.64776	-103.39657

Historical populated places — 1 of 1

Name	Lat	Lon
Snoma	44.64832	-103.69214

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 Butte County, South Dakota

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