A Brief History of Codington County
The Codington County we recognize today was formed mainly by the last great Ice Age glacier that plowed into this area during the Pleistocene Epoch 20,000 years ago. The glacier inched forward, leveling everything in its path. As the Ice Age ended, the glacier retreated in fits and starts, leaving behind sediment called glacial moraine. This moraine formed the gently sloping landscape in Codington County—with large hills present where the glacier retreated, and smaller hills where it simply stalled. The glacier also deposited the rich topsoil present throughout the county. Large chunks of ice, big enough to actually dent the earth, were also left behind. These chunks melted into their own indentations forming the glacial lakes so numerous in northeastern South Dakota.
Cartographer Joseph Nicollet first mapped the region in 1838. He named many of the glacial lakes, and labeled the gently sloping northeastern South Dakota region the Coteau des Prairies—French for ‘Hills of the Prairies.’ Codington County sits at the highest rise of the Coteau des Prairies, and possesses some of North America’s best examples of moraine deposits.
Codington County’s first inhabitants were nomadic hunter gathering Native Americans. Between 300 to 1000 AD, people of the Woodland Indian tradition entered the area. The Woodland Indians built large earthen mounds to bury their dead. While many mounds still exist throughout the region, the mounds recorded in early histories of Codington County were all lost to weather or the plow.
The nomadic horse culture predicated around hunting buffalo did not enter South Dakota until the Lakota (misnamed ‘Sioux’ by early French explorers) arrived around 1700. Pushed westward by population pressures, the Lakota culture became forever entrenched with the Great Plains. The Verendrye brothers probably passed through northeastern South Dakota on their way to the Missouri River where they claimed most of central North America for France in 1743. This superseded an earlier claim by Spanish conquistador Coronado, who never traveled further north than Oklahoma. Still, whites of any kind were extremely rare, and the Lakota prospered for decades without ever realizing they were, at least according to European governments and the fledgling American democracy, subjects under the French flag.
The United State acquired most of the Great Plains, including South Dakota, from France in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Lewis and Clark paddled through the state on their way up the Missouri River, but the first whites in this area were French fur trappers. Later, more trappers came to get the beaver pelts which fashionable European men wanted for tophat lining.
The Eastern Lakota, specifically the Yanktonnais and Santee bands who occupied Codington County, first felt the pressure of encroaching white settlers when Minnesota was admitted into the union in 1858. Settlers stormed into southeastern Dakota Territory. By 1864, a permanent white presence was established in this region with Fort Wadsworth (later Fort Sisseton) erected in Marshall County.
Drought, grasshoppers and Indian uprisings limited settlement in Dakota Territory for over a decade. The first white person in Codington County was most likely James Warner who, in 1871, lived in a shack by Lake Kampeska. Warner had little company until government forces quelled native unrest, the grasshoppers left, and the rains returned. Still, the biggest reason white settlers entered the region was the railroads. When they extended lines from Minnesota, they spurred the massive migration referred to as the Great Dakota Boom of 1878.
Codington County was formed on August 7, 1878. The first county seat was Kampeska. Only the railroad land grant did not extend past the Big Sioux River. So, by the end of that year, the entire town—county seat included—moved to meet the railroad, and formed Watertown.
The county was named after Reverend G. S. Codington a circuit-riding preacher based out of Watertown. By 1873, Reverend Codington traveled as far as ninety miles to minister to his parishes throughout eastern Dakota.
To handle the massive influx of settlers into the glacial lakes region, the federal land office relocated from Springfield to Watertown in 1880. That year, Codington County’s population reached 2,156. By 1884, the land office reported most of the county settled. A year later, the population was recorded at 5,648.
The Great Dakota Boom ended when bad weather returned in 1887. Many pioneers returned to the eastern states they came from. When South Dakota became a state in 1889, Codington County’s population had decreased from a height reached in 1887.
In those days, counties, regions, and entire states competed against one another to attract settlers. Population statistics were seen as a final arbiter on a place’s worth. Frontier logic dictated that the more people who lived in a place, the more other people would want to live there too.
Codington County tried everything to offset its population woes. It employed the M. Goldsmith firm of London, England to advertise its merits to potential immigrants. For $2,500 the firm was to deliver 5,000 immigrants. While large numbers of European immigrants did come over the next several decades, the Goldsmith firm should not be credited.
Codington County attracted mostly Germans and Norwegians settlers. The biggest years for immigration were 1900 to 1913. South Dakota’s population increased 45% during that time. Since then, the population in Codington County has remained static, or grown slightly depending on how good the farm economy is. Starting in the 1980s, a consistent level of population growth has been achieved due to a concerted effort by leaders to attract businesses with white-collar jobs. Regardless of all conditions, the segment of Codington County’s population living in urban areas has increased consistently in comparison to the rural population since the county was founded.
By Ried Holien
