What Is an Unincorporated Town? South Dakota Has Hundreds of Them

I've lived in South Dakota for a couple of decades now, and before that, I lived and grew up in rural Nebraska. All my life, I have heard about unincorporated towns.

I'd see little hamlets on the map labeled unincorporated, I'd see it on the green rectangle signs that, in other towns, will tell you the population. Well, except for in Colorado, where they are obsessed with elevation.

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What Does It Mean to Be an “Unincorporated Town”?

But, in my many years of driving state highways, I never thought about what an unincorporated town is. There are a few hundred of them in South Dakota. So, let's find out.

Turns out it's not as exciting as I'd hoped. I don't know what I was hoping for. Maybe it meant that some secret monster lived in a cave under the town? But, then again, that's what I always think is happening in every place I drive through. Maybe it meant that the town is a place with only mom-and-pop stores?

But no, when a town in South Dakota is unincorporated, it just means that there isn't a government. Basically, the 'town' is so small nobody needs to be in charge...kinda.

Services? Ordinances? What Life’s Really Like Without Local Government

An unincorporated town is a town that doesn't have a local government, like a mayor and a council. The town is under the jurisdiction of the county government.

Unincorporated towns are also known as 'populated places' if there are people who live there. There are usually some buildings and businesses, and sometimes even a post office.

While living in the middle of the middle of nowhere with nobody in charge may sound like a dream. But, unincorporated means that, along with no local government, ordinances, and other local laws, there may also be no local services.

And if you think Sioux Falls is spread out and things are far away, wait until you settle in an unincorporated town. Law enforcement is provided by the county sheriff, and there's probably a county fire department. Response times are longer. And there's probably no local health care. Everything will involve putting miles on the truck.

An unincorporated town could also be an area of a county with a permanent population that doesn't have a town government, but has all the regular services of an incorporated city.

My guess is that those places are mostly the ex-burbs around big cities. They are home to the people we've all known who say they grew up in a small town, but really it was a rural Omaha suburb 15 minutes from the Old Market.