page_title: Aberdeen, South Dakota
section_title: Creation of the town
hierarchical_section_title: Aberdeen, South Dakota / History / Creation of the town
caption_attribution_description: English: View of downtown Aberdeen, South Dakota in 1910. Looking northeast.
context_page_description: Aberdeen is a city in and the county seat of Brown County, South Dakota, United States, located approximately 125 miles northeast of Pierre. The city population was 26,091 at the 2010 census, making it the third most populous city in the state after Sioux Falls and Rapid City. Aberdeen is the principal city of the Aberdeen Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Brown and Edmunds counties and has a population of 40,602 in 2010. Aberdeen is considered a college town, being the home of both Northern State University and Presentation College.
context_section_description: Aberdeen, like many towns of the Midwest, was built around the newly developing railroad systems. Aberdeen was first officially plotted as a town site on January 3, 1881, by Charles Prior, the superintendent of the Minneapolis office of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad, or the Milwaukee Road for short, which was presided over by Alexander Mitchell. Mitchell, Charles Prior's boss, was responsible for the choice of town names, was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, after which the town of Aberdeen, South Dakota, was named. Aberdeen was officially founded on July 6, 1881, the date of the first arrival of a Milwaukee Railroad train. Aberdeen then operated under a city charter granted by the Territorial Legislature in March 1883.
  As Aberdeen grew, many businesses and buildings were constructed along Aberdeen's Main Street. However, this soon became a problem due to Aberdeen's periodic flooding, which led to it being referred to as "The Town in the Frog Pond". At first, this unique condition presented no problem to the newly constructed buildings because it had not rained very much but, when heavy rains fell, the Pond reappeared and flooded the basements of every building on Main Street, causing many business owners and home owners much turmoil. When this flooding happened, the city had one steam-powered pump that had to be used to dry out the entire area that had been flooded, which would take days, if not weeks – and more often than not, it would have rained again in this time period and caused even more flooding, even in the basements that had already been emptied of the water. When the water was gone from the basements, the city still had to deal with the mud that also resulted from the heavy rains.
  The city decided in 1882 to build an artesian ditch to control the "Frog Pond" effects; the plan was later upgraded and developed into an artesian well in 1884 to combat the heavy rains and keep the basements from flooding. The artesian well was designed by the city engineers to prevent flooding and develop a water system. However, during the digging of the well, the water stream that was found underground was too powerful to be contained. The water came blasting out with violent force and had the entire Main Street submerged in up to four feet of water. The engineers realized the previous flaws of the artesian well plan and soon added a gate valve to the well to control the flow of water, giving Aberdeen its first working water supply.
  Aberdeen had four different railroad companies with depots built in the newly developing town. With these four railroads intersecting here, Aberdeen soon became known as the "Hub City of the Dakotas". When looking down on Aberdeen from above, the railroad tracks converging in Aberdeen resembled the spokes of a wheel converging at a hub, hence the name "Hub City of the Dakotas". These four railroad companies are the reason why Aberdeen was able to grow and flourish as it did. The only railroad still running through Aberdeen is the Burlington Northern Santa Fe.
caption: Labeled photograph of downtown Aberdeen, 1910.
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