TimManBlog

Miller, South Dakota: A Peek into Small Town America

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July 31, 2025

Welcome to Miller, South Dakota! It’s a bright and clear Sunday afternoon here in South Dakota. There is only a slight breeze and a hint of humidity, which belies the temperature of 84°. It feels much warmer though.

Miller’s giant water tower proclaims this burg to be the home of the “Rustlers.” The lettering and the cowboy icon are green like the surrounding grain fields. Over the years, Miller has produced a state governor and a few other notables. These days, Miller is a town of two business blocks and thirteen hundred occupants.

A mural around the corner provides some historical context for this little prairie town. Miller, like so many other places in the Great Plains states, began in 1889 with the coming of the railroad.

Miller has grown substantially since the early railroad days; here’s Main Street today.

The countryside surrounding Miller supports a mix of corn and soybean fields. The plains are nearly flat here, with only slight ripples to interrupt the cultivation. The soil must be excellent since I saw very few cattle ranches interrupting the cultivated acres.

Miller is the market town for those surrounding farms. It’s a nice-looking place. Let’s take a closer look.

(Every South Dakota bar has a few video poker machines hidden in the corner, hidden out of sight to encourage shame, I think. I played a machine at Sommers and won $20 — I bought a beer with it.)

Here are some more pillars of the community. I say that with no sarcasm; people couldn’t survive without these services.

Above are the town’s shops, below are the homes of the town’s shopkeepers and their customers. I’d sure love to have a house on a corner lot with a front porch and balcony like this one.

It’s nice to see a small town have a photography studio; here memories are created and saved for generations.

Hand County was created in 1873 by the Dakota territorial legislature (before “Dakotah” became states and were split into North and South) and named for George A. Hand, territorial secretary. The Hand County Courthouse, built in 1925, is the most prominent building in the town, and in the county too. The building is an prime example of neo-classical architectural style prevalent in the decade of the 1920s.

Carved marble walls and stairways fill the courthouse’s interior. The stained-glass ceiling and the old-fashioned elevator are both time pieces of neo-classical design of the 1920s. Whenever I see the prolific use of marble in courthouses (and I’ve seen it often in 1920s courthouses), I’m awestruck at how expensive and investment it must have been. It’s all beautiful and magnificent, but sadly such decor is a relic of a bygone era — it would be of the question to build in such a manner today.

Every good courthouse is a local history lesson. Hand County’s is no slouch in that regard:

Can’t forget the small-town churches:

Let’s say goodbye to Miller with an homage to neon signs:

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Click here for a list of all TimManBlog American County Seats Series posts.
The photos in this post were taken on July 9, 2023, and are copyrighted by Tim Seibel.

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