The Story
Founded in spring 1875 as "Golden City" on Spring Creek, it was renamed Sheridan in 1877 after Civil War general Philip Sheridan and became Pennington County's first county seat, with a courthouse famously described as "one saloon wide and two saloons long." That October it hosted the first term of U.S. Circuit Court held west of the Missouri River. The seat moved to Rapid City the next year as the gold thinned. By 1920 only about 10 residents remained. Around 1938 a joint CCC/WPA dam project on Spring Creek was built, and by 1939 the reservoir — Sheridan Lake — permanently covered the townsite under an estimated 20 feet of water.
Surprising Facts
→ Sheridan was Pennington County's first county seat, before Rapid City, and hosted the first U.S. Circuit Court west of the Missouri.
→ Its courthouse was described as "one saloon wide and two saloons long."
→ The dam that drowned it was a joint CCC/WPA project that pioneered a bentonite-grouting technique.