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.
Everything that was here
- 1875–1939
Sheridan (drowned townsite)Ghost Town
South Dakota's very first Pennington County seat spent its last decades as a dying gold camp of about 10 people — then vanished when a New Deal-era dam put twenty feet of lake water over Main Street.
See the map in 1876 →
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Connected places
Explore the full web of connections on the map.
Nearby history
Rockerville (gold camp & flume)
Holy Terror Mine
The 1880 Train (Black Hills Central Railroad)
Mount Rushmore National Memorial
Iron Mountain Road
Silver City
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