Found: Cottonwood, South Dakota - Population 12

Welcome to the first edition of “Found,” where we write about random things we come across that are unexpected, unplanned, or however else we feel like justifying using the term. ;)

The first post comes courtesy of a tiny, mostly abandoned town in rural South Dakota. Welcome to Cottonwood, population 12.

As you may know from reading about other parts of our “Fabric of America” tour, we’re generally trying to stay away from the interstate during the road trip.

Interstates are boring. They put you in such a daze that, even if there was actually anything to see along your route, you’d never notice because you’re in la-la land due to the ever-dizzying roads of nowhere that are only there to get you from Point A to Point B.

Believe it or not, there are other things out there besides travel plazas and toll booths!

Since our trip is all about the journey and what we find along the way, we’re taking smaller highways and back roads to get where we’re going. This allows us to constantly be on the lookout for interesting sights/sites along the way, and stop whenever we feel like it without causing freeway-speed pile-ups.

Now that you know how we’re doing this, let’s get into our first “Found” post.

As we were trucking along US Route 14, wide-eyed and plenty awake from the scenery and curvy roads that are everything interstates are not, we came upon a small town that was clearly, mostly devoid of people.

We saw the town sign, and immediately pulled over.

Population 12, people! Twelve! Then we saw the jail pictured at the top of this post. Imagine being stuck in that for a crime! Better than a lynch mob, we suppose.

Cottonwood doesn’t have any paved roads, so we took our trusty off-roader – I mean, Toyota Prius – into the town to check it out.

The sign as we pulled in said 1907, so we’re presuming this is when the town began to do its thing. We’re not 100% sure, but we found some not-so-reliable info online that says this town’s existence is partially due to gold being discovered in the area.

There’s also a railroad track that runs through Cottonwood, along with this grain silo. (Our agricultural knowledge is less than limited at best, so this building could be for something else, maybe?) This structure looks like it was built later, though.

Several, larger abandoned buildings line the main street in town. We’re guessing a former bank, general store, saloon…or who-knows?

If we’d been more adventurous, we would have checked out the inside of them. Alas, the town says it has 12 people, and there’s no doubt that more guns than people exist here. It’s probably for the best that we didn’t snoop around.

Driving around the gravel roads, we came across plenty of homes that have long since been reclaimed by the land.

As is the case with every town ever, basically, a church also holds its own in Cottonwood. It appears more care was taken in building it than in the integrity of homes, as it’s still standing even though no one has worshiped there in decades.

We never ran across any people, despite the utter obviousness that we didn’t belong there. It would certainly have been nice to ask questions about the town, its residents, and its history. Little places like this that did or didn’t make it are true curiosities for us. Despite a population of 12, there is undoubtedly an endless array of stories that these buildings, this land, and the townsfolk could tell.

Cottonwood, South Dakota, is located on US Highway 14, just outside the northern edge of Badlands National Park and Buffalo Gap National Grassland. It’s about 17 miles east of Wall, and 73 miles east of Rapid City.

Want more? Join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, and Flickr.

Have you ever been to Cottonwood or do you have any knowledge about it? Do you have any thoughts about taking roads less-traveled, or stories about places you’ve found along the way? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!