Amidon: One of the Least Populous County Seats in America

Amidon, North Dakota is the county seat of Slope County, which was carved from the lower portion of Billings County in nineteen fourteen. With a population of roughly twenty-four people, Amidon ranks among the smallest county seats in the United States by population. The town was platted in nineteen ten by settlers who expected a new railroad line to terminate there.

The railroad never arrived, but Amidon won the county seat designation anyway after a disputed first election in which Marmarth had been declared the winner based on votes later found to include non-residents. Amidon sits on the edge of the North Dakota Badlands, with the Little Missouri River running along the county's western margin. White Butte, the highest natural point in North Dakota at an elevation of three thousand five hundred six feet, rises in Slope County a short distance away.

The county itself has fewer residents than many city blocks, making Amidon a genuine outpost of Great Plains solitude.