Baltic, South Dakota, Three Names, One Town
Near Sioux Falls, South Dakota
The small Minnehaha County town east of Sioux Falls went through three names before settling on Baltic. A post office opened in eighteen seventy-two under the name Saint Olaf, reflecting the Scandinavian settlers who homesteaded the surrounding farmland. The Chicago, Milwaukee, Saint Paul and Pacific Railroad built through in the early eighteen eighties and platted the townsite in eighteen eighty-one under the name Saint Olaf as well. In eighteen eighty-seven the postal name changed to Keyes. Then in eighteen eighty-nine it changed again to Baltic, a nod to the Baltic Sea region that so many of the area's Norwegian and Swedish settlers had come from.
Baltic incorporated in nineteen oh seven and has stayed a small farming community in the decades since. Its location about twenty miles east of Sioux Falls has brought modest suburban growth in recent years, but the Scandinavian heritage the original name announced is still woven into the landscape.
