Onida, South Dakota

Onida is the county seat of Sully County, South Dakota, founded in eighteen eighty by settlers from Oneida, New York, who gave the town a phonetic version of their home city's name. Sully County itself was named for General Alfred Sully, who built Fort Sully on the Missouri River during the conflicts of the eighteen sixties. Onida sits on the high plains just east of the river, in country where cattle ranching and small-grain farming share the landscape. With only a few hundred residents today, it remains the kind of Great Plains county seat where the courthouse is the most prominent building on the block.