White River: Mellette County's Late-Born Seat

White River came into being in May of nineteen eleven, when members of the Western Townsite Company arrived on the shortgrass prairie and platted a county seat almost from scratch. The county itself, Mellette, had only been created in nineteen oh nine and was named for Arthur Mellette, the last governor of the Dakota Territory and the very first governor of the state of South Dakota. A Commercial Club formed almost immediately, and two representatives headed to Washington to lobby for homesteader filing rights.

The town was named for the White River, which drains this stretch of the upper Great Plains. Today it serves as the commercial anchor for a thinly populated ranching county on the eastern edge of the Rosebud Reservation.