Winner, South Dakota: The Town That Won the Railroad

Winner, South Dakota, got its name honestly. When President Theodore Roosevelt's proclamation of August twenty-fourth, nineteen oh eight, opened portions of the Rosebud Indian Reservation to non-Native homesteaders, speculators and settlers rushed in and a competition among several nascent towns began for the right to be the primary railroad and trade center of the new county. The town emerged as the winner, the county's most successful trading point, and it took its name accordingly. Winner was formally platted in nineteen oh nine and became the county seat of Tripp County.