Welcome to Alto ...
Although we found mention of Alto during our research, we have little information about it.<1> Given the context of how Alto was mentioned, we believe that it was a community rather than a locale or some type of landmark. We have done a cursory search and if it was a community, we haven't been able to find any evidence that it still exists..
While we are confident that Alto was located in Codington County, we don't know its actual location within the county.
We've added Alto to our Gazetteer with the hope that we can develop more information. We would especially like to find the location of Alto - knowing its coordinates, we can explore things like its relationship to neighboring communities, nearby cemeteries, etc. If you can help us with Alto, please Contact Us.
Time Zone: The area where we believe that Alto might be (or was) located is in the Central Time Zone (CST/CDT) and observes daylight saving time
We believe that Alto would be found within the (605) area code.
Adding Alto to Our Gazetteer ...
As we work on our Gazetteer, we occasionally find mention of a community that is new to us. When we find such a community, we add it to our Gazetteer with the hope of adding more information in the future.
That's the case with Alto: The earliest book where we found it mentioned was in the Business Atlas and Shippers' Guide (1895).
For more details about the above, see References and Mentions for Alto on our Genealogy Page.
Communities Also Named Alto ...
Using our Gazetteer, we have found that there are two South Dakota communities named Alto: This one is located in Codington County and the other is located in Hughes County.
Beyond South Dakota, there are 18 communities that are also named Alto - they are located in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
For more information, see our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Alto.
Other Roadside Stops ...
Index of Cities, Towns and Villages for South Dakota
Off-the-Road Links ...
The official website for Codington County: www.codington.org/
The official website for State of South Dakota: sd.gov/
Footnotes ...
| <1> | If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer. For example, we might find a sentence like "He went north past Alto and then turned west". While Alto could be some kind of landmark, we think that it's more likely to be a community. We've added Alto as a placeholder with the hope that we'll be able to add more information in the future. Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Mile's to see Pete ... Mile's is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name. Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time. Also keep in mind that Alto could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out. |