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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Oral (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Oral. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the northwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the west. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the north.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the west contained birth and death records; the county to the north contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Oral is located in Fall River County.

To see how the shape of South Dakota's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Fall River County: Dawes (NE), Sioux (NE), Custer, Oglala Lakota & Niobrara (WY).

Below are the counties that are near Oral. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Oral:

  • Fall River County     (The home county of Oral)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oral, with the one closest to Oral listed first.
    • Smithwick
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
    • Hot Springs
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Cascade Springs
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
      • Cascade Springs is located in Fall River County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cascade Springs
    • Erskine
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
      • Erskine is located in Fall River County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Erskine
    • Oelrichs
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
    • Heppner
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
      • Heppner is located in Fall River County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Heppner
      • Estimated population in 2014: 267 people
    • Rocky Ford
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
      • Rocky Ford is located in Fall River County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rocky Ford
      • Estimated population in 2014: 6 people
    • Rumford
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Rumford is located in Fall River County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rumford
    • Edgemont
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
  • Custer County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oral, with the one closest to Oral listed first.
    • Buffalo Gap
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Fairburn
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Pringle
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Ivanhoe ‑ Historic
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
      • Ivanhoe is located in Custer County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ivanhoe
      • Estimated population in 2014: 144 people
    • State Game Lodge
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
      • State Game Lodge is located in Custer County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for State Game Lodge
      • Estimated population in 2014: 29 people
    • Sanator
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Sanator is located in Custer County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sanator
      • Estimated population in 2014: 1,350 people
    • Custer
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Hermosa
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
    • Spokane ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
      • Spokane is located in Custer County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Spokane
      • Estimated population in 2014: 3,237 people
    • Fourmile
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Fourmile is located in Custer County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fourmile
      • Estimated population in 2014: 70 people
  • Oglala Lakota County
    • Oglala
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Oral, see our County-by-County Page for Oral.

Cemeteries Near Oral ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Oral.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Oral - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Oral covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Oral, with the one closest to Oral listed first.

  • Hines Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
  • Fairview Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
  • Buffalo Gap Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
  • Smithwick Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
  • Horsehead Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
  • Hot Springs National Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
  • Evergreen Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
  • Hillside Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
  • Highland Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Fairburn Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
  • Pringle Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Edgemont Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<3>

While we didn't find Oral in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Oral.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Oral, with the one closest to Oral listed first.

  • Buffalo Gap
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
  • Smithwick
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
  • Hot Springs
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
  • Erskine
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • Erskine is located in Fall River County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Erskine
  • Oelrichs
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
  • Fairburn
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
  • Pringle
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Argyle
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Argyle is located in Custer County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Argyle
  • Ivanhoe ‑ Historic
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • Ivanhoe is located in Custer County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ivanhoe
    • Estimated population in 2014: 144 people
  • Minnekahta
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • Minnekahta is located in Fall River County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Minnekahta
  • Edgemont
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
  • Rumford
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Rumford is located in Fall River County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rumford
  • Custer
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Oral. See our List of 1890's Communities around Oral.

Newspapers Published in Oral ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 34 newspapers that have been published in the area around Oral.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Oral, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Oral.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites either offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Oral:

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<3>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Oral, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Oral) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.