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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 Owanka (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 Owanka. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Owanka is located in Pennington 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 Pennington County: Custer, Haakon, Jackson, Lawrence, Meade, Oglala Lakota & Weston (WY).

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

  • Pennington County     (The home county of Owanka)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Owanka, with the one closest to Owanka listed first.
    • Wicksville
      (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
      • Wicksville is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wicksville
    • Wasta
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Wasta is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wasta
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 82 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Wasta <1>
    • Creston ‑ Historic
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
    • New Underwood
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
    • Farmingdale
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
      • Farmingdale is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Farmingdale
      • Estimated population in 2014: 10 people
    • Scenic
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
    • Wall
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
      • Wall is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wall
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 885 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Wall <1>
    • Caputa
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
    • Quinn
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
      • Quinn is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Quinn
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 62 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Quinn <1>
    • Imlay
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
    • Creighton
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Box Elder
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Green Valley
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
      • Green Valley is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Green Valley
      • Estimated population in 2014: 51 people
  • Meade County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Owanka, with the one closest to Owanka listed first.
    • Viewfield
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Elm Springs
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
    • Bend
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
      • Bend is located in Meade County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bend

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

Cemeteries Near Owanka ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Owanka.

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 Owanka - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Owanka Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Larsen Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
  • Scenic Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
  • Viewfield Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Mt. Hope Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
  • St. Paul Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Creighton Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Emmanuel Lutheran Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)

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.<2>

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

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

  • Creston ‑ Historic
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Farmingdale
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
    • Farmingdale is located in Pennington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Farmingdale
    • Estimated population in 2014: 10 people
  • Viewfield
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Folsom
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Folsom is located in Custer County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Folsom
  • Bend
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Bend is located in Meade County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bend

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Owanka ...

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 15 newspapers that have been published in the area around Owanka.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Owanka. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Owanka and those printed in the larger area surrounding Owanka.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 24 miles [38.6 km]<3> of Owanka.

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 Owanka:

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>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 Owanka, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a '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- Owanka) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.