Seneca, South Dakota
7 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Seneca town. It lies in ZIP code area 57473. The Survey maps it on the Seneca quadrangle. 22 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,906 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresSeneca fell from 38 to 22 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 38 | |
| 2020 | 22 | -16 (-42%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
4 surveys from 7 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1954 USGS Aberdeen quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1956 USGS Aberdeen quadrangle1:250000
- 1978 USGS Seneca quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS Gettysburg quadrangle1:100000, 3 printings
In the county-history sources
113 words on this townshipHistory of Faulk County, South Dakota, Together with Biographical Sketches of Pioneers and Prominent Citizens, published 1909 names this settlement in its chapter on Seneca Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.
The village of Seneca is located ih the town of Seneca, on the line of the Redfield and Gettysburg branch on the Chicago & Northwestern railroad, fifty -four miles west of Redfield and twenty-two miles west of P'aulkton, the county seat of Faulk county, and in the center of one of the finest sections of rich agricultural and grazing land to be found in the great northwest. From its location and surroundings, it is, and ever must remain the important business center of western Faulk county. At this writing, Seneca contains two hundred twenty-five inhabitants and the following business houses and wnth its various branches of business indicates a live, enterprising town, viz:
Passage source: History of Faulk County, South Dakota, Together with Biographical Sketches of Pioneers and Prominent Citizens, published 1909.
Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.
Fires near this place
2 since 2006Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Seneca between 2006 and 2016, burning about 90 acres in total. 1 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Equipment and vehicle use | 1 |
| Natural | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 August 2016 | Natural | 60 acres | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | POTTER |
| 15 July 2006 | Equipment and vehicle use | 30 acres | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | not named |
Storms near this place
21 since 1995Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Seneca in 21 storm reports between 1995 and 2022: 16 hail, 2 flash flood, 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 1999 | Flash Flood | Seneca | $10,000 | no account filed |
| June 2020 | Tornado (EF1) | Seneca | - | West of South Dakota Highway 47, minor roof damage occurred to a house, a calving shed was pushed 10 feet to the northeast and sheet metal from a barn was tossed across the highway to the east northeast into an open field. On the main property, damage was done to a dog kennel, a tree was uprooted, pine trees were snapped at the trunk and stripped of needles, fencing was leveled, and a batting cage and playhouse were tossed. Further northeast several calf sheds were moved or rolled. One calving shed was lofted into the air over a grove of trees. |
| June 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Seneca | - | Several buildings were damaged by estimated seventy mph winds. |
| August 2012 | Hail | Seneca | - | The public reported ten minutes worth of quarter size hail. |
| June 2007 | Flash Flood | Seneca | - | Heavy rains of nearly 3 inches resulted in the flooding of a basement. |
| May 2022 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| September 2010 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| July 2010 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| July 2010 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| May 2009 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| May 2009 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| June 2009 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| September 2007 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| June 2006 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| May 2004 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| June 2003 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| August 2002 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| July 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| July 1999 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| July 1995 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
| July 1995 | Hail | Seneca | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onaka | 9.4 miles | 9 | |
| Burkmere | 10.7 miles | 7 | |
| Brentwood Colony | 12.8 miles | 7 | |
| Thunderbird Colony | 15.8 miles | 7 | |
| Millard | 17.9 miles | 7 | |
| Norbeck | 18.0 miles | 7 | |
| Faulkton | 20.6 miles | 8 | |
| Blumengard Colony | 22.1 miles | 7 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Seneca | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2752296 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1265372. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.



