Durkee Lake, Meade County, South Dakota
Posted by: 
NGComets
N 44° 58.689 W 102° 02.766
13T E 732901 N 4984768
A small lake about 3 miles south of Faith, SD.
Waymark Code: WMF8HK
Location: South Dakota, United States
Date Posted: 09/10/2012
Views: 7
Durkee Lake is located in Meade County, just west of SD Highway 73. It is fairly small, encompassing only 77 acres.
It is family friendly with fishing and a small boat dock. It also has shore-line fishing, public toilets, picnic tables, and primitive camping.
Nearby is the North Shore Golf Course.
Faith a city in Meade County, South Dakota, and was established in 1910. The population was 421 at the 2010 census. Local residents have been known to say the town was named Faith because it took faith to live out on the prairie. However, the story of the city as documented in various local histories, is that the town was named for Faith Rockefeller, one of the daughters of a major investor in the railroad responsible for founding the town.
Founded as the town at the end of the railroad, Faith was originally the hub of a homestead boom in the period 1910-1920; but the drought conditions of the 1920s that led to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s quickly replaced abnormally wet conditions of the early 20th Century, and the harsh winters of the Northern Plains quickly drove many sodbusters to more hospitable regions. The town's location allows for ranch families in the area to have schools and stores closer than Sturgis, Fort Pierre, or other regional market towns, but early expectations of steady growth were never realized. Faith is still well known for its rodeos and livestock sales. The town's location made it a necessary stop on the Sunset Trail also known as the Yellowstone Trail.
Although like most small rural cities of the Great Plains, Faith has declined in population, its distance from alternative locations for schools and businesses and its geographic location near county and reservation boundaries mean that it is unlikely to become a ghost town or see its institutions consolidated out of existence.
Lake Type: Glacial lake
Coordinates location: Boat Dock
Max. Length: 3/4 mile
Max. Width: 1/4 mile
Max. Depth: 8 feet
Surface area: 70 Acres
Parking / trail head: N 44° 58.935 W 102° 03.050
Website: [Web Link]
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