City Seals: Huron, S.D

Huron, S.D.

Huron, S.D., could be the setting for a story called “A Tale of Two Seals.”

The city of 13,408 has two city seals: the original from 1883 used on official documents and an unofficial altered version whose authorship and date of creation are unknown.

The original seal was described in the Oct. 2, 1883, edition of the Huron Dakota Leader, the community’s daily newspaper:

“It represents on the right a surveyor with a tripod; near him a man driving a stake into the ground; on his left are two antelopes watching the surveyors. The landscape is a prairie gently rising to the west, the whole surrounded with the words, ‘City of Huron, Dakota. Corporate Seal. 1883.’”

“City hall uses an official seal stamp that has two male surveyors and that is what is painted in a mural downtown,” said Jennifer Littlefield, reference librarian at the Huron Public Library.

At some point the seal was changed. A woman in settler’s garb replaced the surveyor’s assistant. She is scything a field of wheat, having already harvested a couple sheaves, which stand off to the left of the image.

The surveyor’s attire was modernized and his hat was removed, and a pheasant appears to his right. Trees were added to the background and the words were changed to “City of Huron Corporate Seal.”

The antelope remain in their original posture on the updated seal, reflective of the staking of the town plat, as described in the inaugural issue of the Beadle County Settler on May 5, 1880:

“As the party surrounded the spot two antelopes came speeding up from the south on the line of the street, seemingly failing to notice the unusual scene before them until about twenty rods from the group, where they halted and gazed curiously ahead.”

Littleton noted when she requested a graphic of the city seal, several city offices, the historical museum and the local chamber of commerce sent her the newer version.

“No one seems to know why the city seal is different or when the change might have occurred,” she said.

The settlement started with a population of 164 in 1880 and boomed, thanks in large part to the Chicago and Northwester Railway, more than 18-fold, to 3,038 residents, in its first decade. Further growth pumped the number to 10,945 by 1920 and its peak population of 14,299 in 1970.

Huron vied to become the state capital until that designation was awarded to Pierre in 1904.

Huron is home to the World’s Largest Pheasant. The 28-foot, 22-ton steel and fiberglass figure commemorates the local legend of a ringneck rooster so large its footprints formed river valleys and its gleaming feathers were mistaken as a rainbow when it flew across the prairie sky.

For more information, visit www.huronsd.com.

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