Opinion: SOS for small towns

Talk about it

Last week, Gov. Dennis Daugaard referenced the largely forgotten name of Robert S. Vessey to make a point about the fleeting nature of power and fame.

Daugaard, addressing the Legislature during his first State of the State address, said it was 100 years ago when Vessey became the first governor to deliver a State of the State address in the then-new Capitol building in Pierre.

Like Daugaard, who delivered his speech in that same Capitol building, Vessey was elected to office by a wide margin. Yet it’s a rare South Dakotan who can recall Vessey’s name today.

“And you see, that’s the point,” Daugaard said in his speech. “A century from now, Gov. Dennis Daugaard will be as forgotten as Gov. Robert S. Vessey.

“Let us seek to be remembered not for our names,” Daugaard continued, “but for our deeds.”

It was a great point in what I thought was a very good speech. But Daugaard’s reference to Vessey carried a double meaning that I doubt the new governor recognized.

You see, Robert Vessey was from Wessington Springs. That sounds odd to us today, because our governors don’t come from small towns anymore, and they certainly don’t come from small towns in the state’s rural areas.

Daugaard is officially from Garretson, which could be considered a small town, but he made his living in Sioux Falls, the state’s largest city. Mike Rounds was from the capital city of Pierre. Bill Janklow was from Flandreau and later Brandon, both of which are fairly sizable, close to larger cities and located along the relatively populous Interstate 29 corridor. Walter Dale Miller was from the small town of New Underwood, but that’s a very close neighbor to much bigger Rapid City, and he only became governor because of the death of George Mickelson, who was from Brookings, one of the state’s bigger cities. Going back farther than that in the list of governors turns up some small towns, but that only serves to bolster the point: Over time, serious candidates for governor have increasingly needed to hail from a place where there are plenty of voters and money. As the decades have passed, both of those things have migrated out of the state’s rural areas and toward its population centers.

Back in Vessey’s day, the notion that a governor could come from a place like Wessington Springs was entirely plausible. Though the most recently estimated populations for Wessington Springs and Sioux Falls are 831 and 158,008, respectively, the gap in 1910 was not so great. That year, according to the Census Bureau, there were 1,093 people in Wessington Springs and 14,094 in Sioux Falls.

What accounts for Wessington Springs’ decline and Sioux Falls’ explosion, population-wise, over the past 100 years? It’s a topic that could fill a book, but we all know the broad outline of the story. Farms got bigger, and the number of people needed to operate them decreased. As people fled to jobs in bigger cities, the interstate system came along and lubricated the machinery of change, accelerating the decline of small, rural towns and the rise of bigger, urban centers.

That’s an oversimplification of a complex, decades-long trend, but the end result is clear. We’ve come to a point in time when the thought of a governor arising from a place like Wessington Springs is widely regarded as farfetched, and that development has lots of related implications. You see, it’s not only Wessington Springs’ long-ago governor who’s been forgotten; to a large extent, so have the people and the economy of the town itself.

Wessington Springs is not alone, of course. The same could be said of many other small towns located more than a half-hour’s drive or so from a big city or an interstate. The gradual decline of these towns is a tragedy, because our state’s culture and heritage are largely wrapped up in the story of the hundreds of small towns from which the state sprang forth. When a small town perishes, so does part of our identity as South Dakotans.

And that’s where Daugaard re-enters the narrative. During his State of the State address, the governor did more than tell stories about his dead predecessor. He also spoke of identifying and developing “small town specialists” to assist with the fight for survival and relevance in places such as Wessington Springs. He did not provide much in the way of details, and he did not tie the story of long-forgotten Gov. Vessey to the need for economic help in small towns such as Wessington Springs, but for me the connection is strikingly clear.

I hope there is substance to Daugaard’s plan to help small towns, and I hope he follows through and succeeds. Otherwise, 100 years from now, a significant number of our small towns may join him as forgotten parts of our state’s history.

Tags: seth tupper, wessington springs, opinion, columns