On November 13, 1866, James C. Bunker and his survey crew reached Swan Lake and surveyed the adjacent lands, while the Yankton to Sioux Falls stage road ran around the lake’s west side. In 1869, William W. Aurner and his sisters-in-law, Helen S. and Anna J. Bachelor, filed on the northwest, southwest, and northeast quarters of Section 9 north of the lake, and Valentine P. Thielman perfected title to the southeast quarter in 1871 and on May 13 filed a plat of Swan Lake about one-half mile north of this site. The 1871 legislature created Turner County and named Swan Lake the county seat, and the county was organized on June 13 with Aurner, Thielman, and Lewis H. Elliot as county commissioners. By October 1875, the Swan Lake Era was being published, and local businesses included S. Olney, druggist; Thielman, real estate; Alfred Flagg, lawyer; Jorg Jorgenson, blacksmith; and Gustav Gilbert, merchant. Aurner became the first postmaster on September 20, 1869, and Joseph Allen became postmaster on April 1, 1878. Until the railroad reached Hurley in 1882, Swan Lake was the stage line hub of southeastern South Dakota, with John N. Moore’s Yankton and Swan Lake stages running on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and connecting there with stages to Parker, Sioux Falls, and Vermillion. Swan Lake held the county seat through three elections against Marion, Parker, and Hurley, but in 1885 the legislature, acting on a legal technicality, awarded Parker the county seat subject to a new election, which Parker won, bringing Swan Lake’s decline.