Meckling

Meckling was built by progress and slowly undone by it. Named for railroad grading contractor Jonas S. Meckling, who helped build the Dakota Southern Railway through the area in 1872, it grew as the stockyard business boomed and became a lively shipping center. After the town was platted in 1873, many residents of nearby Lincoln moved there. In the flood of 1881, the area suffered heavy losses in buildings and livestock. Eighty people survived in a grain elevator on one biscuit a day until rescue, while many others sheltered in the homes of A. R. Piersol and C. N. Taylor, the only two-story houses in town. The flood began its destruction on 29 March, and most people could not return home until August. Citizens rebuilt, and Meckling incorporated in 1925, but modern transportation gradually diminished the town. Its final blow came when Highway 50 was expanded to four lanes and the main street and its buildings were buried under the highway.

Meckling, South Dakota · United States