This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Immigration Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/wdB.2ACE/364 Message Board Post: Anyone interested in how and why their ancestors ended up in western South Dakota and why they later moved away ought to read "After The West Was Won: Homesteaders and Town-Builders in Western South Dakota, 1900-1917" by Paula M. Nelson, University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, 1986. (ISBN 0-87745-250-4). While there is little direct information of use to a genealogist, this book does a great job at explaining what brought an influx of homesteaders into the region in the early 1900's, how the homesteaders lived, the problems they faced trying to farm, and the results of a series of droughts that drove so many from the area.