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Old Elm Spring Colony, South Dakota

census-designated place in South Dakota, United States

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ108760293 ↗
Source-derived summary

Old Elm Spring Colony, formerly called the Old Elmspring Hutterite Colony, is a Hutterite colony and census-designated place (CDP) in Hutchinson County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 114 at the 2020 census. It was first listed as a CDP prior to the 2020 census.

It is on the northern edge of the county, bordered to the north by Hanson County. It is on high ground on the east side of the James River. It is 24 miles (39 km) north-northwest of Olivet, the county seat, and 17 miles (27 km) northeast of Parkston. New Elm Spring Colony is 3 miles (5 km) to the west, across the James River.

It began as a Hutterite colony in 1876. In 1982 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Historic Hutterite Colonies Thematic Resource, and included six contributing buildings over 8 acres (3.2 ha), including the Good Samaritan Home.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Old Elm Spring Colony, South Dakota” as census-designated place in South Dakota, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2020, 1876, 1982—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Spring, Colony and South can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as census-designated place in South Dakota, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q108760293. Authority coordinates are 43.496, -97.794. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1876 and 1982.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Old Elm Spring Colony, South Dakota”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Old Elm Spring Colony, South Dakota primary sources, Old Elm Spring Colony, South Dakota archive and Spring research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Old Elm Spring Colony, South Dakota”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Old Elm Spring Colony, South Dakota” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.