Montrose, SD

Montrose is a McCook County city laid out in 1880, with 468 residents in the 2020 census. Its name is often linked either to Sir Walter Scott's A Legend of Montrose or to a combination of mountain and rose, two stories that have traveled with the town. The city sits in southeastern South Dakota near Interstate 90, with the prairie landscape opening around its streets.

Montrose's clearest point of distinction is Porter Sculpture Park, a large outdoor collection just outside town near I-90. Artist Wayne Porter moved his welded metal work to the property and built a setting where visitors encounter more than 50 oversized creatures made from discarded metal. The park turns a highway approach into an art destination tied to this particular corner of McCook County. Inside town, the scale is residential and civic, with Montrose functioning as a small county-road community. The combination is unusual: a compact prairie city whose name carries a literary debate, while a roadside sculpture park supplies the landmark most travelers remember.