Mount Vernon, SD

Mount Vernon is a Davison County city with 461 people at the 2020 census, part of the Mitchell micropolitan area. It takes its name from George Washington's Mount Vernon estate; an earlier name was Arlandtown. The town sits about 12 miles west of Mitchell, in Davison County, and its name connects a small South Dakota city to one of the country's most familiar historic estates.

The clearest local landmark is the Mount Vernon City Auditorium, built in 1941 with Works Progress Administration support. The two-story building has served as a sports facility, school-event hall, library, election site, and meeting place; it moved to the school district in 1977 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2022. That list of uses is the town's story in miniature: the same building has carried school, recreation, civic, and community duties across generations. The local scoop is a Davison County city whose national-name origin sits alongside a very local Old Gym.