Shindler, SD

Shindler sits on the southeastern edge of Sioux Falls’ orbit, an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Lincoln County along South Dakota Highway 11. It is about eight miles from central Sioux Falls, 15 miles north of Canton, and three miles west of the Big Sioux River, which marks the Iowa line. That geography gives the place a rural address with the region’s largest city close at hand, while the county seat and river country lie in the other directions.

Shindler’s earlier shape was tied to the railroad. A station first known as Springdale, and later as Hobsonville, took the Shindler name in 1891 for pioneer homesteader Charles Shindler. The old town had the pieces of a small service center: stores, a bank, hardware and lumber businesses, a post office, blacksmith, garage, grain elevator, stockyards, and a daily Rock Island passenger and freight connection. The town hall, opened in 1910, hosted dances, church gatherings, school programs, basketball, plays, and community parties. Much of that business district has disappeared, but the name remains on the map at the edge of Sioux Falls, where a former railroad town’s history is still legible in the landscape.