De Smet is a city in and the county seat of Kingsbury County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 1,056 at the 2020 census…De Smet is a city in and the county seat of Kingsbury County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 1,056 at the 2020 census. Located in the area of South Dakota known as "East River", De Smet was platted by European Americans in 1880. It was named for Belgian Father Pierre De Smet, a 19th-century Jesuit missionary who worked with Native Americans in the United States and its territories for most of his life. In the mid-1880s, prairie fires and failures of crops after a three-year period of drought caused many settlers to relocate their farms and homesteads to easier areas. By 1917, De Smet was a cow town, with many trains passing through every day carrying cattle to market.
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