RV nomads put little South Dakota County on the map
RV nomads put little South Dakota County on the map
RV nomads put little South Dakota County on the map
Carson Walker, Associated Press
April 14, 2005
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — South Dakota — situated squarely in a part of the country where the population is graying and small towns are dying a long, slow death — managed to have two of the nation’s 10 fast-growing counties in the Census Bureau’s latest ranking.
In one of those counties, Lincoln, the 2003-04 rise in population was real. In the other, Hanson, it was a phantom increase.
It turns out that hundreds of recreational-vehicle owners from all over the country list their place of residence as Hanson County, even though many of them do not actually have homes there, and visit only to pick up their mail or renew their driver’s licenses.
The reason: Hanson County is home to a husband-and-wife business that caters to people who live in RVs and just need a permanent address to receive their mail.
In Lincoln County, population 31,437, the increase is a spillover from a boom under way in adjacent Sioux Falls, which was dominated by the meatpacking industry until the state Legislature in 1980 lifted the ceiling on credit card interest rates, bringing in Citibank and other companies that have made South Dakota a major financial center.
Since the 1990s, developers have been turning Lincoln County’s rich farmland into bedroom communities for people working in Sioux Falls. Tracts of rolling land that just a few years ago were planted with corn and soybeans are now home to families raising children.
Lincoln County’s population shot up more than 40 percent during the 1990s, and climbed 7.5 percent from 2003 to 2004, the nation’s fifth-largest rise, according to the Census.
Hanson County, population 3,786, lies in flat farm country about 50 miles west of Sioux Falls. It posted the nation’s fourth-biggest percentage population increase from 2003 to 2004, 7.9 percent, according to the Census.
Most of those 278 additional residents officially call one place home: My Home Address Inc. in Emery. They use the business’ street address as their own.
Ron Triebwasser and his wife, Judy, run the company that collects and forwards mail and medicines, registers vehicles and handles other chores for nearly 1,200 people who live on the road. Most are retirees in recreational vehicles.
Triebwasser said he is promoting Hanson County to his customers as a good place to buy property.
“We’d love to have some people move in with kids,'’ he said.
And turn some of those Census numbers into actual residents.
