SIOUX FALLS, the largest city of South Dakota, U.S.A., on the Big Sioux river, at an altitude of 1,422 ft., 190 m. N. by W. of Omaha ; the county seat of Minnehaha county. It is on the Atlantic—Yellowstone—Pacific and the Custer Battlefield high ways; has a municipal airport 3 m. S.E. of the post-office; and is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific, the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha, the Great Northern, the Illinois Central, and the Rock Island railways, and by 20 inter urban motor-coach lines. Pop. (1925 State census) 30,127; 1930 Federal census 33,362. Sioux Falls is the metropolis of a large territory. The falls from which it takes its name are a series of cascades, dropping about 1 oo ft. in half a mile, which provide picturesque scenery as well as water-power. There are 324 ac. in public parks. The residential sections have wide tree-lined streets, bordered with lawns and gardens. Many of the public buildings and institutions are built of "Sioux Falls granite" (quartzite sand stone) quarried in the vicinity. The city is the see of a Roman
Catholic and of a Protestant Episcopal bishop, and is the seat of the State penitentiary, the State school for the deaf, the South Dakota Children's Home (a privately supported institution), Sioux Falls college (Baptist ; 1883), Augustana College and Nor mal School (Lutheran; 1889), Columbus college (Roman Catho lic; 1921) and three training schools for nurses. It is an important distributing centre. The output in 1927 of 77 factories in the city was valued at $38,363,882. A settlement was established at the falls in 1856, but it was abandoned six years later. Permanent settlement dates from 1867. The village was incorporated in 1877, and in 1883 it was chartered as a city. By 1900 the popula tion had reached 10,266. This increased to 14,094 m 1910, and then more than doubled in the next 15 years.