Trail City is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

straddling Dewey County, South Dakota and

Corson County, South Dakota Corson County is a county in the U.S. state of South Dakota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,902. Its county seat is McIntosh. The county was named for Dighton Corson, a native of Maine, who came to the Black Hills in 1876, and ...

, United States. Although not tracked by the

Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...

, Trail City has been assigned the ZIP code of 57657. The community was originally named Cheyenne Junction upon establishment in 1911, a reference to its location at the junction of two branches of the railroad. Due to confusion in the mails with two other South Dakota post offices (Cheyenne Agency and Cheyenne Falls), alternate town names were considered. Among the candidate town names were Rodero, Prairie, and Trail City; the latter chosen in 1912 because of the many indigenous trails that crossed in the vicinity. The community was named for a

cattle drive Droving is the practice of walking livestock over long distances. It is a type of herding, often associated with cattle, in which case it is a cattle drive (particularly in the US). Droving stock to market—usually on foot and often with the ...

trail near the original town site according to some secondary sources.

References

Unincorporated communities in Corson County, South Dakota Unincorporated communities in South Dakota {{SouthDakota-geo-stub