Vale 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 ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

in Butte County,

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state, state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota people, Dakota Sioux ...

, United States. According to the 2020 census, the population was 130. Vale has been assigned the ZIP code of 57788. The public school located in Vale, whose mascot was The Beet Diggers, closed in 1982. Vale was so-named because the town site is located in a valley. The Full Throttle Saloon, a large bar and entertainment site described as the world's largest

biker bar A biker bar is a bar that is frequented by bikers (motorcycle riders). Some are owned or managed by people who are friendly toward bikers.

and previously the subject of the

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s ...

series ''

Full Throttle Saloon ''Full Throttle Saloon'' is an American reality television series that premiered on November 10, 2009, and originally aired on truTV. The series chronicles the daily operations of the Full Throttle Saloon in Sturgis, South Dakota, the world's larg ...

'', was rebuilt, moving from nearby Sturgis to 600 acres in Vale near

Bear Butte Bear Butte is a geological laccolith feature located near Sturgis, South Dakota, United States, that was established as a State Park in 1961. An important landmark and religious site for the Plains Indians tribes long before Europeans reached S ...

Demographics

The 2022 U.S. Decennial Census reported a total population of 130. Vale's median age was 58.7 years, much higher than the state's 38.5 median; and 48.4% are over the age of 65. 122 of Vale's residents reported only white ethnicity; 2 reported Native American, 2 reported Asian, 3 reported Hispanic/Latino heritage, and 4 reported they were multiracial. The largest heritage group was Norwegian, with 23.7% of residents reporting Norwegian ancestry. Vale has a poverty rate much higher than the state average. The median household income was $20,139, and the overall poverty rate was 26.9%, as opposed to the state's overall 12.5%. Only 11.1% of residents had completed a bachelor's degree or higher, in contrast to 31.6% of all South Dakotans. Most working residents are employed in education or social services, but the second-highest employment category is in agriculture.

References

Census-designated places in Butte County, South Dakota Census-designated places in South Dakota {{SouthDakota-geo-stub