Edmunds County Tribune -

From the Ipswich Tribune, August 31, 1935 edition

IPSWICH NAMED AFTER TOWN OF ENGLAND

BY MILWAUKEE OFFICIAL

By J. W. Parmley

The question is often asked as to how Ipswich South Dakota got its name, and after considerable investigation we have ascertained the facts.

Ipswich was not the pioneer town. In the rush for land in 1882 and 1883 three towns were started in this territory: Freeport, two miles northeast; Georgetown, two miles southeast and Edmunds, four miles southwest. The latter got the designation of the county seat. This was in the spring of 1883. During the summer the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad built twenty-six miles west from Aberdeen and stopped at the center of the triangle of the three towns, establishing a town there on October 2, 1883.

Charles H. Prior of Minneapolis was superintendent of the Hastings and Dakota division of the Milwaukee road at the time and the owner of townsite. He named it Ipswich, after Ipswich, England, his native town. There was a prosperous town of the same name in Massachusetts, and a junction of the Milwaukee and Northwestern in Wisconsin. Ipswich, Massachusetts was the off-spring of Ipswich, England over a century ago, but the Wisconsin junction is of recent origin and as to why so designated we have been unable to learn.