Historical Clay County atlas added to the Digital Library of South Dakota.

Standard Atlas of Clay County, South Dakota (1912) by George. A. Ogle & Co. can now be viewed on the Digital Library of South Dakota.

… Ogle’s atlas maps. … emphasize clarity of cadastral delineation, a concern for the graphical accuracy of a civil engineer, a minimal approach to property depiction (boundaries, roads, water courses, hand-inscribed owner’s names – and little else), and professional trim, such as a colour tint for the map area and a page border composed of a chain of miniature globes.

Conzen, Michael P. “The County Landownership Map in America Its Commercial Development and Social Transformation 1814-1939.” Imago Mundi 36 (1984): 9-31. P. 24. Accessed on JSTOR March 17, 2021.

If you are interested in the history of cadastral maps in the United States and atlases and how their styles have changed through time, I recommend the articles and books by Michael Conzen, a geographer at the University of Chicago.

Cadastral maps are helpful to historians, genealogists, and those tracing landowners for legal reasons. Though cadastral maps (particularly Ogel’s atlases) are often reliable, the ultimate source of past and present ownership information is the county courthouse.