Parker, South Dakota
Parker is a small city in Turner County, South Dakota, United States. It is the county seat and had 1,194 people in 2020.
Parker sits near two highways, South Dakota Highway 19 and 44. It’s about 8 miles northwest of Chancellor, 42 miles east of Parkston, and 41 miles south of Madison.
Parker began in 1879 as the county seat and became a city in 1883. The name Parker came from the maiden name of the wife of a railroad official.
The city covers about 1.15 square miles, all land, and sits about 1,342 feet above sea level.
The Parker School District started in 1889. It won a national Blue Ribbon Award for academic excellence in 2012, and in 2022 added a new elementary school.
Parker hosts the Turner County Fair, one of the oldest county fairs in South Dakota, which began in 1880.
The high school teams are called the Pheasants. Notable coaches include Gayle Hoover, who led basketball from 1959 to 1993 and became the state’s all-time winningest basketball coach with 577 wins, and Jill Christensen, who coached volleyball from 1983 to 2018 and is the state’s all-time winningest coach in any sport with 837 career wins. Both are in the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 04:03 (CET).