Brookings is a city in Brookings County, South Dakota, United States. Brookings is South Dakota’s fourth largest city, with a population of 23,377 at the 2020 census. It is the county chair of Brookings County, and home to South Dakota State University, the state’s largest institution of highly developed education. Also in Brookings are the South Dakota Art Museum, the Children’s Museum of South Dakota, the annual Brookings Summer Arts Festival, and the headquarters of several manufacturing companies and agricultural operations.

The county and city were both named after one of South Dakota’s explorer promoters, Wilmot Brookings. Brookings set out for the Dakota Territory in June 1857. He arrived at Sioux Falls on August 27, 1857, and became one of the first settlers there. He and his outfit represented the Western Town Company. After a time in Sioux Falls, Brookings and a companion set out for the Yankton area to locate a town in an area that was soon to be ceded by the Native Americans. This vacation began in January 1858, and the two soon encountered a blizzard that froze Brookings’s feet, which both had to be amputated.

Brookings rose to a high position in the Territory, becoming a advocate of the Squatter Territorial Legislature and difficult elected Squatter Governor. He next was appointed superintendent of a road that was to be built from the Minnesota divulge line west to the Missouri River more or less 30 miles north of Ft. Pierre. It was during this road’s construction that Brookings came into read with estate that was allowance of this county at the time. He made harmony of this Place possible for many people.

The first real town organized in Brookings County was Medary, in 1857. Before that, the Place had been traveled and utilized without help by Native Americans, with a few uncertain traces left showing the good judgment of the area by explorers, missionaries, trappers, and traders. Along later Sioux Falls and Flandreau, Medary was one of the first three European settlements time-honored in South Dakota.