First buyer with $400,000 takes Swett, S.D.

A businessman is selling his small, southeastern South Dakota town for $400,000.

Lance Benson is the sole owner of Swett, an unincorporated hamlet in Bennett County about two hours southeast of Rapid City. Benson, who owns a traveling-concessions business, put the town on the market last week.

Benson tells the Rapid City Journal the town used to have a population of 40 people decades ago, as well as a post office, a few houses and a grocery store.

Now, the town is just a bar, workshop, three trailers and a house. He and his wife still live there.

He says ownership of the town concentrated to a single person over the years. Benson bought it in 1998.

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