Agency-listedMunicipalFree
Lions Park (Armour)
Drive-up · public land · SD · 43.32233, -98.34336
Ask an AI about this campsiteOpens Grok already loaded with this site. It reads the same records this page is built from, and links whatever it tells you.
Ask about this camp →The land manager lists this site. Someone from the agency inventoried it, so it is a real camp — not a spot we guessed at. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
Donation-based camping in Armour's Lions Park, right on US-281 in Douglas County -- and unusually well equipped for a free stop: there is a bathhouse with toilets AND showers, and a dump station. The city is refreshingly direct about money: "There is no set fee for short camping stays at the park. Visitors who camp or use the facilities are asked to leave a donation in the drop box located near the bathhouse." So it is free in the sense that nothing is charged -- but there IS a drop box by the bathhouse and you should use it. Showers and a dump station cost the town real money to run. STAYING FIVE DAYS OR LONGER IS NOT FREE: "For stays of five days or longer, campers are asked to call 605-724-2459, for a daily rate." Plan on a short stop, or ring first. The park has two picnic shelters, 10 camping pads, plenty of green space, a sand volleyball court and playground facilities. There are also two cabins, which ARE priced -- "$40 per couple and $20 for each additional adult over age 18", kids free, two queen beds and two twin beds, heat and air conditioning, bring your own bedding, booked through Krull's Market at 605-724-2459. The cabins are a separate thing from the camping pads; do not turn up expecting a free cabin. The city page does not say whether potable water is available to campers, so we are not claiming it either way -- there is a bathhouse, but that is not the same statement. We have not visited this site.
USGS topo — contours & terrain
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Weather outlook — at Lions Park (Armour)
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 1,520 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Lions Park (Armour)NIFC · AirNow
Checking active fires & air quality…
Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.
Everything you need — measured from Lions Park (Armour) · public land · SD
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- MMechanic0 mi
- @Mail0 mi
- FFuel0 mi
- GGrocery0 mi
- HHardware0 mi
- +Urgent care15 mi
- RxPharmacy19 mi
- DDump20 mi
- OOutfitter30 mi
- EVEV fast charger30 mi
- LLaundry31 mi
- WWater31 mi
- ShShower42 mi
- AAir-up56 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water is a real 31-mi drive, fuel & food sit about 0 mi out, the nearest EV fast charger is a 30-mi run (and back).
Not within 60 mi: Propane. Plan those before you head up.
One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗
The site — Lions Park (Armour)
Access
Drive-up
Land
public land
Elevation
1,520 ft
Ground slope
1.6% · flat
State
SD
Coordinates
43.32233, -98.34336
Cost
Free
Nearby & resupply — around Lions Park (Armour) · public land · SD (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featurenone named within 1 mi (USGS NHD)
- Drinking waternone within 10 mi
- FuelClark · ~0.3 mi
- Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
- Dump station~19.6 mi
- GroceriesGrocery · ~0.3 mi
- PharmacyParkston Drug · ~18.6 mi
- Hospital / clinicAvera St. Benedict CRH Clinic - Lake Andes · ~15.1 mi
- HardwareTrue Value · ~0.3 mi
- Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
EV charging — from Lions Park (Armour) · public land · SD — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger30.2 mi straight-line NE — Mitchell, SD - Tesla Supercharger (at a shopping center) · Tesla · NACS (Tesla) · 6 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-06-18 · hours: 24 hours daily. Open to Teslas only. · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reachnone within 25 mi · 3 within 50 · 22 within 100 · 56 within 150
- Nearest listing CCS31.2 mi — Vern Eide Chevrolet Buick GMC Mitchell, Mitchell
- Nearest listing CHAdeMO61.6 mi — NPPD EV STATION ONEILL CUB DCSW, O'Neill
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)31.2 mi — Vern Eide Chevrolet Buick GMC Mitchell · EV Connect · J1772, CCS · 1 Level 2 port listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily
- Pricing at the fast chargernot listed
- Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
- Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 102407 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Lions Park (Armour) · public land · SD — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- RestroomFederal restroom · ~12.0 mi SW · FWS
Coming out here — Lions Park (Armour) · public land · SD
- No named surface water mapped within 1 mi of the pin in USGS's National Hydrography Dataset (data refreshed October 2022), and none within about a mile and a half in our OpenStreetMap pull — which is not proof there is none, only that neither map has one. Plan to carry washing water as well as drinking water.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 1.6% — flat. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (1 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- No rail line and no interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin. Checked against the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026) and the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). Both are national files and both are maps of what is built, not counts of what moves on it.
- Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
- Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.
Open Lions Park (Armour) elsewhere
How we know this — Lions Park (Armour)
Source
public land records
Confidence
Researched — The record is detailed and internally consistent, and the coordinates land where the managing agency says this site is.
How it was placed
SOURCE: City of Armour official website, https://armoursd.com/recreation/ -- fetched this fire and string-matched in the RAW page body via data/fetch_town_page.py. Quotes verbatim: "There is no set fee for short camping stays at the park. Visitors who camp or use the facilities are asked to leave a donation in the drop box located near the bathhouse. For stays of five days or longer, campers are asked to call 605-724-2459, for a daily rate."; "The park has two picnic shelters, 10 camping pads, two cabins and a bathhouse."; "The park's restroom and shower facilities also include a dump station for campers and RVs."; "Located along U.S. Highway 281". Cabin rates quoted from the same page. The page shows no date; the site footer identifies it as the City of Armour (cityhall at armour.sdcity.gov). FEE IS RECORDED AS 0 BECAUSE THE CITY SAYS THERE IS NO SET FEE FOR SHORT STAYS. This is donation-based, not silent-on-price, which is the distinction that matters -- same call the Montana fire made on Chester. The five-day threshold is carried in field_note as a first-class warning rather than buried, because a traveller who overstays WILL be charged. COORDINATE: OpenStreetMap via Overpass API. The pin is the CAMP_SITE polygon centre (way, tourism=camp_site) at 43.3223317,-98.3433576 -- i.e. the actual camping area, not just the park. It sits inside/beside an unnamed leisure=park polygon at 43.3226872,-98.3424154 whose OSM tags carry operator='Armour Lions Club', operator:type='private_non_profit', which is what identifies it as LIONS Park rather than the separate City of Armour park at 43.3283916,-98.3480067 (operator='City of Armour') that holds the pool, tennis courts and ball fields. CORROBORATION of the identification: Overpass also returns, within that Lions Club polygon, a leisure=pitch sport=beachvolleyball surface=sand at 43.3233436,-98.3435539 and a leisure=playground at 43.3235207,-98.3429974 -- matching the city's own "sand volleyball court and playground facilities". And the pin's longitude -98.3434 puts it on US-281 through Armour, matching "Located along U.S. Highway 281". GNIS has no park feature in Douglas County; Armour town centre per GNIS is 43.3186012,-98.3467455, about 0.3 mi southwest of the pin. Nominatim returned no result for either park name. Dedupe: nothing in the database within 5 km. Verified 2026-08-17 01:05:16. | auto:agency-trust 2026-08-18: state agency GIS record with a source URL and coordinates, confidence not low. Fee value is the agency's own, not field-checked. Not field-verified -- confirm access, road conditions and fire rules before you go.
EV chargers
US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.
Field check
On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.
What we don’t know about Lions Park (Armour)
A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
- Road surface & last-mile access
- How many rigs actually fit
- Cell coverage by carrier
- Seasonal & winter access
- Current fire restrictions
- Whether any water here is drinkable
- Shade & wind exposure
- Noise and who else shows up
- Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it
Before you go — Lions Park (Armour)
Water on public land →Cold-weather camping →Fire rules & restrictions →Dispersed camping tips →All field notes →