24/7 Trauma & Biohazard Cleanup Near Java Historic District Java, SD

Java is an incorporated town in Walworth County, in north-central South Dakota.

Java was founded in 1900, shortly after the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway was extended from Bowdle to the Missouri River.

The townsite was surveyed by George Merriman of Bowdle on September 5, 1903, and the village was incorporated as a town by election that same year.

Java derives its name from Java coffee, and "Coffee Town" was an early variant name, because railroad crews on the line would stop in town for coffee.

Many of Java's first homesteaders were of German, Russian, Dutch, English, and Hungarian ancestry.

The Java Herald, the town's first newspaper, was established in 1903 by Carl F. Clement and was printed in both English and German.

When the railroad rerouted its tracks about half a mile north of town in 1908 and 1909, Java's citizens refused a proposal to move the town, so the railroad served it by a spur line instead.

In 1921 Java adopted the mayor-alderman form of government, with Carl F. Clement as its first mayor under the new system.

Java's population peaked at 529 in the 1930 census.

The population of Java was 121 at the 2020 census, down from 129 in 2010.