It is a small community, however, which has seen better days.  The trains just pass by and the grain elevator, once the heart of the community, is no longer in use. In fact, it's no longer there. It was one of the last wooden elevators in Manitoba and it was torn down in 2003.

Dacotah dates back to 1873 when some of the land in the area was claimed by the Hudson Bay Company.  Settlers began to arrive and take over the land about 1880 and the Dacotah Siding was built in 1904.

Carmi Winslow came to Dacotah in 1899 and purchased 14 hundred acres of land.  He had been farming in the Grand Forks area of North Dakota. Winslow donated land to the railroad to build a siding at Dacotah which was named by his wife after the Dacotah Tribe in Minnesota.

The Qually family, which still resides in Dacotah, operated the Dacotah Store, which is the backdrop for Larry Watmough's Ghost Town CD.  The original store in Dacotah burned down in 1935.  It was rebuilt and now serves as a focal point for the Dacotah Historical Society. Over the years, the Qually family have been the town's postmasters as well as operating the Imperial Oil agency and a farm implement dealership.