Then & Now: 200 Block of South Main St.

Then Pioneering Days – This is a great old picture that pops up now and then. It is the 200 block of Main Street (300 block at the time the photo was taken). The main building in the center is now a hair salon/apartment but was once an important building and loan business for Aberdeen. The building was built in 1891 and the business was run by a “who’s who” of Aberdeen pioneers. Names like Easton, Jumper, Lamont, Howard, Gage, Witte and Campbell are the ones with their hands in most of Aberdeen’s early development (and success). Eventually the building became R.E. Huffman’s redwood-front office supply store. That’s when most of the historic elements were removed and covered up. To the right are two two-story structures. The one on the corner housed a bank run by Frank Hagerty and Henry Marple. The building would be “slid” north into Second Avenue to make way for a new “skyscraper” planned for 1909, then eventually demolished. Across Second Avenue is the Dakota Central Telephone Company building but was originally built as Union Bank Company in 1889. The date of this photo is somewhere between 1891 and 1903.

Now a Familiar View – The characteristic Building and Loan building has been usurped by the six-story Citizens Bank Building. By 1909 Aberdeen’s population had risen to 12,000 (a bit shy of Sioux Falls’ 14,000). In that year, a banking newcomer substantially impacted the architectural landscape of downtown Main Street. The Citizens Trust and Savings Bank built our first high rise on the corner of Main and Second Avenue. The community was skeptical that a six-story building could be developed in Aberdeen, but the bank proclaimed, “six stories or nothing!” The size was planned because Aberdeen was booming and many of the other small commercial buildings were too small. The building is completely unoccupied but is owned by CO-OP Architecture and they have drafted plans to redevelop this landmark. To the left is Studio 9, the former Building and Loan, still looking pretty good. To the left of that is Hub City Axe Throwing. The brick became exposed when developers removed metal panels that were installed when the building was built as a Kinney Shoe Store. The Union Bank Building across the street from the Citizen Building is still there. It is now mostly vacant as it experienced some damage when an adjacent building collapsed last winter. //