Then – Jewett’s “Big Building” Goes Up 1903 was a big year for large-scale construction in Aberdeen. The Brown County Courthouse, Olwin-Angell Department store, Federal Courthouse, and Jewett Warehouse were all started when the ground thawed that year. The media repeatedly referred to the Jewett Wholesale Warehouse as mammoth, or simply the “big building.” It was built on the corner of Railroad Avenue and Kline Steet adjacent to the railroad tracks. The Jewett brothers had transitioned from a grocery retail outlet downtown to wholesaling pharmaceuticals and groceries in a vast region. The four-story building was 100 feet square, with an additional 50-foot, two-story section on the west side. The building became quite the spectacle for rail passengers coming into Aberdeen. One even commented in the paper that the construction process was so impressive, people should pack a lunch and go watch the 50 or 60 tradespeople work on the structure. Jewett Brothers began moving things over from their existing warehouse on Fourth and Main in January of 1904. The building was complete soon after that. In 1941 the wholesale grocery portion of Jewett Brothers was sold to Nash-Finch, and up until 1954 the merger was known as Nash-Jewett. This photo was no doubt taken during that time. It was provided by the Dacotah Prairie Museum.
Now – Still Standing, But Nameless An interesting fact about the construction boom of 1903 (it was estimated that there was $1 million worth of new construction happening then) is that excavated dirt from several building foundations were used to fill in sloughs in the downtown area of Aberdeen. Specifically, dirt from the Jewett Warehouse was used to level out a “ancient frog pond” on the block north of the high school. Homes were then immediately built. The frog ponds were a community nuisance due to mosquitoes and the risk of malaria. Many large-scale buildings were built along Railroad Avenue, but most are gone. Everyone in Aberdeen wishes for some cool, residential reuse of this stately warehouse building. The current owner uses it for inventory storage and says it is very difficult to maintain and certainly has no plans for an expensive remodel/repurpose. The building has changed hands only a few times, and many may remember it being a part of Malchow Furniture, who purchased it in 1956. The building still stands as direct connection to Aberdeen’s Hub City days when the growth of the railroads through Aberdeen opened the door for entrepreneurs like the Jewetts to scale their operations and reach much bigger markets.
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