Worthing's store circa 1910 by unknown photographer
Worthing’s is a name known in Mitchell businesses since 1905. F.P. Worthing came from Iowa with his family and established a grocery store in the south half of the current Burg shoe store. By 1909 he had built a store at 115 West 2nd which featured groceries, dry goods, and shoes. F.P., his son, Forrest, and daughter, Florence, operated the store. The store changed its product line many times from hardware, new and used furniture, western wear and arts and crafts. Forrest and Dorothy Worthing and their son, Kenneth were running the store later on. Late in 1968, Ken Worthing opened Worthing’s Western Wear at 201 North Main and the business at 115 West 2nd now named Worthing’s Arts and Crafts housed Dorothy’s art studio at the rear of the store. This West 2nd store was a great outlet for artist Dorothy’s work, as well as, other regional artist’s works. Art and craft supplies were available for sale. Dorothy died in 1969 and Forrest ran the business until his death, at which time Kenneth Jerald, Forrest’s son, and his wife, Kathleen, owned it until they closed Worthing’s Arts and Crafts in November 1978.
The L.O. Gale Pharmacy, Jewelry and Book store sat on this corner of 2nd and Main in Mitchell’s early history. Worthing’s Western Wear at 201 North Main was in this location and featured all kinds of western attire for the family for many years. A fire destroyed the building on December 17, 2007, when it housed Janitor’s Express; after the building was taken down the location became an outside seating area for Dr. Lucky’s Bar and Grill.
Published in the February 25, 2023 Mitchell Republic.
The 100 Block of North Main Street in Mitchell, circa 1967. On the right at 113 North Main was the Anderst Café owned by Mrs. Albertine W. Anderst. At 111 North Main was Mitchell Paint Company owned by Calvin E. and Ida E. Schultz. The building on the left was Gambles Furniture and Carpet Center at 107 North Main Street. Miles Winship was the manager. The American Legion Café occupied the Gambles building for a time and Jades Bar, Restaurant and Casino is now at the 107 N Main location. The other two buildings are no longer there, it is now a parking lot.
Published in the March 18th, 2023 Mitchell Republic.
The importance of railroads in settling the United States cannot be underestimated. Passengers could sleep on trains, eat on trains and just travel from place to place. This example of the plates used in dining cars and the menus available give a peek into the past of a railroad trip from the first half of the 20th Century.
Published in the Mitchell Republic, January 14th, 2023.
Circa 1944/1945
Reierson’s Bakery and Ice Cream was located at 519 South Sanborn. Pictured is the largest truck in their fleet. It made three round trips to Winner per week, outbound on Highway 18 and returning the next day via Highway 16. The driver was Clarence Cunningham (“Sunshine”, as he was known to his west river customers.) The photo was taken in front of the Cunningham home at 315 East 11th Avenue. (Note the unpaved road.) Pictured with Cunningham are his children, Glenn and Delores.
Published in the March 4th, 2023 Mitchell Republic.
Back in Time 2023
One of the “finest, men’s clothing stores in the area,” says a Daily Republic article from 1964. Becker’s was known in South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and North Dakota. They prided themselves on having a variety of sizes and even advertised, “We fit the hard to fit. Long men, short men, tall men, all men.” Becker’s even helped supply some of the smaller clothing stores with merchandise at a reduced rate. Emil Becker and his son Delvan came to Mitchell in 1887. Emil was working for Hirsch-Wickwire and Company, a clothing company from Chicago. He so loved the business that he purchased the store from the company. In 1906, Emil Becker remodeled his two-store front to a one entrance store at 206-208 North Main with A.J. Kings doing the work of tearing off the old fronts and replacing the front with pressed bricks for a unified look. This building now houses Cherrybees Floral and Gifts; look high on the building and the Becker – 1906 company name plaque can still be seen. Emil Becker sold this property in 1929 to J.J. Newberry Company of New York.
Delvan T. Becker took over the business from his father and purchased the building next door at 210 North Main, the Larrison Drug Store, in 1929. The front was remodeled with the new Becker name plaque reading 1930. This is the store front in the picture. He moved his clothing business to the new store and continued in business at this location until August of 1964 when he sold its assets. Delvan Becker was very involved in his community and at retirement thanked all those customers from the last 70 years for their patronage. Xtreme Dance now occupies this space.
1930 photo donated by Bob Brown and the 2023 photo donated by Linda Oster to the Mitchell Area Historical Society.
Published in the January 21st, 2023 Mitchell Republic.
TG.C. Slack & Co from Soo (Sioux) Falls, SD took this picture of the Main Street in Dimock, SD. Dimock sits in Hutchinson County and had a population of 137 in the 2020 census. It was a destination for many German immigrants from Dane, Wisconsin coming to the area to homestead. Some of those families who came in a wagon train in 1879 were the Schlimgens, Zehnpfennings, Webers, Lockens, Puetzes and Hohns. The community was called Starr until the railroad changed the name to Dimock after Warren Dimock who came to the area from Wisconsin in 1885. He was a Hutchinson County State’s Attorney, a state senator and county judge. Dimock is home to the elegant Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church. Today’s church was the end result of a series of several earlier churches; it was completed on October 6, 1909, and sits prominently on West 1st Street to the east of Highway 37 overlooking the cemetery which reaches to the highway. According to A Pictorial History of Parkston - 2006 , Dimock had a hotel, hardware store, blacksmith shop, bowling alley, hat shop, theatre, café, gas station, garage, bar, and car sales lot. One of the long surviving businesses in Dimock is Dimock Dairy, a cheese factory established in 1931, which boasts "handcrafted artisan cheese the old fashioned way.”
Published in the February 11th, 2023 Mitchell Republic.
A behind the counter look at the old First Mitchell National Bank that sat at 217 North Main Street in Mitchell, SD. The original bank stood at the 207 North Main where Geyerman’s now stands in a small wooden building. It was established by the Davison brothers and four other merchants when they were issued a National Bank Charter on October 22,1886, and opened for business on November 22,1886. They moved to the Roman columned building at 217 North Main in June,1907, and remained there until a new building at Lawler and Fourth made of precast concrete was put into service for the bank on August 8, 1977. The bank became a Norwest Bank on August 1, 1983; Norwest bank then acquired Wells Fargo in 1998 and assumed the Wells Fargo name by August 26, 2000. The 217 North Main location now houses Tickled Pink Boutique.
Published in the February 18th, 2023 Mitchell Republic.
This Bob Brown photo shows the interior of the Town House Café that was located at 103 North Main Street. The business began in 1935 as the Majestic Bar, owned by Mike Props and Tom Duros (Tom owned the Palace City Café next door). In 1936, Mike Props, his brother Chris and Peter Economos acquired the Palace City Café and added the Royal Liquor Store and Sandwich Shop.
In 1942, Chris enlisted in the Air Force and was killed in New Guinea. Mike Props also served in the military which left Pete alone to run the businesses. He closed the Sandwich Shop and operated the bar and liquor store. The original café was moved around 1948. Part of the building was rented by George Psiropoulos, Gust S Papoutisis and George Karendis, according to the 1953 City Directory, under the name of the Oriental Café. In 1955, the whole building was renovated and opened as the Town House Café. After Pete Economos was killed in a car accident in 1973, Maria, his widow carried on the partnership with Mike Props until they sold it in 1985.
The café and lounge was bought by Darwin Buus in 1985, and in 1994 purchased from Buus by Dale Snyder. The building became the VFW Club in 1997. The building was torn down in 2013 due to structural damage from an adjoining building. Photo provided by Darwin Buus. Informational details from Mitchell Re-Discovered – July 16-19, 1981 and Pat Economos. If you have pictures of the Town House and would like to share, we would appreciate any photos, information etc. for our files. Please contact the Carnegie Resource Center either by phone 605-996-3209, email at info@mitchellcarnegie.com or stop in at 119 West Third Avenue, Mitchell, SD. Thanks in advance for any photos or information.
Published in the February 4th, 2023 Mitchell Republic.
Circa 1907 Brush Automobile The black/white photo could be a Leeland photo since it was found with several other Leeland photos. The color photo is advertising this car for sale on thevaultms.com website.
This unknown driver is taking a break from driving his Brush car. The license plate reads SD 45431. According to vaultms.com, “A whopping $485 ( over $13,000.00 in today's money.) would buy you this Runabout back in 1907. ...These Brush models were built with a wooden chassis and even wooden axles in a time when they were losing favor, and in a thoughtful note, Brush designed his 6-horsepower single-cylinder engines to run counter-clockwise to make hand-cranking it safer on the user. …
The American company Brush Motor Car Company operated from 1907-13. The company was founded by Alanson Partridge Brush who designed a light car with a wooden chassis (wooden rails and iron cross-members), friction drive transmission and ‘underslung’ coil springs in tension instead of compression on both sides of each axle. The frame, axles, and wheels were made of oak, hickory, or maple, and were either left plain or painted to match the trim. Powered by a water-cooled single cylinder engine They were an entry level car, simple, reliable, and easy to operate.
Wider axles were available for use in the Southern region of the United States, where a 60-inch tread fit wagon ruts on country roads. The horn was located next to the engine cover, with a metal tube running to a squeeze bulb affixed near the driver. A small storage area was provided in the rear, with a drawer accessible under the rear of the seat.” https://thevaultms.com/inventory/brush-model-bc/
For those who would like to hear and see this car run, there are two YouTube videos to let you experience in a small way the Brush Automobile. https://youtu.be/20Tp4tMxrDw and https://youtu.be/BbxgiG-cgm4
Published in the March 11, 2023 Mitchell Republic
Fun in the snow 1912 version. An unknown photographer’s photo found in the archives of the Carnegie Resource Center is labeled “1912 Sleigh ride on Court Merrill and McCabe.”
What was the winter of 1912 like? Wikipedia says, “January 1912 was the seventh-coldest January on record in the contiguous U.S. The states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota had their coldest Januaries on record. Minneapolis/Saint Paul endured a record-setting 186 consecutive hours of below 0 °F (−17.78 °C) temperatures, from 8 pm on December 31 until 1 pm on January 8. After only four hours above 0 °F (−18 °C), the temperature again dropped below zero, this time for 121 consecutive hours, until 10 am on January 13. Sioux Falls, South Dakota dropped to −38 °F (−38.9 °C) on January 12, which is the city's second-lowest temperature during its 1893 through 2017 period of record. …
February 1912 was less extreme. It was the 24th-coldest February on record for the contiguous U.S….
March 1912 was the second-coldest March on record for the contiguous U.S., with widespread heavy snowfalls. Williston, North Dakota had its coldest March on record from 1895 through 2017.”
Published in the January 28th, 2023 Mitchell Republic.