Fateful travels take me this time to what is referred to as the gateway to the plains. Let us start off with a lovely mural by Zach DeBoer:
It is in the replica of the vintage welcome postcard we all know and love. The images within each letter represents a landmark within Sioux Falls.
What better way to segway into my travel discussion by showcasing each of these in turn?
- Orpheum Theater is the oldest existing theater in Sioux Falls. Started in 1913 as a vaudeville theater. It fell into disrepair but reopened in 2001.
- David statue: given to the city by Thomas Fawick in 1971. Fawick is a Sioux Falls Native who made a fortune as an inventor. The statue is cast from the famous sculpture completed by Michelangelo in 1504. It depicts a young David poised to go against giant Goliath. If you want to know about the original it is located in Florence.
- Levitt Pavillion: state-of-the-art outdoor concert venue that opened in 2019 offering 50 free concerts every year featuring a diverse range of emerging and acclaimed talent.
- Falls Park: the city’s namesake is 128-acres and located just north of downtown, along the Big Sioux River. An average of 7,400 gallons of water drop 100 feet over the course of the Falls each second over 2 billion year old pink quartzite.
this view was from the observatory below. It also included a souvenir shop on the first floor.
Within the park itself you had the Queen Bee Mill. The story behind it was that in 1878 it was decided Sioux Falls needed its own mill so farmers could avoid the cost of shipping wheat to Minnesota or Wisconsin. Richard Pettigrew South Dakota’s first U.S. senator dammed the Big Sioux River shortly before investors arrived to convince them of the potential of a mill. This ruse was foiled in early 1883 after everyone discovers the Big Sioux River’s flow isn’t powerful enough to operate the mill at its potential capacity. It forced closure only to serve as a mill one more in 1911 until 1918. Afterwards remained unused until 1929 when it was repurposed as warehouse space. It was unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1956 and all that remains of it today is ruins.
Below is a closeup of the Sioux Falls Light and Power Company building, completed in 1908. The building housed hydroelectric generators but today it is a cafe.
- Old Courthouse Museum: built in 1893, served its purpose until 1962 as it became too small for court and administrative activities. A new courthouse was built to the west of the original and the old courthouse was slated for demolition to make room for a parking lot. Concerned citizens campaigned to save the Old Courthouse and in 1974 they were successful. The building was converted to a museum
- St Joseph Cathedral completed in 1919 was designed by French architect Emmanuel Masqueray, known also for the St. Paul cathedral in Minnesota and chief designer for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair
- Arc of Dreams: a massive stainless steel sculpture that spans across the Big Sioux River downtown. At the center of the Arc of Dreams is a 15-foot gap, 85-feet above the river, representing the leap of faith dreamers take to see their dreams come true.
- State Theater: built in 1926 as a venue for both live performances and movies. It shut down in 1991, then multi-million dollar plan resulted in a completely refurbished auditorium that opened in 2020.
If you look back at the welcome mural you will see that the text is set against the backdrop of the Sioux Falls flag which looks like this:
It interestingly took until 2018 for the design to be adopted as the official flag for the city of Sioux Falls. This was after 4 years of campaigning and Sioux Falls prevailing as one of the 150 largest cities in the United States without a city flag.
Here’s another mural by this Zach DeBoer of 1900’s railroad in Sioux Falls’ flag colors. It commemorates the St. Paul/Chicago line that would have been serviced by the East Bank Depot nearby
Nearby you see the vintage sign for 8th & Railroad (RR). The Center features a variety of shops and restaurants. It is formerly railroad property the city acquired in a 2015 deal with BNSF
Speaking of industries abandoning the city for redevelopment. Sioux Steel established in 1918 manufactures grain bins, buildings and livestock equipment. The re-incarnation will feature mixed-use, which includes restaurants, offices, retail, hotels and housing. You can bet the vintage signs are going to remain a fixture in whatever form the new redevelopment comes up with
Here we see a modern bank building with a white plastic ball at the top. You may why it is?
It is not by accident, these actually served a meteorological purpose back in the day. For instance when the color turns red it would signal warmer weather is ahead. White means colder weather is in sight. Green, no change is foreseen.When colors blink by day or night, precipitation is impending.
Few still remain in the city today but are nonfunctional and are just decorative reminder of a bygone era.
We enter now Phillips Ave the main drag in the city for shopping and entertainment, we are greeted by the omnipresent standing clock:
Not that the city is lacking in decorations, there is always an exhibit of outdoor sculptures going on. They are changed and replaced every year as they get sold or auctioned to the public. This is part of a program called SculptureWalk that has been going on for 18 years and comprises more than 60 sculptures.
There is a cafe in town you do not want to miss its called Josiah’s and its the first name of the man who founded Sioux Falls in 1857. His last name is Phillips and you guessed it, that’s the namesake of the vibrant street we we were just talking about.
Inside you will find a fireplace made of local pink Sioux quartzite decorated with a photo of the man himself
I’d be remiss if I did not mention that the property of the coffee house used to be a car dealership and then a transmission shop. When you step inside you will notice that a lot of the elements were preserved like the curved high ceilings
Speaking of historical buildings, right across the street you find the site of the airbnb where I stayed during my visit. Shriver’s here used to be a department store with five floors and a bargain basement. Its today apartments with restaurant and retail in first floors. What’s fascinating is that the elevator to the unit have retained the old labels for the floors describing sections of the department store
Another example of redevelopment is this building below. It was originally built as the Sioux Falls National Bank in 1918. One hundred years later, in 2018, Hotel On Phillips began its restoration and transformation into an upscale chic boutique hotel.
What city wouldn’t be complete without a classical coca cola sign? Below you have Zandbroz the quintessential souvenir shop in town. They started out in 1989 way before the city started tho boom and further businesses started opening up along the street.
That is it in a nutshell. The last thing I will leave you with is this mural painted by artist Shaine Schroeder titled Confetti. It’s a woman’s face with confetti and other vibrant shapes for hair.
