Day 31 of 117 on our “Go West, Young Man” Two Lane Adventure – Friday 7/27/18

There are also many old buildings in downtown Mitchell, including the First National Bank building. This is a Sullivanesque style building was originally constructed as a bank, with commercial office space on the upper two floors and basement. Developed by one of Mitchell’s prominent business leaders OL Branson. The building was home to two banking operations simultaneously, The First Trust & Saving Bank and the First National Bank. In 1929, the upper two floors were converted into some offices and apartments and served that purpose for many years.

The Western Bank Building was a 4-story office building that was built in the commercial Chicago style, popularized by Louis Sullivan and other Chicago Architects in early skyscrapers. It was built in 1907 and the bank occupied the NE corner, while a shoe store and music store filled the remainder of the first floor. The bank went into receivership in 1924 and JC Penny occupied the building until 1960, when they built a new store two blocks north. The White Drug store was the next owner, followed by the Saterlie Drug. A local Arts & Crafts store is the current owner. The upper three floors housed lawyers, doctors, dentists and other professionals. But have been closed since the 1970’s awaiting revitalization. The building has a passenger elevator that was never automated.

The Champney Building was built on North Main Street in 1887. This three-story building is the oldest building in downtown Mitchell. When it was built, the Masonic Lodge occupied the entire third floor. The Masonic square and compass symbol can still be seen at the top of the building along with the 1887 date. When the Masons built their own lodge in 1924, the second and third floors were converted to high end apartments. The first-floor housed space for two businesses. Saterlie Drug occupied the corner space for many years before moving across the street to the Western Bank Building. The north space was the home of the Maynard Theatre from 1910 to 1914. Currently a Western Wear shop occupies the south corner of the building. The apartments were unfortunately allowed to deteriorate over the years and were closed in 1980.

Along with all the "old" in downtown Mitchell, there is some "new". The Veteran’s Park, next to the American Legion, located at First and Main Street is an example of that. It is a new community asset, as the park was dedicated this past May.

The downtown Mitchell area has beautiful hanging baskets, 

corn on the street signs and corn on the lamp post bases.

There is a small Rotary Park, near the Corn Palace. It was a beautiful park with a Rotary clock tower. Since the park's creation in 2005, there's been a four-sided manual clock that displays the time at the corner of Main Street and Seventh Avenue. But for much of the last decade, that clock was not illuminated, until recently. Thanks to the extra ordinary efforts of the Rotarians and the Community of Mitchell.

At the SD Good Sam Rally we played games of Bean Bag Toss, aka Corn Hole, games. 

It was a hot sunny day for us to play. But we all had a good time!

 

For dinner, Charlie Ragland cooked us an awesome dinner of Tacos. We have been lucky with the weather, but the rain decided to kick up just before we ate. Oh, well … we are with friends, so it is all good!

After dinner, when the rain stopped and the sun came out, we celebrated Charlie’s Birthday with ice cream and cupcakes.

Naturally, we ended the night talking with friends!