A vidcap of the walkway display windows; I believe this area has been renovated out of existence. As you might expect, these were given over to Christmas displays in December,  with flocked windows and cotton snow and the usual model trains bearing gifts disgorged from the gullet of Mattel. In the sixties one of the windows was turned into a Youth Shop, where you could buy Mod Plastic items in an environment from which all drug references had been carefully extracted.

In retrospect, it looks like a waste of floor space. Surely they could have put the footage to use showing goods and selling them, but in an era before TV and color photos in the paper, this was probably considered an effective way to whet appetites before people hit the sales floor.

Speaking of Christmas: In 1964 my dad took me on a train – the Great Snortin’, as he called the line -  and I remember it well. The car was cold and old, but it was very neat to be aboard a train, and Santa showed up for a meet–and-greet. Someone saved the ticket; glad they did, or I might have forgotten the event. Note, if you will, how the ticket refers to the event in the past tense; it's almost as if they know Mom will put this away in a drawer somewhere. The pricing seems carefully calibrated: ninety cents for a child. Apparently an extra dime was the camel back-breaker.

I always loved Herbst, and was sad to see the store spiral down. It moved to the Mall, of course, but the store was small. Once it had everything; now it was just a room with dresses on hangers, and the power of the brand was utterly spent. It closed; a Gap replaced it; the name passed from the retail scene with little comment. Unlike DeLendrecies, though, some of the store’s historical records survived. North Dakota State University has put a few items up on the web, and it’s worth a visit.