Their website says: “Our community was named when William Mann, John Bentz, and William Kneeland decided to flip a $20 gold piece for the honor of naming their settlement. Mr. Mann, being the lucky one, named it Sterling, after his hometown in Illinois.”

Here’s the proud town whose newspaper we sampled yesterday.

I can’t get any closer, because it jumps back to 2007.

 

I don't think it's a bank now. I think it was rehabbed to be something other than a bank, but you can add gilt letters and people know it's a restoration with a different purpose.

In this case. ART.

Big Brother, little brother

 

Oddly, and pointlessly, horned. Well, not pointlessly. You know what I mean.

That’s one way of telling people it’ll never be rented for anything ever again.

 

 

I wonder what’s in there. Something has to be in there. Lots of something.

This sight would make the Mobridge founders and boosters weep: what happened, and why doesn’t anyone care?

 

Although for all we know, they had their share of old ramshackle buildings, too.

Another pointy-top building. Interesting windows.

 

And it is . . .

 

The Rustic Inn. Scars of its old friend still visible. Well, neighbor. Don’t know if they were friends.

We all know what this is. Or was.

 

 

Do most folk know, though? I’m curious. If you’re 18 and you grew up in the burbs of a large city and never made it out into the great beyond, do you grasp instinctively was this was?

Down the street - can’t get closer or it’s back to blurry 2007.

 

Or can we? Oh heck let’s go anyway.

 

 

Empty. What was it? What did they make in there?

 

More points! It’s the town of pointy-top’t buildings! It's the sort of thing that makes me think they had a fire, and hired one guy to rebuild everything.

 

 

Glad the sign’s still up, but let’s be honest: it’s ugly.

2007: T'was

 

 

Now, T’isn’t. But what’s that on the surviving building?

 

 

A parable mural?

 

 

 

The solid arena, where shows and demos and graduations and all manner of civic events have been held, so generations can have memories of spilling outside after a marvelous time, drinking in the summer evening air, wondering where to go for Coke and pie.

 

Info:

The Scherr-Howe Event Center (Mobridge City Auditorium) is a public building that has been on the National Historic Registry since 1986. It was built as a WPA project in the 1930s and houses 10 early murals from renowned Native American artist, Oscar Howe. Howe painted the murals in the 1942, starting on April 18 and ending on June 22. On June 5, Howe was inducted into the US Army at Fort Snelling, but he received a 14 day furlough to finish the project.  The murals were restored in 2014. 

Odd. This is 2007 . . .

 

 

And this is 2022, with an old brand from the 70s.

 

 

Signs of a 40s or early 50s renovation. Could even be earlier, if the blue was painted on. But if the blue is original, I’m saying 1947. There.

 

 

The Brown Palace. Named after the famous one in Denver, perhaps?

 

 

No: Arthur Brown, local businessman. Also Lord of Hellfire. Strange world, his.

Sigh.

 

 

What was this?

 

 

It was a store. The old Mascot can be seen in this postcard. And it's the building we saw above with the WRANGLER sign.

What?

 

They still exist!

The chain’s bankrupt, and the company that took it over went bankrupt, and the wikipedia page says there’s just two left. Is this one, or did they just keep the sign after the parent company withered away, figuring no one would come around asking for it to be removed?

 

OUMB, 2007

 

And today. Eh.

 

State of the Art OUMB, right here:

 

And that’s Mobridge. More than I expected.