PHOTO OF THE DAY: MUSEUM’S MONDAY LOOK BACK

This photo was posted by Heritage Hall Museum & Archives on its Facebook page Monday, July 22 with the accompanying information:

Inspired by last week’s “Crazy Daze” in Freeman, this week’s “Monday Memory” from your local museum recalls a similar citywide promotion 44 years ago this week, July 25, 1980. The following week, the Freeman Courierincluded this photo, noting “about the only thing you couldn’t find in Freeman Friday, July 25 was a parking space.”
The photo was taken under the canopy of the Village Toggery (today home to Bob’s Jamboree Foods). Their outdoor display was among those from more than 30 local businesses that day.
The Village Toggery, a family clothing store, opened at 231 South Main in Freeman (most recently Doc’s Bar) in 1963. Lemoyne and Joann Ries – active partners in the various enterprises of Joann’s father, Wilmer Fensel – established the store focusing exclusively on clothing for the entire family. A decade later, in November 1973, the Toggery moved a block south into the building that had been home to K&K, a general merchandise store that included groceries. Elke Pankratz bought the business in 1991. It operated as the Carriage House. In 1994, after the Carriage House had closed, Bob Pidde moved his family grocery store from the building at 442 South Main (most recently, Dollars and Cents) into the much larger space – and the building returned to its roots as a grocery store.
We’re grateful to have hard copies of the Freeman Courier from 1960 in our archives and microfilm of most of the issues before that. They are an invaluable resource for not only our own research but also that of our guests.
Our archives and museum are open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays weekdays through September.
And we’ll be open until 7 this Saturday (July 29) during the South Dakota Chislic Festival going on next door at the Prairie Arboretum.