Before, after Armory

A Beacon report last week told of the exciting plans for what residents since 1879 have referred to as the "triangular lot."

   The plan, if approved, would raze the tired, old WPA (Work Project Administration) financed Brookings Armory at the south end of most of Main Avenue's businesses and convert the triangular-shaped lot into what was described in the Beacon story as a "Third Space" intended for special community activities. 

   Specifically mentioned for third space use were the Farmers Market, now held on the street west of the courthouse, and the popular weekly Downtown at Sundown events. The lot could also be the home of other festivities that are sure to come along.

Brookings inherited the three-sided plot because of the traditional town layout fashioned by the railroad, which set early streets east and west and avenues north and south. But because the railroad track through Brookings didnít course through town exactly on an east-west direction, there remained a small three-sided piece of land between Third Street and the railroad track.    

The triangular lot has been featured in a long list of important Brookings events and even helped Brookings secure county seat status. When the question arose of where in 1879 the county seat should be, Brookings went nose-to-nose with confident Volga and Aurora promotors who bragged of being on the county's only rail line.

The Brookings argument was that its train depot and the adjacent triangular lot were located exactly in the center of the county. Although a center-of-the-county measurement might not come out exactly that way today, the politically intended argument surely helped sway the Nov. 4, 1879, county seat election in Brookings' favor.

    In the early days, that triangular plot of land was square in the middle of most of what was happening as Brookings grew. Draymen and farmers lined up their teams and wagons at the depot and in the triangular lot to await their turn at the depot freight doors to pick up pianos, pie tins, planks (lumber was a popular product) and all of the other paraphernalia shipped by train to a growing Brookings.

More of everything imaginable was arriving in Brookings daily. In fact, a 1901 Brookings Press report indicated that 42 train cars filled with building material–mostly lumber–had been shunted off on a lesser used rail spur at the rail yard awaiting to be unloaded and hauled away. 

Not only supplies were flooding into town, but people were keeping things busy at the depot too. When Brookings lawyer G. A. Mathews returned to town after his election in 1888 as Dakota Territory's first delegate to Congress (he won by a 30,000-vote margin), well-wishers met him at the train station, praised him at a program held in the triangular lot and escorted him down Main Avenue during a raucous victory celebration.

When National Guard Company K of Brookings was ordered to meet with the state's other Guard units in Sioux Falls after war with Spain was declared, the Brookings County boys mustered proud and proper in formation on the triangular lot on April 25, 1898 and then marched in lockstep to board the train for their first leg of a long journey to the Philippines.      

Buggies and wagons filled with the troopers' friends and relatives gathered at the depot and in the triangular lot to wave, weep and watch them leave for war.

When Company K returned from the Philippines in October of 1890, tanned and lean after more than a year of battle, the Brooking Press reported that "the entire town" packed the triangular lot to welcome them home. Later, other young men and women would board trains at the depot to answer the call for two world wars, the Korean War and other conflicts.

During WWII, a large, attractive sign containing the names of every Brookings County man or woman serving in the war stood proudly on the triangular lot where Front Street now connects with Main Avenue.

As reports of county war deaths were received, a gold star was added after the name of the deceased service member. By the end of the war, the sign contained more than 100 shiny gold stars. 

In the late 1890s when the Masonic Lodge wanted to build a temple at the corner of Third Street and Main, W. H. Skinner asked the city council if the rough, diagonal trail that became "Front Street" could be moved several feet south in the triangular lot so the back of the temple building would be the same length (80 feet) as was the front.   

The little street was moved a few feet south then, and twice more after that.

Until the Chicago and North Western Railroad ended passenger service in South Dakota in 1960, college students arriving at the depot by the hundreds lugged their cheap suitcases or duffle bags through the triangular lot and then on to the college on the hill.

Often, when visiting football teams came to town for games against the Jackrabbits at State Field, a lively yellow and blue pep rally welcomed the visiting team in the triangular lot.

In the early 1900s, in response to a Brookings city request, famous State College botanist Dr. N. E. Hansen worked with his horticultural students designing and building a park on the triangular lot south of the 1894 Masonic Temple building.

In 1937, four years before the U.S. entered WW II, the Armory was built mostly with federal WPA money. As an afterthought, the city decided to add a stage section to the west end of the Armory, and Front Street was moved south again to make room for it. Part of the new triangular park became a parking lot for National Guard members and for Saturday night dance crowds.

In 1978, a city maintenance building behind the Armory was remodeled at a cost of $102,000 and became a senior citizen center. It was later torn down and the vacated triangular lot space became today's city parking lot.

Now, it looks like our city's grand old triangular lot will help meet other community needs as an attractive and useful "Third Space."