This town was my final stopping point in South Dakota. I got there yesterday after a short quick ride from De Smet and had some time to have a look around.

Here’s the County Courthouse, still looking good:

And the “Carnegie” Library – the town was initially turned down in its bid for funding so the locals raised the money themselves and established the library. A few years later, Brookings did get a grant from the foundation for its library.

There’s still a nice historic downtown but the imposing old banks, emblematic of a prideful yet sober prosperity, have been turned into bars and restaurants; not sure what the moral is there.

This one has a restaurant on the ground floor and a bar in the basement.

This building anchors the southern end of Main Street:

and looks like this on the inside:

One side of Main Street has fared better:

than the other:

I saw a similar sign in Walla Walla; more anti-Keynesian pablum:

I took this picture in the basement bar for my brother John:

The bartender there was a local SDSU student named Alex:

She will graduate in December 2013 with a degree in marketing and wants to head to the mid-Atlantic coast. I told her about legal marketing and gave LMA a shout-out so you never know – some of you may hear of her in the future.

I ended the evening by self catering a nice dinner from Walmart of all places (in my defense, it was the only grocery store at all near the motel; in its favor, the quality, selection and price were quite good – way better than what I’ve been seeing in the local IGAs):