Elk Point History, Part 2 - by Don Fowler

  At one time, say before “prohibition” and before the 1920’s, Elk Point had a number of saloons that did little to add to that refinement.  The Troskeys and the Kellys, among others, owned and operated such saloons, yet seemed to retain respectable local family and individual reputations.  Their children were my classmates in the Elk Point Public School and some were in my Sunday School, first in the later defunct Baptist Church and then in the Augsburg Lutheran Church.   It was natural that the general and grocery stores remained open to almost midnight on Wednesday and Saturday nights to permit shopping by the farm families in the area, and incidentally to permit the farmer to meet with friends and drink his fill at one of the several saloons in the town.  At that time, horse drawn vehicles were the most common mode of transport, so it was late indeed when the farmer who lived five miles north or east or south of town arrived home, frequently with spouse and children in tow.  I recall the parked wagons and buggies, with impatient horses, tied to the hitching posts on all the side streets, unpaved and frequently muddy, just off Main Street.  During prohibition, businesses were changed from saloons to pool halls or restaurants or drinking and card playing establishments, where only “near beer” or its equivalent could be bought and consumed. My Uncle Bert Fowler owned such a pool hall in which he also operated his barber shop.  My dad enjoyed playing rummy in Troskey’s renamed saloon where the long highly polished bar was retained, along with the glistening giant mirror on the wall and the copper spittoons placed strategically along the length of the bar, that now was largely unused.  As a boy, I accompanied my dad to the “card playing” and enjoyed the yet unduplicated special hamburgers skillfully prepared by the rehabilitated bartender.  Otherwise I was frightfully bored by the experience.

  Let me take a second to add that Edward Troskey and I, as recent high school graduates, dated two of the public school teachers who roomed in the George Kimmel Home, where we played bridge and generally speaking became better acquainted, but not for a permanent relationship. 

  Elk Point suffered a lack of community amenities.  There was, for example no tennis court in the entire town.  Not that people did not know who were the popular women and men stars, but no one seemed to miss playing tennis.  I never did learn the sport.  The town was without a swimming pool.  For one short period there was a swimming hole in the low part of the City Park, but it was not a popular swimming location.  The Big Sioux River, the Missouri River and the Brule Creek were available for swimmers, but my father declared all of the three “off limits.”  Guess what!  I never did become a swimmer.  A public library was not in existence.  There was a small room with some books in the Elk Point High School, but I don’t believe one could charge-out a book and take it home. There were very few books in my home, and for the town as a whole, this was a common situation. I was not encouraged to become an avid reader of American and English literature. There was a baseball park with a small grand stand, but the infield was a mass of weeds most of the time and the outfield was always loaded with sand burrs, a hazard to say the least. The pitcher’s mound could stand a more professional design and the home-plate area as well.  Nevertheless, the town team and we kids did play baseball, probably the most loved sport in the town.  No, there was no golf course in my young boy days.  A little later a few holes were laid out in the City park with sand greens and rough fairways, rather short even for amateurs. People tried to believe that golf was a local sport, but that assertion was subject to reasonable challenge. Golf as a personal sport had to await a later period of my life and at a more remote location. The same was true for golf as a town sport. The small towns surrounding ours were not likely to boast of better accommodations for their citizens.

  Just a word about the baseball field.  Long after I left Elk Point, a man by the name of Larsen, the son of a girl who graduated with me from high school, volunteered to give the ball park a new professional personality.  Over the years, he and his sons spruced up the field until today it duplicates the Yankee Stadium field in New York City. Needless to say, the town is proud to welcome all baseball teams from far and near to play the great American game right here, fifteen hundred miles west of New York. 

Buildings on Main Street, Elk Point, early in the 20th Century

  When I was in my preteens, the town could boast of three or four general department stores in relatively large buildings, a movie house showing silent pictures, two hardware stores, two lumber-yards, three pharmacies, three hotels, three restaurants, two livery stables, four churches, a public elementary and high school, three or four medical doctors, an equal number or more lawyers, a busy railway depot with an American Express station, a post office with five rural mail carriers, four large grain elevators, three or more saloons, a pool hall or two, a blacksmith shop, a harness shop, two shoe repair establishments,  and whatever else it takes to make a town. Most of the residents did all their buying and selling in the town, and the farmers, most settled on 160 acre farms or larger, came into the town to sell their produce and to buy their food, equipment and supplies.  In my teens, in came the automobile, en masse.  It slowly changed the nature of the town.  The larger city, just twenty miles away, enticed the residents to spend their money where there were more choices and sharper competition.  The roads were paved, the quality of the motor car was improved, and the need for so many services in my town was greatly reduced.  Businesses began to disappear and fewer and fewer business people were employed.  The farmers’ wagons and horses were no longer parked on the side streets.  Small new cars took their places, model T Fords, Chevrolets, Plymouths, Dodges, and many more models no longer produced. The farmers bought trucks and tractors and ultimately everyone would sport a “pickup.”  Now no doctor lives in the town. A clinic takes over for the bevy of local doctors and visiting doctors to perform the needed medical services.  A single grocery store substitutes for the grocery departments of the four general stores.  The courthouse and its inmates remain.     

  Just one moment, please, for an interesting family intrusion and a curious coincidence.  A young boy who went by the neighborhood name of Petie, lived around the corner from my home in Alexandria, Virginia.  As a boy, he delivered the Alexandria Gazette to my home.   I doubt that as a boy he was aware that in these United States there was a place called Elk Point, South Dakota. Now, for many years, “Doctor” Peter Murray is the Managing Administrative Nurse of the Elk Point Health Clinic and is favorably known to all the people of that gradually expanding community.