The land boom was over. Discouraged by the blizzard of 1888 and several years of draught conditions, residents were packing up and moving further west or back east. Fewer and fewer immigrants were arriving by train. In 1891, the towns in Aurora County, not yet ten years old, needed to stem the tide. If these towns were to grow and thrive, they needed a plan to attract buyers for the vacant farms and to create new demand for main street businesses.
Seeking ideas to promote their towns and farmland, the town boosters may have been inspired by the growing popularity of fairs and exhibitions. Sioux City, for example, had recently decorated a ‘Corn Palace’ for the city’s annual Jubilee Week.
Aurora County promoters resolved to build a palace of grain in Plankinton, making it the first city in the new state of South Dakota to feature such a structure. The building would be the main attraction of a harvest exposition boasting the marvelous produce of the area’s bountiful farms. Local talent in Plankinton and White Lake would be used to create something remarkable. The newspapers, while promoting the festival, could also help sell the area to the next wave of settlers.
The first Grain Palace in South Dakota opened in Plankinton on September 29, 1891. Eighty feet square, the barn-like building was adorned with gable, tower and minaret, and decorated with wheat, flax, corn and other small grain. Encouraged by their success, the promoters of Plankinton and White Lake planned to build a bigger, better palace in 1892. The structure was predicted to cost $14,000. The railroad offered special excursion fares of one round trip for half-price lasting twenty days.
In its September 8, 1892 issue, the Aurora County Standard newspaper promoted the second annual exposition, advertising a “Grand Harvest Festival of Rejoicing, Held in the Very Heart of the Richest Agricultural Country on the Globe.” In addition to describing the wonders of the palace and the events of the eight-day festival, the newspaper glowingly conveyed the possibilities of wealth for anyone making their home in Aurora County.
Showcasing the area’s prosperity, the local photographer produced 26 pictures of homes and farms. Another 18 pictures of businesses, schools and churches provide the reader assurances of a civilized society. These pictures, using glass negatives, could not be printed as photos in that era. Instead, prints were created from woodcuts.
The only advertisers in this issue were seven real estate agents and one bank, a strong indication of whose interests were being promoted. The special article on local real estate promises cheap land and easy riches. “Today in Aurora County…lands can be purchased at a price less than the value of the first crop they will produce…There is no fear that crops will be a failure for there has never been a failure. … The man who purchases 160 acres of land in Aurora County for $6 per acre will realize $20 per acre rise in value in ten years. Think of it, an acre of land for $6 that will produce 40 bushels of wheat or 18 bushels of flax, which would bring in Plankinton over $30.” The article then lists the names of several farmers along with the crops grown and its yield. W. H. Cook, for example, threshed twenty-two acres of wheat, which yielded thirty-four bushels per acre.
The owners of Aurora County Nursery, located in Plankinton, attempted to reverse perceptions about the area’s suitability for growing trees in the article, “The fruit belt of South Dakota.” They explained that “unscrupulous tree sellers” sold large quantities of trees unsuitable for the climate in the early years, but the trees they offered were grown from hardy root grafts. “The fruit is very good to eat and the pay for the fruit when sold is the best pay that any land yields on a farm. We have 10,000 young trees…in our nursery…Prove for yourselves as we have done, that it is easy, pleasant and profitable to grow fruit in South Dakota.”
The newspaper boasted that the farmlands were “better than a savings bank; surer than life insurance; safer than even government bonds and more profitable than a gold mine.” Typical of its era, the newspaper stories mixed true statements with hopeful statements, providing some facts but even more exaggerations. Today, desperation can be seen in the overblown articles promising a golden future with nothing to hinder or prevent riches untold.
People were leaving. There was land to sell. The exhibition, the harvest festival, and the promotional newspaper were key components of the booster’s scheme to keep the good times going.
Note: In 2006, the 1892 newspaper promoting the “Grand Harvest Festival of Rejoicing” was archivally reproduced by Tony Grambihler and distributed by The South Dakota Mail as a souvenir edition.
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It Happened Right Here: Cheap Land and Easy Riches, Part 1, by Ruth Page Jones. Published in the South Dakota Mail, Plankinton, South Dakota, June 6 2013.
RPJ Histories - Ruth Page Jones 