Historic Buildings in downtown Rapid City

My thoughts are on Historic Building in the downtown area of Rapid City located in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We have a few here and there where the architecture is quite amazing. But the one particular building I want to tell you about is not a marvel of architecture, or stunning to the eyes, but it does have a nice history to it.

Years ago downtown had very wide roads just like in a lot of mid-western towns. Acutally in Custer, South Dakota, just 45 minutes from Rapid City, the Main Street area is still very, very wide. Main Street in Rapid City was the same. I was told the main streets were wide so that a stagecoach can turn around on them, as you can imagine, they would need alot of room to do this.
The building I just sold on Main Street was a saloon. Not far from the Historic Alex Johnson Hotel downtown. It was your typical western saloon, but the picture I saw of it from the past had one unique charactership. It had a sign that came out from the top of the front of the building with a triangular sign. The saloon had 2 names. One painted on each side of the sign. Coming into Rapid City the name of the building was the First Chance Saloon and leaving Rapid City the sign said Last Chance Saloon. I was pretty tickled by this and it was an honor to me to assist the current owner in selling the property. The only thing the new buyers asked for was the old picture of the saloon which the previous owner had hanging on the wall.
I just thought I would share this story to bring to life a simple item of interest to those of us who love westerns, the cowboy way, stories of the West, etc.
Take care and have a great weekend everyone...........Duane Hosek in the Black Hills of South Dakota
www.duanehosek.com duanehosek@hotmail.com