Our History

Our 65,000 sq.ft complex has a history all it's own. All of the tin ceilings are orginal to the buildings. Many are lavish and not replaceable.The 12ft and 15 ft ceilings remind you of the days when the use of ceiling fans and tall ceilings were necessary to keep you away from the heat that remained at the top.  The wood floors on the West are over 1 inch thick with several layers of ship lap planks below. The Large wooden store on the north is the original door from 1904, black onyx was laid in the floor on either side the door

Orginally the West Event Space was called the Union Bock building prior to 1904. 

Fantles department store brought the building in 1901, but before all the papers were signed it burned to the ground. So Fantles built the "big' Store that opened in 1904.

Fantles had speciailized in Womens and Children's clothing . It was seen as a high end luxury clothing store. It grew from here to 13 stores throughout the midwest. It's  buyers bought directly from New York clothing shows.Quite the place for little old Yankton.

A cafe existed in the lower level, that people came from miles around to experience hand baked pies. The cafe area is now part of our 3,000 sq. kitchen, but the home made pies, fudge and great food exist in our Marketplace Cafe in the same lower level. Main floor of the West side was womens clothing, second floor our chapel was children's clothing where a merry go round and a real live monkey lived in it's hay day. Third floor, where new hotel rooms are being building today, was once trunks and valieces, later massive storage and a workshop.It eventually closed it's doors for good in 1998.

The Lobby areas were once The Globe Clotheirs, Men's fine clothing, After 80 years in business it finally closed in the early 2000's As men's attire changed, and discount stores arrived on the scene, high end clothing diminished.

The East Event Space was Scott's Five and Dime Store. I can still see the tall wooden shelving from my childhood, hear the creaky wooden floors and talk to the women who worked there for years. Above the antigue ornate tin ceiling, that exist today, is a ship lap wooden ceiling,Tiring of the look at some point they decided to update to the much classer tin.

The building in the picture below that has the red white and blue banner is the old Fantles, next to it is the Globe and then Scotts Five and dime Circa 1905
Love those turrets, ( the round cylinders on the front of the buildings) They had a massive amount of copper on them. The turrets roofs were made of copper also.

Below the staircase as you enter the marketplace cafe the printing press that was used in the Fantles sits there. As well as the addressograph machine that was used to make embrossed metal cards for thier own credit cards. Thousands of people's still exist  on these metal cards in the drawers of the cabinet.

Next to it is a curved glass display cabinet that holds the orginal bill of sale used to build the Fantles, a hand written ledger from 1925 that shows the sales and checking account balances from that time period. Also laying there is a leather pouch. This leather pouch was found during demolition under a display window. In it was love letters from women ranging in dates from early 1960's to the late 1950's. A man working in the Fantles was dating several women at the same time. One a lady, from New York City,  exquisitely described the snow coming down in Central Park and  how excited she was to go to a new Broadway play developed around a recent book release, The Dairy of Anne Frank.