Three thousand three hundred souls. That's the peak for its entire 150 years of existence.

As views go, it is - well, you know.

Interesting top. It’s as if they built a big stage for the main attraction, pulled back the curtains, and there was just one little man with a high voice.

Next door, another iteration of the save-money-with-brick-ornament idea.

What is that on the ground floor? An anti-awning? Does it lean away, just as the buckaroo’d canopy on the building next door angles out?

IOOF, if you’re curious.

Not easy to read, but not impossible.

Built all at once? No. Two phases, I’d bet. The left side was first. The right side went up as the land became available. No little ornament with the builder’s name, though, and the space is slightly wider. It looks asymmetrical because of it, but it always did, if you factor in the door to the upstairs.

It’s the Costume Party approach to main street:

A hotel from the Deadwood era of architecture, it seems:

Would you trust the balcony?

Okay, I’m starting to think the town was settled by much taller people:

Uh oh

Ouch. Goodbye.

Of course this was a bar or cafe once, and I’d love to think it was known as “The Owl.”

Hmm: small-town-bank-wise, not bad - it has echoes of the Prairie Style.

This, I fear, was always thus.

“Video and Fitness” is every small town in the Midwest in the 90s.

Or rather was.

Hands up in friendship, open palm - not clenched fists.

It has the flavor of an OUMB, but you know, it could’ve been a supermarket.

Those tall flat superfluous structures were commonly found on supermarkets. They bricked up a plate-glass window, too, and supermarkets had lots of those.

The door placement isn’t right for a grocery store, but it doesn’t prove it wasn’t.

The problem of these places, right here.

Old pumps. Dry tanks.