Hello all! This is the first post on a blog that I hope will carry us from one person’s crazy dream of a local first or second run movie theater to the realization of a needed addition to this small town.

Currently Wessington Springs is a small town in South Dakota without a movie theater. We are rich with other cultural locations: our 1905 Opera House has been restored and is the venue for many shows throughout the year, our Heritage Center is packed full of Jerauld County history, and our Shakespeare Garden and Anne Hatheway cottage bring people from all over the country (and beyond). We used to have a movie theater; at this point all I know is that it closed years ago, the building has changed hands many times, and many people have told me the old building is just a shell (and one that is likely to fall on my head should I try to tread there). I hope to do a little more digging (with a trip to our Heritage Center this weekend if possible) and get more history, but from what I can tell there is almost no chance we could revive the old theater.

At this point is where I get sad and sappy about a building I’ve never seen in use, in a town I didn’t really know existed up until two years ago. That’s right, I’m a transplant to this town. I grew up in South Dakota a little further west (4 ½ hours away to be exact), I moved to Vermillion and Sioux Falls for medical school, was an Iowan for 3 years through residency, and June 2008 I graduated and moved to Wessington Springs. My husband and I were attracted to this town by the interesting people, the friendly small town mentality, the safe location to raise kids, and the fact that there were a lot of things to do (for a small town). After we signed my contract, the coffee/gift shop closed; shortly after we moved, one of the restaurants (“The Bar”) closed. That left the legion hall (where you can get a good steak dinner if you know when and where to go) and the Springs Inn, the only obvious restaurant in town. And the Humdinger, which has pretty darn good burgers and pizzas for a gas station (and a smallish shelf of movie rentals). The Opera house was a huge draw for us, but there certainly isn’t a program every weekend, much less anything in the middle of the week. For someone who works 40-50 hours a week, there really isn’t as much to do as we’d originally hoped.

So we spent the majority of this last year finding ways to entertain ourselves at home (added a Wii, multiple computer games, and Netflicks to our household). We have a few friends that come over and play board or card games about every other week, but a lot of the people we know are too busy with life to do that on a regular basis. We try to go to movies when we visit our families (so they can babysit!); we have gone to one of the theaters in a bigger town (Huron and Mitchell are each about an hour away) a couple times, but a short animated movie is a 4 hour babysitting bill and a good Sci-fi or drama plus dinner is closer to 6 hours.

Now I’m tired of that. I’m involved in SACC (Springs Area Community Club, our version of Kiwanis) and my husband and I have a business membership in the Development Corporation (and I just joined SACOTA – the arts club). We’ve jumped feet first into becoming responsible involved citizens and I want to improve Wessington Springs for the other people here as well as for my own benefit. I’m tired of walking down main street and looking at the empty buildings (about 1/3 to ½ of the three blocks of main is currently lined with empty buildings). I’m tired of hearing the other businesses complain that everyone takes their business out of town (we do it too; if we’re going to Huron to go out to eat, we’ll usually stop at Walmart on the way home).

My first dream was to take the old movie theater, find a way to buy and remodel/restore it, and start it back up… you know, a ‘Majestic’ sort of thing. I finally decided to take the plunge and ask someone about the building. She left a message with the owner and when she didn’t hear back (and after several email prods from me) she gave me the name of the owner and I contacted her myself. As it turns out, the owner had called my contact back the day before but they missed each other. Anyway, I was able to have a good conversation with the current owner of the building and hear the recent history, which included a ruined roof, a sunken floor, cracked foundation, all original theater furnishings (seats, projector, etc) long gone, and two downtown fires that resulted in an amazing amount of water damage (hence the ruined roof). She didn’t even want to let me in to look; I think she was probably worried about the liability. My contact had said as much; she knows several people who have been able to look inside in recent years who apparently all agreed the building was a total loss.

This was last weekend. I went into a funk this week after that, and did wonder if my plots and plans were killed before they were really started. Today I did hear interesting news. My contact (who is the coordinator for the Development Corporation, as well as an integral part of the functioning of SACC and the Chamber of Commerce) told me that she called the owner back and the owner has agreed to give the building to the Dev Corp if the board of directors agrees that they want it. Most likely the Dev Corp would probably also try to purchase the next door building (they share a wall and that building is soon to be vacated also) and most likely knock the two buildings down.

As far as I can tell, I set out to see if there would be any hope in heck for me (or someone) to obtain a historic site and revive it as a theater, and now two weeks later I’ve put in motion events that will likely lead to the demolition of this building. I definitely have mixed emotions. On one part I’m sad about the probable destruction of a historic building, even in the terrible shape it is in. On another I realize that tearing down this dead building may help perk up main street; all of these empty buildings can’t be good for business or for the look and feel of the town. The outside of the building is horrible, paint is faded and peeling, the iron rods that held up the marque sticking out at odd angles (the marque itself was taken down a couple years ago due to the fact that it was in poor repair and likely to land on someone’s head), stray cats sneak in and out of a poorly boarded broken glass door in the rear, and you can see through the front windows tons of dust and a big pile of trash (literally).

Maybe this is the wrong attitude, but I think if it is not possible to restore the building (or not enough people would support and bootstrap it), then the building needs to come down. It will just continue to degrade and eventually some kids will sneak in and get trapped under a fallen piece of roof or the foundation will give way and bury them. And this comes back to another attitude I’ve lately developed about historic sites: they’re only worth restoring if someone is going to enjoy it. Who cares about an old building that you can’t enter, see, use? The Opera house is only neat and exciting because you can enter it. Our Carnegie library is wonderful because it’s still a functioning library. The historic Governor Vessey home in town is beautiful, but it only means something to me because the current owners care and they show their home to people whenever visitors wander into town and they often have an open house to show off the restoration they’ve been working on while they live there.

Now what? Well, I still think this town would benefit from a movie theater. I also think we could use another full time restaurant, maybe a coffee and sandwich shop. There is a very nice coffee, sandwich, and ice cream shop in Woonsocket that I honestly think we might have trouble competing with (that’s 15 or 20 minutes away for those that are not locals). Still, Springs is a nice town and we need more to do, and we need to spend our time and money here. And we want to attract those from neighboring towns to come see us on occasion.

My contact with the Dev Corp had another interesting comment (besides telling me the Dev Corp might take over and demolish the old theater). She mentioned that the upstairs of ‘The Front Door’ (the old coffee shop) is really nice and has several big rooms, one of which looks like it might be the right size for screening movies. Did I mention at least 1/3 of the buildings on main are empty? Maybe, just maybe, my idea still has a chance. Maybe I need to focus on a building that is not falling in upon our heads, a building that was used recently and has been closed for just over a year. What if we obtained ‘The Front Door’ (the whole building, not just the coffee shop) and turned it into a restaurant, or coffee shop, or bookstore, or or or… and put a theater upstairs? Maybe there’s hope yet.