Today, small, individual businesses have become a thing of the past as huge box stores with everything you need in one spot have replaced them. Specialty shops are hard to come by nowadays, but back in the 1930s they were all there was. It was much different back then, and to show that, these rare photographs of small town, South Dakota show exactly what it was like way back when.
- The local diner in 1930s Aberdeen. Can you believe an entire dinner was 25 cents then?
John Vachon/yale.edu
- This tiny building served as the local bank in Draper, South Dakota
John Vachon/yale.edu
- One room country school house out in Faulk County, serving the farm children from miles around
John Vachon/yale.edu
- An interesting combination for shop but not uncommon: making keys and fixing radiators (among other things). Hughes County, SD
John Vachon/yale.edu
- A Texaco gas station in Jones County, SD
John Vachon/yale.edu
- This post office in Mission, South Dakota was always open, rain or shine, or in this case, being snowed in!
John Vachon/yale.edu
- The barber shop in Timber Lake, South Dakota. Over 570 people lived there in 1930, today that number is just over 440
John Vachon/yale.edu
- Another interesting combination that was once in Sisseton: A funeral parlor and a furniture store. Next door is the local butcher shop
John Vachon/yale.edu
- A lively bar and a quiet auto supplies store during a night on Main Street
John Vachon/yale.edu
- A local drug store was a must in any town, complete with a logo everyone still knows today
John Vachon/yale.edu
I would love to be able to walk down the main street of a town and have all of these specialty shops around with owners that are passionate about their work. Today it is very different and being skilled in a specific trade doesn’t seem as valuable as it used to be.
John Vachon/yale.edu
What else can you think of that has changed since then by comparing now to these photographs? Explore more vintage photographs of life in South Dakota nearly a century ago by clicking here.
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