finding wilder feed

I went through my De Smet images to post a couple with the Little Town on the Prairie pages. I have one that was also printed in De Smet: Yesterday & Today, which supposedly shows the west side of Calumet, including Royal Wilder's Feed Store. In the photograph, the hotel is said to be on the north end of the block, then Wilder Feed.

I never questioned this, because it is such a nice little store and it made sense for that to be the feed store. But, according to the deeds and plat, the hotel was on a double lot at the north end of the block, then Henry Hinz's saloon, then the building belonging to Mr. Cheever, then Royal's property. I've seen other photos of the Exchange Hotel from other angles (the one pictured), so I tend to believe it's the hotel in this photo, too.

But that would make the little building in the photograph in question the saloon, and the feed store a much larger building two doors down. It's going to take some getting used to: looking at another building and thinking "Wilder Feed," because it's been years that I've never given any of the other buildings in the photo a second thought.

I have no idea who told the Poppens that the little building was the feed store. I also thought that Wilder Feed wasn't torn down until the 70s, but in newpapers from the 1920s, it was almost condemned because it was falling down. Oh, to be able to just step into that photograph for a minute or two and ask somebody!
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:47 AM