the tailor shop

I adore the Loftus Store. They have fun stuff to buy and the owners are always pleasant. You can really tell that they like what they're doing and are happy to be doing it.

After I got back from De Smet, I took a look at the Loftus Store website (loftusstoredotcom) because, well, I wanted to feel like I was there again. I hadn't noticed it last time I looked, but there is a blurb there now saying that the adjoining building (Prairieflower-n-Gifts) is the original building of "Mary Powers' tailor shop... Laura worked for Ms. Powers to earn money to help send her sister Mary to blind school."

Even though it was Tom Power (not Powers) who was the tailor, not his wife (Ms.?), and as far as I know Laura Ingalls never worked for Mr. Power, I would like to respectfully point out that the Tailor Shop wasn't next door to the Loftus Store.

The town of De Smet was originally laid out in four blocks that were each 350 feet square. There were fourteen 25-ft. by 165-ft. lots facing Main Street (Calumet) and seven 50-ft. by 165-ft. lots facing Poinset and Joliet. There was a 20 ft. alley between east- and west-facing lots. Some buildings on Calumet were built on two lots, so they were 50 feet wide. The Loftus Store was built on a 25-ft. lot. All of the original businesses in Block 3 (where the Loftus Store is) were the same width, except for the Kingsbury County Bank at the south end of the block; it was 50 feet wide.

I don't know how the Kruses heard that the tailor shop was next to the Loftus Store, but the deeds prove otherwise. There was a residence between the Loftus Store and Tom Power's Tailor Shop; it belonged to Mr. Davis during the "Little House" years. If you start at the corner of Second Street and Calumet and go south along Block 3 (right to left in the photo above), the businesses when Laura lived there were: Fuller's Hardware (Burkart Brothers in the photo above), Bradley Drug (Mallory and White in the photo above), the Loftus Store, E. Davis's building (later an icecream parlor), Tailor Power Shop, Tinkham Furniture, Scofield Store, Noyes Store, Sam Owens' Shoe Shop, Schockley residence, Miller residence, Frazier residence, then two lots on which the Kingsbury County Bank stood (and is still standing, btw).

I thought that perhaps when Laura Ingalls Wilder sketched the town of De Smet (it's with the manuscript for These Happy Golden Years), she had placed the tailor shop next to the Loftus Store - and maybe that was where the confusion came from - but she didn't. Laura was wrong in her placement, too. She drew the block as follows: Fuller's Hardware, Bradley's Drug, Power Tailor Shop, Tinkham Hardware, Loftus Store, Noyce [sic] Store, vacant lot, then Ruth's Bank. LIW left out a lot of businesses, and not just in this block!

If you want to know where something was, or is, DEEDS are the answer. The tailor shop was never right next door to the Loftus Store. But I sure would like to know if those great six-sided window panes are still in place under the siding at the front of the Loftus Store!
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM