PHOTO OF THE DAY: LOOKING DOWN, LOOKING BACK
- This view of Relanto and Sixth streets looking north is from the late 1960s.
The round-topped building in the center is Pine Hill Printery – also home to the Freeman Courier for nearly a quarter of the century. The building immediately north of Pine Hill is Palace Bowl Bowling Lanes. The trees at the top left of the photo show the Freeman Public School playground.Here’s some history.
The Pine Hill building was built as R&H Rollerway in 1953 by Ruben and Hertha Pfeiffer. In 1960, shortly after the roller skating rink closed, Glenn Gering moved Pine Hill Printery, a commercial printing operation – established on his family’s farm east of Freeman half a century earlier – into the space. Gering and his brother, Vernon, purchased the Courier that same year; it moved into the same building. The Courier moved out in 1984.
Gering sold Pine Hill Printery to Joe Mierau in 1990; the business moved to Highway 81 (today Stern) in 1992 and Sioux Falls in 2001; it closed with Mierau’s death in 2011.
In 1992, the “old Pine Hill” became home to Smidt Furniture as well as Gering’s collection of phonographs and music boxes. A 1994 fire damaged the building and it was demolished. Gering erected a replacement building. It’s been home to manufacturing, commercial and retail; today TSW Distributing.Orville Ellwein opened Palace Bowl Bowling Lanes in 1961. It closed in 2003. Troy Herlyn purchased it 2011 for storage for his business, Specialty Automotive.
The former school playground was vacated when the school moved to the Freeman Public School campus in 2009. The property was gifted to the City of Freeman. The gym became the Freeman Community Center and a portion of the playground area was sold for development and is now part of Freeman’s residential district.
In addition to development along Relanto Street to the north, a major change from this photo is Pine Tree Apartments on the southeast corner of Relanto and Sixth. It was built as Stewart’s Apartment in 1973.
Many of these details come from our archives, including the Freeman Courier. We’re open 12-4 weekday afternoons through April. In May we will start summer hours – 10-4 Mondays through Saturdays.
