There's something you don't see every day.....

My deer hunting trips to my son's Homestead had me sitting in a tree stand for a few hours in the morning and a few in the evening.  So what to do in between?  Well, the occasional side trip is called for.  And on occasion you just run across odd things.  Such as:

As the old saying went: "Now there's something you don't see every day..."  Especially when you get closer and find out that it is on the National Registry of Historic Places!

This is the Silverdome Ballroom.   If you are curious about its history and construction HERE is a brief summary.  If you want a whole bunch more, here's the info from the National Registery.

If you are just casually interested....it was built during the Great Depression by a family that had earlier built a sort of "supper club" on the site that was actually a speakeasy.  It is btw still there and is called, logically, The Speakeasy Saloon.  The name Silverdome comes from the unusual use of aluminum elements to support the dome.  The Keller brothers who did the construction paid a $1000 royalty to the German patent holders for this process.  This is remarkable because A) that was a lot of money during the Depression and B) one suspects the German engineers got good at this stuff by building zeppelins.

Over the years the Silverdome has done pretty well.  It is in fact a going concern.  There are some odd businesses next door to it that also caught my eye....

This seems to have been a carpentry shop of some sort, the sign indicating a Mill Works.  But it is now a CBD joint and a barber shop!  I guess the slightly illegal business doings that started with the speakeasy (seen in the distance in this picture) are ongoing.  As I have not much hair and even less interest in quasi legal marijuana I did not stop in.

The Silverdome has seen quite a few known acts over its long years.  Duke Ellington, Johnny Cash, The Bellamy Brothers, Buffalo Springfield and Cheap Trick.  Also, and nearer to my heart, Whoopee John.  Or if you want to be formal, Whoopee John Wilfahrt.

Whoopee John was from New Ulm Minnesota, so it should not surprise any of you that his musical genre was Polka.  He toured extensively and was still a moderately well known name when I was a young lad.  

When I was a bit older, but arguably no wiser, I'd occasionally turn up to help dispatch a keg of beer at our friend Markie's house.  One of his housemates was a young man whose name I either never knew or can't recall.  Everyone just called him Wilfahrt.  Over a red plastic cup of some sort of affordable to the impoverished brew he told me he was a descendent of Whoopee and that the band's tour bus had on the back:

WHOOPEE JOHN WILFAHRT

           AND HIS BAND WILL PLAY