ML Headrick
Moody County Enterprise

For people who treasure antiques, they sometimes know when they come upon a certain piece, that the item belongs back where it came from.
Jim Landis, and his brother and sister-in-law, Tom and Jo Landis, are those people.
For the first time in half a century, the “Flandreau signs” which hung on the town’s railroad depot are properly secured back on the historic structure and will once again welcome folks to town.
The Landises rescued the signs from a 50-year sleep, refurbished them, and recently nailed them on the depot where their life began 140 years earlier.
The depot was built next to the railroad tracks a block south of the Moody County Courthouse.
In order to preserve the building, it was moved in June, 1989 to the grounds of the Moody County Museum in Flandreau as part of a Lasting Legacy Project. This project was in conjunction with the State’s Centennial observance that year.
The first train to arrive in Flandreau was the Southern Minnesota Rail and came through on Dec. 31, 1879. The depot was built and opened in November of 1880. After the decline of the rail system, service was halted in 1978, while the depot had been closed a decade earlier, 1967.
The grand building sat vacant for a couple of years after its closure. Orville Landis, the brothers’ father, purchased the depot to store tools and supplies for his construction company.
Jim tells that his father and he painted the depot in the early 1970s and removed the signs in doing so. They were in poor condition, so they didn’t put them back up.

But, the key to the story, is that they didn’t toss out the worn signs either.
When Orville retired, Jim took over the construction business and many of the items stored in the depot were moved to Jim’s farm north of town. The depot was eventually sold to Warren Ludeman and Jim had no idea what his father was doing with all the stuff in the building.
“I was at work and never knew what Dad was bringing up to the farm to store,” said Jim.
Last year, Jim sold his farm and his task began to clean the outbuildings. After looking around, he decided to see if his brother and his wife wanted anything.
“Jim called us to see if we wanted to look around his farm,” said Tom.
“We are long time antique collectors, so we jumped at the chance to go through the buildings. He thought there might be some treasures there for us,” added Tom.
Old garden gates, steel wheels and numerous other items were found and loaded to go home with them.
“At one point Jo asked Jim if he had any old signs that maybe said Flandreau on them,” said Tom. They thought it would be nice to hang such a sign on their barn.
Jim said he did in fact have Flandreau signs.  He told them the story of taking them off the depot to paint and not putting them back up due to the damage they had sustained over 90 years of South Dakota’s sometimes unforgiving weather.
Each sign had a major crack along with damage to the moldings on the borders.
But storing them in the barn for nearly 50 years, probably saved them from further deterioration.
“I immediately started thinking about repairing the signs and we talked about getting them back on the depot,” said Tom.
“We all agreed that we would make that happen.”
A visit to the Moody County Museum brought them to Bill Ellingson who brought the idea to the Board of Directors. They were very interested, excited and unanimously approved to have the signs join the depot again.
Over this past winter, the restoration work began. The large cracks were glued with a waterproof adhesive and the smaller splits and nail holes were filled with Rock Hard putty.  Three coats of paint were applied and the signs were ready for their “re-debut.”
“The craftsmanship of older buildings and furniture has always intrigued me,” said Tom.
“How those builders accomplished such beauty with no electricity and limited tools is amazing,” said Tom noting that the nails used to attach the molding are hand-made square nails.
The letters on the signs are embossed, raised nearly 1/16th of an inch even after being sand blasted by South Dakota weather for 90 years.
“Someone with a very steady hand and a very sharp chisel spent many hours carving each letter spelling Flandreau,” said Tom.
A couple weeks ago, the Landis crew installed both signs on the depot in their original locations using an old depot photograph for proper placement. The depot has been painted at least twice since the removal of the signs, but they found the original nail holes on the building.
“We believe these are the original signs, which would make them over 140 years old,” added Tom.
“Now with the completion of the restoration, we are hopeful the signs will be around for many more years.”