Main Street Square and Downtown's Revival
For much of the twentieth century, the heart of Rapid City was the intersection of Sixth and Main streets, where the Hotel Alex Johnson rose above the storefronts and shoppers crowded the sidewalks on Saturday afternoons. Like many American downtowns, it suffered when shopping centers and a new mall pulled retail toward the edges of town in the postwar decades. By the late twentieth century the central blocks held plenty of fine old buildings but fewer reasons for people to linger.
The plaza now called Main Street Square grew out of an effort to give downtown a reason to gather again. Civic leaders, downtown property owners, and a nonprofit organization devoted to the central business district worked through the first decade of the new century to assemble land near the old core and to imagine what a true public square might look like. The result opened in the early 2010s, a block of open paving, water features, and gathering space set among the brick buildings that had stood there for generations.
A square built for the seasons
What distinguished the square from an ordinary park was its flexibility. In summer the central plaza ran with shallow fountains where children could play, and on warm evenings the space filled for outdoor concerts and movies. In winter the same ground became an outdoor ice rink, ringed by lights and the surrounding storefronts. The design anticipated a city of long, cold winters and short, bright summers, and it gave residents something to do in both.
The square also anchored a public art project that drew on the region’s stone. Large carved granite sculptures, worked by visiting artists during summer carving events, were installed at one end of the plaza. The pieces nodded to the Black Hills tradition of working stone on a grand scale, a tradition older residents associated with the carving of Mount Rushmore and the long history of granite quarrying in the hills west of town.
Part of a longer recovery
Main Street Square did not revive downtown by itself, and it would be a mistake to credit any single project with the change. The renewal that followed grew out of many smaller decisions: the restoration of historic facades, the conversion of upper floors into apartments, the steady arrival of restaurants and shops, and the popularity of the bronze presidential statues placed on the corners as part of the City of Presidents project. The square gave all of this a center of gravity, a place where a farmers market, a holiday lighting, or a summer festival could draw a crowd into the old streets.
The plaza fit a pattern visible in other small cities that learned, sometimes the hard way, that a downtown needs a heart and not only a collection of buildings. Rapid City had the advantage of a compact, walkable core that had never been demolished for parking on the scale some cities suffered. The historic blocks remained, and what they lacked was foot traffic and a clear public space. The square supplied both.
For a city that serves as the commercial and cultural hub of the western half of South Dakota, a lively downtown carries weight beyond its own few blocks. Visitors passing through on their way to the monuments and parks of the Black Hills form an impression of the region from what they see in Rapid City. Residents of the smaller towns and ranches across the prairie come to the city for medical care, shopping, and entertainment, and the downtown square gave them a place to meet.
The square has not been without its tensions. A public gathering place in the center of a city inevitably becomes a stage for the wider community, including its disagreements and its hardships, and the plaza has at times been a place where the city’s social strains were visible. That, too, is part of what a true public square does. It belongs to everyone, which means it reflects the whole of the town rather than a curated slice of it. In that sense the modern plaza performs the same role the old streetcorner once did, a place where Rapid City could see itself.