How this odd Sioux Falls building is tied to the 'taped bandit' of the '60s: Looking back
There’s an odd little building at 600 W. 10th St. that sits at an angle on its tiny lot, next to a fenced in copse of trees. A building this small hardly seems practical for most business needs. I’ve always wondered how it started its life, and when.
The little building didn’t stand alone at the start of its life; it was accompanied by eight gas pumps when it opened as Crest M Oil Co. on Nov. 27, 1959. It was the first South Dakota location for Crest Oil Company, a subsidiary of Miller Oil Co., a corporation started by Arthur K. Miller of Sioux City, Iowa over forty years prior.
Crest Oil Company offered not only gas and basic auto needs, but great deals on an odd assortment of products, priced according to purchases. Customers could collect tickets for their fuel purchases and cash them in for an ever-changing variety of products. There would also be deals for those not saving coupons; for instance, Heinz Ketchup for 9 cents with the purchase of 10 gallons of gas. Crest Oil didn’t last very long in Sioux Falls. We stopped seeing ads for it in late 1960.
More: How Halloween tricks escalated to destruction in the late 1800s for Sioux Falls: Looking Back
In March 1963, another gas station, Merle’s Apco, opened in the same location. The business was owned by Merle Jellis. His high school-aged son, Larry, worked at the station to earn some walking around money and gain some life experience.
On Dec. 14, 1963, just as Larry was closing up for the night, a man disguising himself with tape on his face and one of his hands robbed the station with a double-barrel shotgun. He got away with $125. The taped bandit had pulled another robbery two nights prior at the J & J Grocery, which was about a block away on 11th Street.
Just shy of two weeks later, the taped bandit returned to Merle’s Apco with a handgun for a repeat performance. This time Merle was at the counter. Larry was behind a partition in the store and, having recognized the thief, dropped a hammer to distract him. Startled, he ran off with $63 in cash and $80 in checks. George Sachen was driving along with his wife and baby twins when he saw a man running on 9th Street with tape on his face and a wad of cash in his hand. He’d heard of the prior incidents and gave chase on foot. The thief jumped a fence around 9th and Prairie and Sachen followed, tackling the thief just as Larry, who was also chasing after him, arrived on the scene, hammer in hand. The two kept him subdued until the police arrived. Sachen tore his pants and broke a watch band in the process, but gained some notoriety in exchange. The thief served a little more than a year in the big house, and has since kept to the straight and narrow, as far as I can tell.
More: How Firehouse Coffee House served the Lord's word in the '60s: Looking back
In October 1966, the name of the little gas station was changed to West 10th Apco, reflecting a change of ownership. The location remained a gas station until the early 1970s, then took on a new life, mostly as an office building. In March, 1974, it became the R. M. Flaskey Realty Center, owned by Bob Flaskey. Two years later, the business would be known as the D. W. Anderson Realty Center. In 1977, the building’s occupant was Irv Christianson’s Systems and Services Inc., “Your Control-O-Fax specialist for eastern South Dakota”. The building never returned to its fuel distributing origins, and at some point along the way, a large portion of the lot was sold and planted with evergreen trees.
There have been a multitude of businesses run from this odd little storefront over the years, too many to list here. The space is currently occupied by a tax specialist.
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: How this odd Sioux Falls building is tied to the 'taped bandit' of the '60s: Looking back
