McKennan Park Historic District

On Sunday July 11, 1920, at McKennan Park, several thousand people attended the first concert of the Sioux Falls Municipal Band. A year earlier, in the first city election allowing women to vote, citizens approved a proposal to support a city band.

The Cosmopolitan Club led a project to build a band shell as a gift to the city. On dedication Sunday, July 4, 1926, evening ceremonies marking the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence drew an enormous audience of 10,000 person to this site.

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Frequent changes in conductors, economic woes of the 1930s, and World War II threatened the band's very existence. Two strong leaders kept the band alive. Russel D. Henegar, formerly of the famous Sousa Band, conducted the band for 29 seasons (1935-63). Leland A. Lillehaug, who in 1964 added the first women musicians to the all-male group, led the band for 23 seasons (1964-86).

A Sioux Falls Municipal Band concert on a Sunday afternoon in McKennan Park provides a rare vignette of Americana for the fortunate citizens of this area.

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Show me all markers in:  Sioux Falls, SD  |  Minnehaha County  |  57105  |  South Dakota  |  United States of America

Helen Gale McKennan
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