The date was December 3, 2005 and all of Sioux Falls gathered around in the neighborhood or around their television sets for this event. The Zip Feed Tower was scheduled to be demolished to make way for new real estate projects. At 202 feet, it is believed that the Zip Feed Tower at this time was South Dakota's tallest building. Explosives were used to bring down the 48 year old structure. A raffle was even held to see who would be the one to trigger the blast (proceeds going to the Dakota Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society). The raffle along with corporate sponsorship raised nearly $140,000. Thousands of people, including national media, lined up to see the tower go down. The stage was set!
Then this happened...
You guessed it. All the explosives did was sink the tower into its basement and lean it over. No individual bricks to pick up. No mess pile to bulldoze. Just one big building still standing and still needing to be taken down remained left.
Long time residents of Sioux Falls are still laughing and are alright with the national attention the whole event received. As I recall, it took weeks for wrecking balls to finish what the explosives couldn’t finish. It will take decades before the last Sioux Falls resident will stop talking about where they were on December 3rd, 2005.