In Lanesboro’s early days this was an empty corner lot used as a small park before a building went up in 1880. Today what’s here is an ordinary-looking bank you might find in a Norman Rockwell painting of a typical American small town. How this bank got here, though, is anything but ordinary, and has a dash of only-in-Lanesboro to it.

By the early 1920s the “Langlie Brothers Grocery and Confectionary Store” was here. The Langlies were successful in a number of local businesses. (A Langlie nephew later became governor of Washington state). When the owners of a Lanesboro bank eyed this prominent corner as a good spot for a new bank building, that presented a problem. And an opportunity.

In an inspiring example of Lanesboro’s can-do spirit, the bank bought the lot and made plans to move the store. That spirit—and more than a few strong backs—tackled the job. Workers removed the store’s brick veneer, raised the building on beams, then used a row of heavy screw jacks to push it south towards the empty lot next to it. Inch-by-inch, foot-by-foot, forty-five feet later, Langlie’s Store was in place, none the worse for wear.

Do you want more can-do? In its own display of determination, the Langlies store stayed open the entire time! By moving its front steps a few feet each day, customers still got in and out to do their shopping.

The corner lot was now available and construction soon began on a new bank. Under different ownership and with different names, this building has been a bank ever since. One with quite a “moving” story to tell!