Look up to find the name of the man who built this building in 1895 and who played an important role in building this whole town.

Dennis Galligan and his wife, Ellen Dore, came to Lanesboro from County Limerick, Ireland. He was a construction worker specializing in railroads. Galligan even worked with the famous James J. Hill on the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Galligan and his crews used teams of horses to put in some of the first roads here. He supervised the rock cut by the Lanesboro Dam, and was also the driving force behind the construction of a number of downtown buildings. A century later, the Galligan home, built in the Brooklyn neighborhood in 1898, later became one of Lanesboro’s first B-and-Bs.

His first downtown building was constructed in 1880 on the north corner of this block. Called “Galligan’s Hall” or “Galligan’s Opera House,” its large second floor offered community events. Some say that’s where Buffalo Bill held the first public rehearsal of what became his famous wild west show. That building was later moved one lot south to make way for a new bank. (You can hear the Talking Trail story of that “moving adventure” down the street).

This Galligan Building of 1895 housed a number of banks, including the Lanesboro State Bank, the Lanesboro National Bank, and eventually the Scanlan-Habberstad Bank (before its relocation). Other businesses here included the Lanesboro Leader newspaper, Chamberlain’s Pool Hall, a drugstore, and the Lanesboro Post Office from 1950 to 1962. Second-floor apartments are also part of its history.

The Galligans enjoyed community here; they knew sorrows, too. On March 9, 1876, their eleven-year-old daughter drowned in the Root River. The next day a major flood swept through town. As waters rose in their home the Galligan family escaped to safety, carrying their daughter’s body with them.