"No handsomer live stock(sic) Exchange is to be found in the
West than this one at South St. Paul," the South St. Paul Reporter
noted in 1887 after the Stockyard Exchange Building opened. Built
by the recently formed Union Stockyards Company, the Exchange
Building housed commission firms and other businesses associated
with the adjacent stockyards, which became the largest stockyards
in the United States.
Initially, the building served other functions as well: the
town's first post office occupied it, the city council presided
before the construction of the city hall in 1890, and the city's
first bank, Stockyards National Bank, held space.
On August 30, 1933, this was the site of the robbery of the
packing plant payroll by the Ma Barker-Al Karpis Gang, where
policeman Leo Pavlak was killed and officer John Yeaman was
wounded, but survived with 25 bullet fragments in his body. The
machine-gun-wielding gang made off with $33,000.
This building is on the National Register of Historic
Places.