Part of the park · 1926
The band shell
A stucco shell with two square towers and a red tile roof, dedicated before ten thousand people on July 4, 1926.
The story
The Sioux Falls Municipal Band took the idea to the Cosmopolitan Club, and the club built the shell as a gift to the city. It was dedicated on the evening of July 4, 1926, the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, before a crowd reported at ten thousand.
Textured stucco, two small square towers and a red tile roof give it what the National Register nomination calls a Mediterranean flavor, a vocabulary the sunken garden shares. It was renovated in 1995 and again for its centennial in 2025, with a new stage surface, drainage and lighting.
The band that asked for it was six years older. On Sunday, July 11, 1920, several thousand people heard the first concert of the Sioux Falls Municipal Band, a year after voters approved a city band in the first municipal election open to women. Russell D. Henegar, formerly of the Sousa Band, conducted it for 29 seasons, 1935 to 1963. Every summer Monday the lawn still fills for free concerts.
Photographs: Photograph by Missy Kitzman, Sioux Falls, 2010, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Photograph by AlexiusHoratius, 2013, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; National Register of Historic Places nomination photograph, 1983, Vivian Young and Jamie Haworth-Smith, City of Sioux Falls; public record; Frame from The McKennan Park Historic District, City of Sioux Falls government-access television, 2010, via Internet Archive.
At a glance
| Built | 1926, by the Cosmopolitan Club as a gift to the city |
|---|---|
| Dedicated | July 4, 1926 |
| Renovated | 1995 and 2025 |
| Concerts | Mondays at McKennan, 7 p.m., July 6 to August 31, 2026 |
| Rent it | Sioux Falls Parks and Recreation, 605-367-7060 |
| Where | South end, above the sunken garden, facing the lawn |
Questions: Sioux Falls Parks and Recreation, 605-367-7060.
The marker, in full
Sioux Falls Municipal Band
Erected 1999 by the Minnehaha County Historical Society and others · HMdb · All seven markers
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.
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.
Keep walking
Next parts of the park.
The entrance wall and floral nameplate
The park's name in metal letters on fieldstone, and in impatiens, replanted in a new color every May.
The sunken garden
Stone walls, a fountain and beds replanted by hand every spring. The park's wedding venue.
The wading pool
Free since 1929. The fourth pool on the site opened May 29, 2026, with a slide, sprays and a new bathhouse.