Take In The History
Andy & Lesley
Our story…
Lesley is a 4th generation South Dakota rancher from Hughes County. As a Pierre native, Lesley grew up in the Pierre/Fort Pierre community centered around the Missouri River. Andy grew up in Wyoming and owns and operates his construction company, American Contracting and Consulting, LLC in the Black Hills and Pierre South Dakota. Andy is the talent behind renovating the red iron, cinder block building into a modern farmhouse event venue including a 30-tap ale house and wine bar.
The land where Missouri Avenue Event Center sits has been in the Trucano family since 1938. The 11,000 square foot building was built in 1971 and designed with hand crafted architectural designs, showing the skill and precision that makes the event center even more special. You can see these original drafts hanging in the ale house wine bar. Andy and Lesley kept most of the original architecture of the building and exposed the red iron ceilings to keep the industrial feel alive while updating the inside to a modern farmhouse design.
Riverfront property is one of the things that makes, Pierre, our state capitol unique. Andy and Lesley established the Missouri Avenue Event Center to make more of this treasured riverfront available to our community. Their vision for the building renovation was to provide a place that is centrally located, allowing South Dakota families a place to gather and celebrate with of remarkable views of the Missouri River sunsets. The venue includes 3 levels of outdoor patios -- with the rooftop finished it provides your event UNMATCHED views of the western horizon over the Mighty Mo!
Out of the five real estate renovation projects they’ve done together, Missouri Avenue Event Center is their favorite one yet.
Bar & Barn Door Headers
The Missouri Avenue Event Center on the main bar face, side bar ledge and barn door header are reclaimed wood from the Mighty Missouri River. Louie Roth harvested these cottonwoods off the Missouri River bottom near De Grey before the Big Bend Dam was constructed in 1959 to create Lake Sharpe. Tony Etzkorn from De Grey township milled them into boards. Louie used the cottonwoods to build a wind break on the East Place of the Roth Ranch. The wind break stood from 1960 until May of 2021.
Sliding Barn Doors
The Payne sisters settled a quarter of land south of Medicine Butte in Hughes County circa 1900’s. They lived there many decades farming and ranching. Their lilac bushes, livestock barn with several granaries and a workshop still stand there today. The Missouri Avenue Event Center sliding barn doors were built from lumber reclaimed in 2021 from the doors of the livestock barn.