Schlief’s Little City
Schlief’s Little City was in Inver Grove Heights – Highway 55 and 218 (South Robert), the directions said in 1949.
The Dakota County Historical Society says that this building started out as a farm implement business. In 1937, Luella and Cleadis Schlief opened it as a dance hall. The building had 20,000 sq. ft. and a maple dance floor.
The Polka Dutchman at Schlief’s, 1940. Photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society
Sandy Wilcox writes: “This was a dance hall that I remember going to with my parents when I was young. People brought their families and all their children and sat at long tables and danced to the polka & waltz. It was like a big wedding celebration. They served beer and soda pop. When they did the polka, the whole building would bounce. It was a great family place to go on a Sunday afternoon. You could easily see its big-letter sign from the highway, and it was quite a landmark.
1951 Poster courtesy of the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, New Ulm, via John Kass
The poster below is undated, but Frank Yankovic was a big deal and shows how popular Schlief’s was!
Courtesy Rick Schlosser
Minneapolis Tribune, October 23, 1964
Schlief’s Little City closed in 1974.
BROOKS BALLROOM
1975 – 1978
FEVER DISCO
Spring 1978 – several months
The Fever, May 1978
THUMPER’S SOUTH
The next iteration of the building was Thumper’s, which opened in December 1979.
PEABODY’S
Due to the popularity of the “Urban Cowboy” phenomenon, it became a huge country and western bar called “Peabody’s Saloon and Music Hall.”
Peabody’s burned to the ground in in an early morning blast on February 14, 1984. Randall Quade reports that “No remnants of the bar exist and the site is covered with a new commercial development.”