Abandoned Movie - Video Vision - Winona, MN
Some places stand out and you never forget them. For close to 20 years, I only had vague memories, and hoped it was either open in some form, or at least still standing. I needed pictures of the building, no matter what shape it was in today.
Or I find a vacant lot and a different form of closure.
Sunday, August 12, 2018.
Laura and I are driving from LaCrosse, Wisconsin, to Minneapolis, and are approaching Winona. We had stayed the night there after attending Irish Fest, the night before. That whole deal was written about five years ago, weaved into a feature on the abandoned Big Bear Gas Station in Lake City, MN. In that story, I briefly mentioned Video Vision: “This will probably be another story at some point…”
Guess what, it’s time for that story!
Winona is a small city of about 25,000 people, in southeast Minnesota. Sitting at the bottom of a valley, on the banks of the Mississippi River, with Wisconsin on the other side. This was the first time I’d been through Winona since January, 2001. My friends Jen and Trav, lived in Winona between the summer of 1999 and spring of 2001. Jen was finishing up her degree at Winona State University, while Trav was doing warehouse work at Twatkins. I was living in Colorado, and visited them in Winona on three bonus vacations, during scheduled vacations back to Minnesota.
And there it was…
Approaching from the south on State Highway 14/61, (AKA Voyager Highway, AKA Great River Road, AKA Blues Highway, AKA Disabled American Veterans Highway, AKA Hiawatha Pioneer Trail… How many names does this road need?) I see the oddly shaped structure on my left. So I’ll drive up to the next intersection, then catch the Service Road down to 722 Bluffview Circle.
In December 1999, Jen, Trav and I visited Video Vision to rent Apocalypse Now. I had recently picked up an old Tower Records VHS rental copy of Hardware Wars, off the ebays, for over $100. A good five years before the YouTubes, you had to work and pay for cool and rare media. Now it’s all free to anyone, anywhere, anytime, that wants it.
But where’s the love?
Anyways… One of the shorts on the videocassette is “Porklips Now”, a meat themed parody of Apocalypse Now. A movie the three of us all hadn’t seen before. After watching Porklips Now, we decided to see the movie that inspired it. I found it almost boring. I took a couple of outdoor cigarette breaks, without bothering to pause the movie. Jen fell asleep, I did too. Trav watched the whole thing and said it was okay, but too long. I’m not a movie guy, but this was a hard watch. I felt it bloated and self-indulgent. Although the first 2/3 of the movie was pretty not bad.
Driving up Bluffview Circle. Looking through our bug splattered windshield at Video Vision. (With the still open, Leighton Media behind it.)
The Video Vision sign is posted about a hundred feet away from the store, along the service road. Wouldn’t be easily viewable from the highway if it was near the building, so that makes sense. But it still left a large gap of grassy field in between. Do like the cute little For Sale sign leaning up against it. Don’t think that will be visible from the highway, to drum up much walk-up interest.
Parking lot on the west side of the building. I’m not entirely certain the age of the building. Video Vision is cited online as starting in either 1987 or 1989, but I don’t know if they were at another location before this. I’ve seen the building itself as dating back to 1979. Which I can buy, because that looks more 1979 than 1987, to me. Wonder what it was built for, and why, back in 1979?
Laura snapped a picture of me in the doorway. Actually I was holding it, so she could get a good picture of the signs.
ENHANCE!
Video Vision is still open for now, but the signs on the front door tell you all you need to know.
I love the absolute lack of urgency to the message.
Previously Viewed and other stuff tacked to the wall, just inside the doors.
Assorted movie posters hanging on the wall inside the vestibule.
(All my best to you and yours.)
Looking inside the inner door, with a very dense display of inventory on the wall.
******
As I was writing this story, I asked Jen what the address of their old Winona house was. She said it was on 4th Street, but the house wasn’t there anymore. She told me the whole area has completely changed since they lived there. Going back in time on the Googles, I was able to find the house without too much trouble.
266 W 4th Street, Googles street view, August 2012.
The house was built in the early 1900’s. Given the proximity to downtown Winona and the Mississippi River, and accounting for commerce of that day, it was likely owned by one of the more wealthy of Winona’s townsfolk. As river trade declined over the years , the house was spilt into multiple apartments. Think Jen said there was five inside the large two story home. The layout of their apartment was kind of strange. Would have loved to seen how the others were Tetrised together.
Jen took this photo of the back porch, August 4, 1999. The porch was the main entrance into their apartment.
The door on the far right leads down to the basement.
Vanilla Honksicle, parked outside the basement entrance, December 26, 1999. Jen and Trav were in Crapids visiting family on X-Mess day. We met up after respective quality family times at the 99 Spillihp (parts One and Two), to hang out with Karen for a few, before droving to Winona. It was a good stop as I won $50 on a $5 High Stakes, after turning a $2.00 investment into $80, at the casino earlier in the day. I rarely gamble, but it paid off on X-Mess day 1999. Trav drove their car back, while Jen rode with me. I didn’t know where I was going, so she was along to navigate.
I wrote about the December 1999 visit to Winona, in Wasted Quarter issue #48: “Burn Your Candle Apple Pants” (my all time favorite WQ issue title). So I was able to look back at this vacation for some additional notes from those dates. A lot of the pieces from 1999 are rewrites of what I printed in that issue of Wasted Quarter.
I’ll spare you the story about Dick Nasty and Rose Agree.
Both Jen and Trav had told me the horror movie setting that was their basement. While the houses itself was sectioned off into multiple apartments, the basement was a common area, and had a coin operated washer and dryer for the tenants.
Window high above the basement floor. Past building alterations have left this window far above where anyone can easily replace that badly deteriorated window shade. I bet it never was replaced.
Partial basement stairs to nowhere…
If that wall wasn’t there, they’d lead directly into Jen and Trav’s kitchen sink.
Looking back at the current basement stairs. The basement was indeed very creepy. I was half expecting to find the entrance to One Eye Willie’s caves down here.
In the next room, there was a bunch of junk on the floor, along with the poop of some animal, a dead mouse, lots of garbage and tons of bugs and spiders. I was informed that the owners of the house started clearing out the basement junk that following spring.
Dried up toilet sitting in the middle of the room, blocked on only two sides. That lack of privacy is a deal breaker for me. Upturned seat and toilet lid looking like an inquisitive, earless koala bear. Wondering what you’re doing to his torso.
If you look closely on the right side of the picture, inside the unexplained shadow, there’s a black painted wooden bar hanging off the door acting as a wall. If the toilet was still functional, there should be a roll of paper hanging here. Unfortunately, I decided to make it more difficult for future use, and took the black painted wooden bar home with me. I found it a few years ago, and couldn’t remember what it was and why I had it.
Well, you better get some water in it first!
(Really did want to pee in it, but didn’t.)
When I came back to visit in April, 2000, the toilet had been removed.
Guess if you can’t hang a roll of paper next to it, you don’t need a toilet!
Before I drove back to Minneapolis, I called Crazy Carl with a quarter serious proposition. He had recently taken a part time job as a flatbed tow-truck driver, making extra money pulling cars out of snowbanks. I’d actually gone with him on a ride along, earlier in the vacation, and froze my ass off. I told him that he should drive the flatbed down to Winona, load my car on the back and I’ll ride with him to Crapids. He didn’t hate the idea, but the tow truck company would be pissed. Fair enough. I was feeing lazy, and offered the compromise of meet him at the old Crapids Perkins, once I got back to town.
A few months ago, I wrote about Crazy Carl’s time as the manager of Griffy’s Tavern in Genola, MN. View my visits up there to my visits to Winona. Not because the shared any similarities, but it was a temporary new location, away from the less temporary Crapids location. And for me, those days were a lot of fun.
I was summoned back to Winona in January 2001, on a mission of teaching baby kitties to smoke cigarettes. It’s a calling not all are cut out for… Also, I really miss having long stupid looking hair. Male-pattern baldness has robbed me of my secret powers of appearing creepy and gross. A rapidly greying long goatee just doesn’t cut it.
The picture of the house from 2012, was the last Googlesmobile drive-by showing it still standing.
13 years later…
266 W 4th Street, Googles street view, August 2025.
Now it’s a parking lot.
The bridges crossing the Mississippi River, that you see in the background are the reason for demolishing all of the houses on this block of 4th street. The original cantilever bridge on the right, opened in 1942, and was having structural problems. It was only two lanes wide, and needed major work if it was going to be continually used. The Minnesota Dept. of Transportation decided to build a new 2 lane bridge next to the old one. Construction began in 2014, with the new bridge opening in 2016. The old bridge was then immediately closed. After nearly 3 years of work, the old bridge reopened and now Winona has 4 lanes of traffic crossing the main channel of the Mississippi.
Looking at the final product, I’d assumed the block of homes that were removed to allow for expanding the roads leading up to the new old bridges, took up needed space for construction staging. Work on building the new bridge started in July, 2014. So Jen and Trav’s old house was probably demolished in the summer of 2014.
Meanwhile, back in August 2018, inside the Video Vision headquarters…
We’ve made it inside the store now, so here’s the door we just walked through.
Next to the doors are some framed wall poems. These were for sale as well.
People who have looked up Video Vision on the Googles will recognize some of these photos as the ones uploaded to the reviews. Laura took most of the pictures inside the video store, and uploaded them as we drove back home. So I didn’t steal these. The photos in this story are from her high resolution originals, that I copied off her phone.
Unfortunately blurry picture of the sales floor.
I’m still including it because it shows an angle of the lower lever layout to the store.
More poetry. I looked at them, but I have such an irrational dislike for poetry, that I didn’t pay them much attention. They were positive and uplifting poems, which is great if that’s what you’re into. But it’s not what I’m into at all.
Previously Viewed signs above the shelves.
Looking out over the sales floor, to the front of the store.
Laura just turned her camera to landscape, from the same spot on the sales floor.
******
Let’s take a break from shopping at Video Vision, to take a look at some other local places that sold video in various forms, 25 years ago. That means we’re going to visit historic downtown Winona! Back in 1999, via Googlesmobile and various articles from the Archives…
Jimmy Jams (located at 113 E 3rd Street) is still open today. Still selling comic books, but also leaning into board games and collectable gaming cards, in addition to used DVD’s and Video Games. Trav was still buying comic books in the late 1990’s, and took me with when he went to pick up his new issues.
I picked up this Clerks comic book. Not far removed from the gas station days, I was still quite interested in that Kevin Smith universe. This was another cool part of that, I wouldn’t normally have sought out. Trav recommended it, so I added it to the Archives. Can’t remember any of it today, since I haven’t read it in at least 25 years.
A few doors down, at 119 E 3rd Street, was one of three chapters of the Video Trading Co., headquartered in Red Wing, MN. They’re long gone and today their former storefront is vacant. After several other businesses have come and gone in between.
They supplied another valuable piece of the Archives, in the form of Hulk Hogan’s 1995 CD release “Hulk Rules”. A spectacular display of fervent ego committed to terrible music.
Come on, it’s Hulk Hogan rapping safety tips with the world’s most sedated chorus, over a bouncy bass line…
What more do you want?
Again, wisely tucked the receipt into the CD cover jacket.
I was so happy there was a decent image of Downtown Book and Video on the Googles. This was from an August 2012 drive by, when it was still open. When I was here in 1999, the store had opened not long before that. Trav told me that it was sometimes the subject of small town style religious right protests. “How dare they open an adult oriented business in MY town?!? I don’t like that kind of thing, so NO ONE should be allowed to have access to it!” Trav said that sometimes the protesters would be snapping pictures of people that shopped there, from the sidewalk. Attempting to shame them into not shopping there or something. Hilarious there would be such outrage over a simple dildo store. Hollow as that outrage may have been, the place was open for at least 13 years.
He and I went there one night. Their pornographic inventory wasn’t overly interesting, but that was chalked up to their relative newness to the community that was trying to shun them. Filling the implied obligation of buying something while there, I bought a little silver pipe with screens, for $12. This immediately became my daily use pipe for the next five years. Today it’s packed up in my “Retired Supplies” box. But I didn’t keep that receipt.
Still disappointed that no one took my picture.
Downtown Book and Video eventually closed. The building was cleaned up and somewhat renovated. Good to see the “WT Grant Co.” tile inlay at the front doors, was saved. Today it’s home to The Ripped Leaf, a marijuana dispensary. No word on how much protestation the Leaf sees today…
Times change.
Doubt there was ever a protestor problem with Video Vision.
Continuing our look around the store, with some printed cards (stickers?), above the screen printed t-shirts and air conditioner unit.
I remember seeing this Nolte Shaq Blue Chips poster at all sorts of theaters and video stores back in the day. That movie got a pretty big push, on the back of Shaquille O’Neal. Wouldn’t mind watching Blue Chips, someday. Reading up on it now, I see the plot deals with recruiting and gambling scandals, in a college basketball program. Movies about the business side of sports have always interested me to some degree.
Tall front windows, from the inside.
Hanging next to the windows, was a framed newspaper clipping commending Video Vision for staying open. There’s no date on the clipping, but hints of 2017 are there.
Finally, I can read something from the Winona Daily News, that’s not behind a paywall!
ENHANCE!
According to the story, Dennis Darst took sole proprietorship of Video Vision in 1987. Implying the video store existed before 1987, but the Winona Daily News committed a key piece of background info. Especially considering the timeline is billed in the sub-header. Some good nuggets of information, but whole Netflix angle doesn’t belong. Frustratingly incomplete story, the Winona Daily News should be embarrassed to charge for it.
According to the Winona Daily News, and confirmed by Dennis himself this afternoon, the framed sketches around the store are drawn by his son. They are really good. If there was one of David Wills, I would have immediately bought it. But I somehow doubt The Weatherman has been a subject of this particular artist.
More framed sketches…
Some more framed sketches above the sales counter.
The rest of the framed sketches and “Keys Made” signs. With the video rental prices hand written beside them.
Laura didn’t get a clear shot of the Video Vision whiteboard price listings. I cropped this from the previous photo because I absolutely insist this type of thing has to be included for historic purposes.
Earlier in the day, on August 12, 2018, Laura and I were driving through Winona. Already mentioned that. But the thing to remember at this time is, I was looking for a place to pull over and do a little quick research on the video store’s location. Remembered the Winona Mall would be coming up soon, and I definitely wanted pictures of that. So I turned off on Vila Street, and found an abandoned Kmart!
We parked here because obviously… It’s an abandoned Kmart. I’m never NOT going to stop at one! It was from the empty parking lot that I checked the phone and looked to see if Video Vision was still open, and where exactly it was in relation to where we were. I remembered vaguely where it was, and had the exact image of the building burned into memory. If it was still around, it would be easy to find.
Literally tens of customers in the parking lot!
From the Googles, the Winona Kmart in August, 2012. The big box retailer opened this store in 1981, and closed it in 2014. I don’t remember it from 1999-2001, because we never had a reason to go there. We were across the street at the mall, but I doubt I even looked at it.
Short story and some excellent photos of the Winona Kmart, during their 2014 liquidation sale.
Looking into the dirty glass of Kmart’s front doors. My reflection unavoidable as I wanted a picture of the blue service desk. Still somewhat intact, after 4 years of no use. Not much else can be seen as all other store fixtures have been removed. Not even a single security light is on inside.
Anything interesting around back?
Ooooh! An open door!
Find out what was beyond that open door whenever I decide to write a focused story on the Winona Kmart.
That’ll happen eventually.
(Spoiler, it wasn’t very exciting…)
Gunderson Health Winona Campus, from the Googlesmobile, August 2023.
We didn’t know it at the time of wandering around the Big K, but the Winona Kmart building had just been sold, five days earlier. Gunderson Health bought the property, with the intent of renovating the former big box store, into multiple clinics under the Gunderson Health umbrella. From what I’ve seen online, they did a great in making a sorely outdated building into something useful to the community.
Literally multiples of tens of customers in the parking lot!
You know, looking at the hills behind the Winona Mall sign, reminds me a whole lot of the small towns you’d find scattered around the mountains of Colorado. Nowhere near the same scale, this is just the bottom of the Mississippi River valley. Nothing compared to highway 285 through the Rocky Mountains. Did bring back some second-hand warm fuzzies, given our leaving Colorado, barely three months earlier.
Back in 1999, Jen, Trav and I stopped by the Winona Mall one afternoon. To us, the mall was eerily similar to Downtown Center in Andover MN, from 1987-1997. A small indoor shopping mall of less than 25 stores, just a few miles from where I grew up. In the mid to late 1990’s, mall owners realized this concept wasn’t viable for the area, and completely renovated the mall. Expanding the grocery store anchor on one side, while sealing off the hardware store anchor on the opposite end. Interior corridor of the mall was closed off and renovated for use as additional classroom space for the school district. A new and thriving restaurant leases the center anchor space today, after years of a rarely occupied gym pretending to be open.
Winona Mall opened in 1983. I found an ad on the Googles, announcing the new addition to Winona’s shopping scene.
A Tradehome Shoes AND a Maurices? These are key part to any regional small scale shopping mall directories. They were both also in Andover’s Downtown Center, before that place decided it had no business being an enclosed shopping mall. What you do in situations like that is sell out to the school district and remodel. Winona Mall hadn’t yet gotten the memo…
The mall closed in April 2024, after the Hiawatha Valley Education District purchased the property, with the intent on converting it into a school. Some of the stores will remain open at the site, as half of the building will be saved. Plans have changed since the May 2024 sale, and was soon a year behind schedule. As far as I know, work is still ongoing in converting the property. I won’t pay the Winona Daily News to keep up with it. I’m interested, but not THAT interested…
But back in 1999…
Very little of interest in the Winona Mall of 1999, but there was a small video arcade!. They had a Ms. Pac Man machine, but the sound was messed up. I need the sound in order to focus on the game, so I did very poorly. Also played a game of South Park pinball, which is always good.
There was a Books Unlimited store near the arcade. While doing my patented half-assed research, I learned the Winona Mall once had a Little Professor Book Store. I’d previously known of (and bought books from) the Little Professor, at Apache Plaza in St. Anthony, MN, back in the 1980’s. I’m assuming Books Unlimited was a direct decendent. For Wasted Quarter, I wrote: “Books Unlimited was an ironic name because they had little to no inventory. It was the most limited selection I’d seen in a bookstore.”
Contrasting Books Unlimited, was a store named CD Trade. Typical selection of used CD’s, VHS and video games, but they had an excellent inventory. Winona being a college town, the abundance of used media stores all had some decent stuff to pick from. College kids need money for beer and ramen, and will sell off pieces of a more eccentric collection than you typically get in the suburbs. I picked up a really cheap VHS of Johnny Dangerously. One of my all time favorite 1980’s movies.
At the front of the arcade was a rack of bumper stickers. Trav told me they had the “For a small town this one sure has a lot of assholes” sticker that Mike Patton had on his keyboards, throughout Mr. Bungle’s 1999 California tour. It was one of the main reasons we came here. Sure enough, their rack had a space for that sticker. But they were sold out.
I needed the sticker because it was cool.
Trav needed the sticker because it reflected his thoughts on their current address.
What the world needs now… Is love…
And video rental places.
Where Dennis Darst has run Video Vision, 7 days a week, since 1987. He and Laura talked at length while I wandered around, soaking up the atmosphere of his excellent time capsule of a store. Behind him are some of the cigarette rolling supplies the store sold in addition to video rentals.
Key making was another service offered.
Drive-up window with assorted video store stuff around. An old school adding machine, rolled up posters and various books line the shelves. Seeing areas like this at small businesses are always fascinating to me. You get a look at the stuff kept on hand. Whether it’s useful or hasn’t been touched in years.
Expected cluttered desk of a long running small business.
Another framed sketch of two small children. I’m assuming they are family.
Next to the frame are some books for sale. Dennis self-publishes his writing and sells it inside his store. And that’s the coolest thing I’d seen in a long time. 30 years ago, I was working in a place where a nice percentage of my shift was sitting and writing. Either in a journal or a dedicated piece for Wasted Quarter. I self-published a zine and sold copies at the gas station while I worked.
"Let's open the business before we teach Carl to play keyboards with his feet."
That was 1995 and I was just 20 years old. The idea of working overnight shift at the gas station so I could continue to write and self-publish was pure fantasy, and not a viable career path. But it was still a dream. One that I could write while I worked, because the job was simple and fun. And I could sell what I wrote, as I worked that job. That was a common daydream of mine between 1993 and 1997, before I realized that if I was ever going to grow up, even just a little bit, I had to abandon the active practice of doing what I want, while wishing.
Dennis Darst lived my dream.
He made a living while working a fun job (running a video store) that gave him the opportunity to write, and a forum to distribute his writing. Gotta admire that...
Laura opened one of his books and snapped a picture of a poem (Broken Wing) that Dennis recommended to her.
She really liked it.
She took another picture of Dennis behind his computer as they talked. I was upstairs at this point, and wasn’t part of their conversation. Which had gone back and fourth through topics of family, health, politics, movies, and the current state of the video rental business. He was a genuinely nice guy who clicked with Laura, and the chatted as if they knew each other their entire lives.
Oh, in case you were curious, here’s the new releases for July, 2018.
******
The southeast corner at the intersection of Highway 61 and Huff Street, in Winona, has a small steamboat on a pole. The side panel reads: “Historic Island City”. It should be a little bigger if you want to clearly see it from the highway. Placed here to mark the entrance to downtown Winona, from the highway. For example, if it was 1999, and you were craving a Hardees Bacon Cheeseburger, you’d know that at the steamboat, you would turn onto Huff Street, and navigate your way to 5th and Johnson.
Hardees was still open in 2012, but closed by July 2018.
Obviously I would opt for the Googlesmobile drive-by showing it abandoned!
December 27, 1999: “After I woke up and showered and stuff, Jen and I drove to the Buick dealer to drop the car off fro repairs. We decided to get some food at the nearby Hardees. I have a soft spot for Hardees after an enjoyable 8 month stint working at one. I always liked their food, I felt it was the most consistently decent tasting of the low level fast food chains. In Colorado, there were no Hardees near me, so it had been a while since I enjoyed one of their greasy, meat flavored sandwiches. Only getting Hardees on visits makes me almost crave it in Denver. Just last Friday for instance, I wanted some food really bad. But the disappointment in in not being able to get a Hardees Bacon Cheeseburger paralyzed me with apathy to the rest of my dinner options. Ended up not eating for 7 more hours, due to my dining depression.”
The following April, remembering my satisfaction with the previous visit, Jen and I made a late night food run to the Hardees. It was just a few blocks from the apartment, accessible by the city streets without having to use any major roads. I ordered two Bacon Cheeseburgers, plain. Normal fast food kitchen understanding is that means: burger, cheese, bacon, bun, nothing else. When we got back to the house, I got two burgers. One with no cheese, no bacon, no nothing. Just a burger patty on a bun. Taking the meaning of plain too far. The second burger was again, just a burger patty on a bun. No cheese, no bacon… But the second burger had a bunch of shredded lettuce.
That’s the confusing part…
I can understand the plain burger (while still charging me for a Bacon Cheeseburger) because they just misinterpreted what I meant. But one of them having lettuce seemed like some sort of message. A strange one at that. I pictured the employee running the grill, getting my order and being somewhat offended. This was his method of revenge. “You get one burger, bare bones, and take some lettuce for your “plain” bullshit order! “ I worked at Hardees. I get it… I also respect it, so I never entertained a thought of calling to complain.
Hardees changed from fried burgers to flame broiled soon after. This changed the base taste of their food. Not for the worse, just different from what I really liked. My last experience with Hardees burgers as I’d always known them, was a confusing disappointment in Winona.
I wrote a lengthy story about Hardees, when the Anoka restaurant was demolished a few years back.
People really seem to like that one.
The former Winona Hardees at 5th & Johnson, is now a multi-story apartment tower.
Still a restaurant, but not what it was in 1999, was the Green Mill. It was still open in 2018, but is now the River City Grill. Less dependent on pizza, though they do serve pizza, it’s pretty much the same thing. Though it looks like River City Grill’s prices are less than what Green Mill used to charge. (Adjusted for inflation, of course.) The Winona Green Mill lasted considerably longer than their Coon Rapids location, which closed in 2012. It’s now a 5 Guys Burgers.
While leaving the Green Mill in 1999, with Jen & Trav, I accidentally stole this “Reserved” table marker, on purpose. Felt it pretty pretentious for a faux upscale place using these. No one is making reservations for the Green Mill… The reserved sign sat on my computer monitor, next to the “Fuck You Fork”, that Freddie from Overpriced Art School made me, one drunken afternoon in 1998, at the Aurora, Colorado, Hooters.
See, I’m more of a gas station hot dog kind of guy, than a reservation at a restaurant kind of guy…
Or a Hooters kind of guy…
And it was in Winona where I was first introduced to Kwik Trip.
While out doing assorted stuff, Trav swore that the best gas station hot dogs were at Kwik Trip. Not like the nauseating ones at SuperAmerica… He pulled into the Kwik Trip on Huff Street, and we each got a hot dog. He was right, they were really good. Working warehouse jobs, sometimes stuff like a Kwik gas station hot dog was just what you need. As far as I know, Kwik Trip hadn’t fully infiltrated the Twin Cities in 1999. Now the gas station/convenience store I patronize several times a week, this location on Huff Street in Winona was the very first Kwik Trip I ever entered.
We stopped there because of yet another used CD/VHS/Video Game store was across the street.
And they sold bootleg CD’s!
BAAAAAAAAAUAAAAAA!!!! BOOTLIST!!!!
I bought a Cure CD full of B-Side recordings that I previously only had on cassette. Worthwhile purchase at the steep price. Served well on the drive back to Colorado.
Again had the foresight to stash the receipt inside the CD cover insert.
Face The Music closed at some unknown point before 2008. (Which was the first time the Googlesmobile drove by.) The space it once occupied was last known as Hazey Daze Smoke & Vape. Which may or may not be closed today.
Jen took this photo of Winona from the scenic overlook, at Garvin Heights City Park, in 1999. Huff Street crosses Lake Winona to reach the main part of town. (Hence, the “Island City” moniker.) In the distance you can see the (then) single bridge crossing the main channel of the Mississippi River, with Wisconsin on the other side of the river valley.
Seeing this picture makes me want to take another trip through Winona. If only because I had to write this story using too many Googles photos…
Not this one though, I took this one myself!
Another shot of Video Vision from Bluffview Circle. I took so many from this angle as we drove up, because I really wanted to properly capture the Video Vision lettering on the front and sides. And this one has a good shot of the drive thru window we were looking through, earlier in the story.
For now, I’m going upstairs…
Where Laura requests me to wave for the camera.
And as long as I’m up here, I’ll get a better shot of that Blue Chips poster, with the snarky right wing t-shirts underneath.
Some of the store’s last remaining VHS cassettes landed on these shelves.
But a majority of the shelves up here were filled with DVD’s.
One segment of the comedy DVD shelves.
Down in the bottom right corner are some of the Jackass movies. I will admit to owning pretty much the entire run of official Jackass DVD’s. Every so often I will become so disgusted with current events that I need to drop out and turn off my brain.
“The president just did what?!?! Okay enough… I need to watch someone dive into a kiddie pool filled with horse manure…”
Coming back downstairs after not seeing anything I wanted to buy.
Forgetting that I NEEDED to buy something…
We wrapped our visit with Dennis, but before we go, any parting thoughts?
Rock on!
Passing the nearly depleted gumball machine on our way out…
With a final look at the video store entrance.
A shot of the west side from parking lot… And with that, we left Video Vision and made our way back to Minneapolis.
Looking back, I made a drastic error. I needed to buy something from Video Vision. Wouldn’t have mattered what it was, could have been a copy of any stupid movie I’d want to watch once and forget all about. Or a PS4 video game that I would play once and forget all about. But that would have given me a receipt to tuck inside the case. A printed record of buying something there.
But I blanked. Overwhelmed by a large inventory of stuff that didn’t stand out. Nothing seemed to be appealing because everything presented a convincing argument that it should be turned down. And I lost track of the most important thing. I needed to buy something for a future story’s sake. Not because it was something I wanted to own.
It was late in the afternoon, when Laura and I left Winonas. I snapped this photo of the ShopKo while driving by. Knowing this retail chain was on the endangered species list, felt I needed a picture. ShopKo was still open in August 2018, but will have closed about a year later.
UHaul then took over the site. Renovating the ShopKo, instead of starting over with a new building. You wouldn’t know this was a former big box retail store by looking at it today. Not as drastic as the work done to Kmart, but another example of repurposing outdated retail buildings as their previous usefulness expired. Even if you can’t recognize what they used to be.
ShopKo was the last of the picture I took before we stopped next at the Kwik Trip in Lake City. The rest of that store has already been covered in the Big Bear Gas Station story.
I enjoyed Winona a lot. From the few hours Laura and I spent there in August 2018, to the multiple days spent there in 1999-2001, it had a vibe that worked for me. Granted, I didn’t spend a great deal of time there, so my take is going to be completely different than someone who has/does call this place home. Quite possibly would hate it if I had to live there on a low paying job and poor quality housing.
******
Back to present day…
The last time I drove to Rochester, thoughts of Winona popped into my head. Winona sets roughly 50 miles directly east of Rochester, so the idea of a detour at some point isn’t out of the question. Almost immediately after thinking about Winona, Video Vision thoughts weren’t far behind. Certainly it wouldn’t still be open in 2025… Dennis told Laura about how he was getting ready to call it a day on the video store, but wasn’t ready to bow out yet. The sign on the door spelled out his future intentions quite plain. Waiting for an offer. But I doubt he was willing to keep it going through Covid.
Sounds like it’s time for more of my patented half-assed research!
Video Vision closed for good in 2019. The building was sold to Mike Onstad of Black Squirrel Properties, meaning Dennis Darst was finally able to retire. The former video rental building was tore down to the studs and rebuilt as an Air B&B. That even kept the name Video Vision!
Video Vision Air B&B has the former two level movie rental store, now quartered into four long narrow rooms. Two on the lower lever and two above. A long staircase crosses the center, just as the stairs to the additional upstairs movies did previously. In homage to the past, walls of the common areas are lined by movie posters. Many of which feature Winona Ryder. Video Vision’s old neon sign hangs next to them.
Each of the four rooms feature a private bathroom and shower, mini fridge, TV and two queen size beds. All four rooms are decorated under the theme of “Great Fictional Moments in Winona History”. Local artist Sarah Johnson, was commissioned to make the artwork for each of the themed rooms. Including an alien visit in 2078, the discovery of a giant squid in the Mississippi, back in 1928, Bigfoot’s visit in 1974, to eat the donuts from Bloedow’s Bakery…
And in 1958, the CIA and NASA, built their first research facility in Winona. (Codename: Video Vision.)
The most current Googlesmobile drive-by (2023) shows a clear Video Vision label scar on the side of the building.
The perfect touch!
Absolutely love that this is what became of the old Video Vision movie rental store. A new and viable use for the existing building was found, without having it torn down to start over. The new owner was under zero obligation to even acknowledge Video Vision’s legacy, yet they made it a large part of their new business plan. This type of thing isn’t seen very often, and it’s very refreshing.
******
My memories of Winona are 25 years old now. Like the video store, it’s all just memories now. That time and where I was in it are 25 years away. Things that once are a part of your every day life, one day just disappear. Like small scale rural shopping malls… Like Kmart… Like physical media…Like video rental stores… Amazing how time passed so quickly, you don’t even notice it going by. And you don’t always notice the things that disappear.
Trav sits on the couch, in the living room of their Winona apartment, December 27, 1999.
He took his life two years ago, on November 20, 2023. The morning of his 48th birfday. I still think of him every day. There are so many stories I have written and/or want to write, that he played a key role in. Before his death, those stories had an entirely different feel. Today they have an added perspective that I can’t avoid. The entire time I was writing this story, I was imagining his response to it. As with every story he was a part of, he’d give me feedback about the final product. Reminding me of minor details I either missed, or got wrong. Because I failed to ask him as I was writing it. He was always my biggest supporter when it came to writing. And I can’t say for certain if Wasted Quarter or Four Baggers would have kept going without that support.
I know he would have really liked this story. Winona was a topic that still came up somewhat frequently between us. He always said he hated his time there, mainly because of Twatkins, and his dislike for the small town attitude and culture. But if you scraped off all the gruffness, you could tell there was some degree of appreciation for the area, and what it brought to that time in his life.
I don’t know if it was the 2 year anniversary of his death that made this story so hard for me to write. Looking back at the pictures and notes from 1999 made me feel so sad, that I had to walk away from it for a week. It hit me that my memories of disappeared familiar and once important, buildings and locations that are no longer there, are the same thing as an important person who is no longer there. Didn’t realize when I started writing this story, just how heavy it would get.
After all, it was just a video rental store…
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