I grew up in suburbs of big cities, like San Diego, Denver and the Twin Cities.

When I went off to college in Mankato I thought it was a small town. But in 1971 I discovered what real small towns were and I was hooked and never went back to the big city.

I have lived in several small towns and owned newspapers in a few more.

Whenever I was considering living in a small town (or buying a newspaper in a small town) I would check the town out by walking around in it.

My business partner, Allan Wilcox of Waterville, called it walking Main Street and smelling the air. He didn’t really mean sniffing as we walked around, but rather he meant trying to get a sense of everything about the town. by taking a close, hard look.

When I was considering moving to Blue Earth back in 2007 it was not to buy the paper, but rather to just work at the newspaper. And live here.

But I still walked around the town and “sniffed the air.” I checked out businesses, residential areas, schools, hospital, and of course, this funny statue of the Jolly “Ho, Ho, Ho” Green Giant. At the time it was the only thing I knew about Blue Earth.

I still remember walking up and down Main Street and taking a look inside and outside the businesses. I was pretty impressed, especially since every single building back in 2007 seemed to be full and have a business in it.

Why, there was even a music store and a music museum on the corner of Main and Seventh. They were not open but I can remember, even now, looking in the windows and seeing a whole lot of pianos inside.

I was intrigued.

Little did I know back then that I would be writing dozens of stories (and this column space) about these buildings over the next 18 years, and that these three buildings, dubbed the Three Sisters, would never be open during all that time. (Well, there was that one time when the city auctioned off all the dozens of pianos and other musical instruments and other items, just to get rid of them. That included items from the Masonic Lodge which had been located upstairs of the Big Sister.)

I call it a saga. It included ownership by a man from Frost who had the music museum/music store, to a man named Bob Johnson and a group from South Dakota called Hot Springs Citizens for Progress, to the Blue Earth City Council and the Blue Earth EDA, to a couple of groups (including Rural Renaissance and Project Three Sisters) trying to do some big and awesome things with the Sisters.

The best idea along the way was from a local entrepreneur who had a detailed plan on how to redo the Three Sisters into usable space. He knew what it would cost ($500,000 if I remember right) and how to pay for it through rents of business space and apartment space. He did not reach a deal with the city, however.

Unfortunately, over all these years, nothing was ever done with these buildings. So of course they eventually got into pretty seriously bad condition. And, by the time you read this column, they are probably going to be torn down and be gone. The plan as of press time early Friday morning was to demolish them on Friday and Saturday, weather permitting.

Now, there have been other buildings torn down in Blue Earth over the years, and so it is not all that unusual. It happens in other towns as well, not just here.

However, for some reason these Three Sisters were different, because there has been some hope over the past 18 years that they could be saved, restored, and provide space for new businesses and some apartments to rent upstairs.

There is also that name, the Three Sisters. I am not sure where that came from, but several folks told me that was what they were called. One person told me that it was wrong because there are actually four Sisters. The three buildings in the front, and one that had an entrance on Seventh Street and had upstairs rooms for offices back in the day.

But whether it was three or four Sisters, they are soon going to be history.

Being an eternal optimist, my hope now is that something can be done with the rather large space that once was the Three (or four) Sisters. Some people say we don’t need another downtown park, others say we do need off-street parking. The city and the EDA can get funding for construction of a new building there, if someone steps forward and wants to put one there, or so I understand.

Maybe the Saga of the Sisters is not completely over. We can always hope that the space will still be useful, even if the old buildings are soon going to be just a memory.