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Stuffed inside every spare inch in the Old Courthouse Museum, behind this wooden door, and under these sheets, you will find thousands of hidden treasures.
They each tell a story about the history-makers who helped shape Sioux Falls into the city it is today.
"You get to find out the stories, not only of the stuff but the people who used them and how they used them and that's what's really fun," Siouxland Heritage Museums Director William Hoskins said.
Just two percent of the artifacts in the museum are on display at a time -- and every day, historians continue to catalog the collection which already reaches beyond 89,000 items.
From old TV’s to antique cash registers, Curator of Collections Julie Breu shows us some of the most notable items rarely seen by the public.
Her favorite is a dress, made 115 years ago of cloth printed by the Argus Leader.
"We have an advertisement for an oil heater," Breu said.
There’s a toy cannon that was made in Sioux Falls during WWI by a local toy company. And the target? A wooden cutout of Keiser Wilhelm II.
"It says N.O Fawick Company, Sioux Falls SD. The Yankee Boy Cannon. It's very neat," Breu said.
And while many artifacts in the collection are historical, others are just downright bizarre.
There is a hairball that was found in the stomach of a cow slaughtered at Morrell's. It was given to the museum in the 1990’s.
"It maybe weighs about a pound or two but it is perfectly felted and we have several of them in the collection," Breu said.
And carefully tucked away and cataloged in the museum's attic and basement, are thousands more of unique and important artifacts containing the history of the area.
While some may not think archiving things like this for future generations is important, the workers and volunteers at the museum make it their life's work. Some say the historians live in the past, but they've got their eye on the future, preserving artifacts for generations to come.
"Sometimes those artifacts are the only connection between us and the past," Hoskins said.
"Objects trigger memory and help us connect to the past. Everything has a story connected to it and we are essentially the story tellers," Breu said.
An inside look at artifacts sharing the history of Sioux Falls.
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