Road trip to Moorhead: Strange wonders abound in Treasure City

NINA MOINI: It's time now to kick off a special series we'll be sharing with you on Minnesota Now. Last week, our team did a live show at the new public library in Moorhead. And to get there, we took scenic highway 10 from St. Paul to learn more about our state from the road. The show from Moorhead will air Thursday, but leading up to it, every day on the program, we'll air audio postcards from the stops we made along the way. Today, we head to a place that promises to have something for everyone.

JENNIFER JANSKY: Well, we have alligator heads. We have sharks in a bottle. We also have fish flops.

NINA MOINI: Just an hour and a half North of the Twin Cities, tucked between St. Cloud and Brainerd, Treasure City is a gift shop unlike many others. Treasure City's Jennifer Jansky gave us a special tour.

JENNIFER JANSKY: It's like the knick knacky version of the world's largest candy store down in Jordan, Minnesota.

NINA MOINI: Sure.

JENNIFER JANSKY: But this is the knick knacky version, which is exactly what it is.

NINA MOINI: Tell me about just how long this place has been around. Because I understand you took over from your father-in-law.

JENNIFER JANSKY: I'm running it for him. So it was built in '62 and it opened in April of '63. He acquired it in '77. He was a builder, and he wanted the property behind. And the only way they'd sell it to him was if he bought the building too, the Treasure City. So he bought it. And it's been really good for him. It was his thing. He got it up and running and quite the entrepreneur and got it going. He long since sold that, but he's been running it ever since, up until about a year and a half ago. And then I started running it for him.

NINA MOINI: That's so fun because it was sort of unplanned then, but then it became the part of the whole deal that outlasted everything else.

JENNIFER JANSKY: Yep.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. How did he or do you decide what things to zoom in on? Because got a lot of Minnetonka, moccasins, and you've got certain things.

JENNIFER JANSKY: We have a lot of apparel now this year, too. Well, we have all along, but we added more Minnesota apparel along with our Treasure City apparel. Customers? What customers ask for, a lot of it, I'll pay attention to what they're looking for. And we'll try to get it in. But you got to keep the nostalgia too.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

JENNIFER JANSKY: So like the finger traps and the stink bombs and all the fun stuff too.

NINA MOINI: What about these mystery boxes? I saw you packing some up. They're wrapped in a white gift wrap.

JENNIFER JANSKY: Butcher paper. Yeah.

NINA MOINI: OK. Yeah. And there's a whole bin of them.

JENNIFER JANSKY: Yep. So we have a women's bin and a men's bin. And then they have age groups that's circled. So child, youth, teen, and adult. And then we'll have the price on it. I mean, they're from $2.99 up to $29.99. And they sell like crazy. Like I filled it three times yesterday.

NINA MOINI: You don't have to say it's them. But how do you choose?

JENNIFER JANSKY: I will tell you, it's nothing that's in the store. It's stuff bought--

NINA MOINI: Whoa! That's hard to imagine with how much is in the store, I have to tell you. Yeah. Like what are some of your big sellers? Maybe you could take us to them.

JENNIFER JANSKY: Our knife section.

NINA MOINI: Oh, let's see.

JENNIFER JANSKY: Well, it's just right here.

NINA MOINI: OK.

JENNIFER JANSKY: T-shirts, sweatshirts. Sweatshirts have been huge this year, and I'm sure it's because of the warm, the cool, the warm, the cool. People aren't knowing what to pack.

NINA MOINI: Right.

JENNIFER JANSKY: Yeah, this whole section would be that.

NINA MOINI: OK. Got a lot of loons. Obviously, have to.

JENNIFER JANSKY: Loons sell like crazy too. Now, remember, we just started picking up this year. So Memorial weekend is our first big weekend. And now it will stay busy the rest of the summer. It'll be insane.

NINA MOINI: Wow. OK. So this is like the beginning of the season for you.

JENNIFER JANSKY: This is the beginning of the season. Yep. Yep. Moccasins sell all stuffed animals with anything. And dragons.

NINA MOINI: Can we see the dragons?

JENNIFER JANSKY: Let's go see the dragons.

NINA MOINI: How do you describe what they look like? They're metallic painted or--

JENNIFER JANSKY: Yeah, they're are many different colors. We have incense burners. We have backflow burners. We have dragon lamps. Those are really cool. We also have LED lamps. These are the cordless plug-in lamps.

NINA MOINI: Wow. Wht dragons? Can I ask?

JENNIFER JANSKY: I don't know why dragons are such a big thing, but it's what the customers want, so it's what I give them.

NINA MOINI: Great. Keep dragging them in here.

JENNIFER JANSKY: OK. I like it. That was good.

NINA MOINI: Stop. It's the beginning of the trip, the jokes are going to get worse.

JENNIFER JANSKY: And then we have our garden center.

NINA MOINI: Oh, look at this little animal. That's so fun. It's a little monkey taking a selfie.

JENNIFER JANSKY: Yep. We have a Bigfoot section, an eagle section. I mean, we have it all.

NINA MOINI: Totally. That was Jennifer Jansky, who runs the gift shop, Treasure City, in Royalton. We'll with more stories from the road for you each day this week. and we'll play the recording from our live show in Moorhead for you on Thursday.