Three Orphan's Saloon
North Dakota was admitted to the union in 1889 as a dry state, meaning the sale of alcohol was strictly prohibited. For thirsty Fargo, North Dakota customers, this news was not welcome, as it forced their saloons to close their doors. Luckily for them, Moorhead, Minnesota, in Clay County, was very much still a wet county and would eventually have nearly 50 saloons to offer drinks to the residents of Fargo and Moorhead, as well as the surrounding areas. One of those bars was named the Three Orphan’s Saloon. Sitting right over the river, at 96 1st Ave N in Moorhead, it was the first bar on the left Fargoans came upon as they crossed the Red River. Higgins, Aske, and Co. purchased the bar from its previous owner Billy Diemert in 1905. There was a third partner, a silent partner, by the name of Thomas H. Curran, who was a former member of law enforcement and decided to keep his ownership a quiet affair.The bar was a popular stop for Fargoans and Moorheadites alike until Clay County became a dry county in 1915. The saloon was acquired in 1934 by Ben Thorvik, formerly of the Rex Cafe, and Amund Thorson, who worked as a bar tender when it was a saloon and ran a cigar shop there during prohibition. Three Orphan's Saloon then became known as the Silver Moon Cafe. Thorvik would be arrested 3 times between 1934 and 1936 for various alcohol related offenses and Thorson was also arrested several times as well. Although Prohibition was repealed in 1933, it was only for the sale of beer and not for intoxicating liquor. That repeal would come later. While the building is no longer standing, the banks of the Red River provide the landscape upon which it once stood. Near where the Hjemkomst Center sits today, the Three Orphan’s Saloon was built on stilts on the riverbed in order to be as close to Fargo as possible. Because it was built out over the river, patrons and workers would often toss empty bottles, glasses, and garbage over the railing into the river. During low tides people have often found artifacts from this once popular watering hole, including intact jugs with the bar name still evident. The site is now a protected archaeological site.To find out more information on crime and bootlegging at the Three Orphans and in Moorhead, you may proceed to points two and six. Sources:Moorhead Daily News. April 7, 1934. Moorhead Police Records. Moorhead, Clay County, Minnesota. Feb. 1934. Retrieved from: Minnesota Historical Society. Moorhead Police Records. Moorhead, Clay County, Minnesota. Oct. 1935. Retrieved from: Minnesota Historical Society. Moorhead Police Records. Moorhead, Clay County, Minnesota. Sept. 1936. Retrieved from: Minnesota Historical Society. Red Wing Collectors Society, Inc. “The Three Orphan’s Saloon.” Red Wing Collectors Society, Inc., Newsletter. 2006. Accessed October 15, 2016. http://www.redwingcollectors.org/images/stories/Newsletters/october2006.pdf
Random Crimes
Moorhead had an abundance of crimes back in the day. Crimes that included liquor of course. Just to name some with a famous name are as follows. Clarence Gillette, of First Avenue, South Moorhead, was arrested by officer Swanson. He was charged with being drunk and bootlegging. He had four pints of homemade whiskey that were found in his possession. In his home was a still for making whiskey. The still he had made himself was out of a cream can to which he attached a copper to be used as a condenser. The alcohol he made was from molasses and rye, was as strong as the old original 188 proof alcohol that the old saloons sold. Gillette was a distant relative of the safety razor inventor Gillette.[1] Another interesting story found in the Moorhead Daily News was one of Moorhead’s most prominent blindpigger’s, Amund Thoreson, the owner of the old Three Orphan’s Saloon, was held at the district court on sale of intoxicating liquor. His bond was fixed at $500 on each of his charges.[2]For more information on the Three Orphan's Saloon and other related crimes, feel free to visit sites one and six.Sources:"Got Drunk and Then Created a Disturbance," The Country Press (Moorhead), March Friday, 1921. "Moorhead Daily News," 12 Arrests Results of Booze Raids (Moorhead), January Tuesday, 1925. Photo courtesy of the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County.
The Point
“This sharp bend in the river was Moorhead’s original residential district. In the 1870s, Moorhead’s early elite built substantial homes on the high ground in the center of the Point. Working class families occupied modest homes on the wooded flood plain nearby. As the 1870s drew to a close, most of the wealthy residents had moved to more fashionable (and drier) areas of the city.Victimized by repeated spring flooding, the homes fell into disrepair and vacancy. In 1971, homes on the point were leveled in an urban renewal project. The point remained vacant until the Hjemkomst Center was built on the site in 1986. Today the Areas are maintained as Viking Ship Park. However, scattered fire hydrants and trees that once Lined Elm Street and 3rd Avenue remain to remind us of the Point’s residential past.”For more information on one of the residents that moved, visit sites 25 amd 26. Source:“Moorhead River Corridor Study.” http://www.cityofmoorhead.com/home/showdocument?id=1890 April 9, 2013. (Accessed 11/1/16).
Hopperstad Stave Church Replica
This stave church replica is a copy of the Hopperstad Stave Church in Vik, Norway, that was built around the year 1140 A.D., which is still standing today. This church was built in 1997 by Guy Paulson, a research scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Fargo, North Dakota, who had a passion for woodcarving. He decided to take an early retirement in order to build this replica to pay homage to his faith and heritage, as his family was from Norway. The church structure took about a year to complete, but all the carvings took until 2001 to finish. Stave churches get their name from stavs, pillars that are part of the main structure of the church. A stav in Norwegian is any vertical, upright piece of wood. Stave churches combine traditional Norse wooden structures and a medieval basilca style church. Even though it is made of wood, it has all the elements of a Catholic church built in Italy or France from the same period. Construction of stave churches slowed after the twelfth century and none have been built since the Reformation came to Norway in 1535. Today, there are 28 stave churches left in the world and they are all in Norway. The Danish and the Swedish also built stave churches, but due to their tendency to either burn down or rot, the churches do not last long. While the Norwegians kept going with wooden churches, building them on stone platforms, the Danes and the Swedes switched to building their churches out of stone. Sources:Hopperstad Stave Church Replica Tour.
Robert Asp and the Hjemkomst Viking Ship
Robert Asp was born on February 13, 1923, in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, to Charles Asp, a Swedish immigrant, and Inga Iverson Asp, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants. Asp married Violet Rose Foldoe on June 2, 1946 and they had seven children together, Douglas, Roger, Marjorie, Vicki, Thomas, Deborah, and Gregory. He made his career working as an educator and school guidance counselor. It was when he was serving as the school guidance counselor of Moorhead Junior High School that he began to dream up the idea of building a viking ship and sailing to Norway. While attempting to earn extra money and helping out a neighbor in 1971, Asp fell from broken scaffolding and broke his leg. While he was recuperating, his brother Bjarne brought him books on ship building and on the vikings. From then on the idea that he should build a ship would not let go and he began to build his dream.Asp began planning. He chose the Gokstad Ship in Norway, which is a burial ship dating from around 800 A.D., as his inspiration. Since he still had work as a guidance counselor, he worked mainly in the summer, doing all the tree logging and making friends with sawmill workers who would plane the trees for him. At first he thought it would only take 15 trees to make the ship. He ended up using over 100. Asp needed to find a place to put all that lumber to use and ended up using an old potato warehouse in Hawley, Minnesota, as his construction site. It was rented to him for $10 per year. In 1973, two years after his dream was conceived, Robert Asp brought all his gathered wood to the newly christened Hawley Shipyard and began construction.Tragedy came to the Asp family in 1974, when it was discovered that Robert Asp had leukemia. While he fought the cancer he continued to work on his ship, often with the help of friends and family. At first he received little attention or help from the community but soon the ship building site became a tourist attraction and fundraising efforts soon followed. Asp juggled trips to the twin cities for radiation therapy, his work at the school, and his dream building for six years until July 17th, 1980, when the front of the Hawley Shipyard was demolished to allow the ship to be pulled out by semi. The christening of the ship occurred in Hawley and was done so by Hannah Foldoe, Asp's mother-in-law and a Scandinavian immigrant. The ship was named Hjemkomst (YEM-komst), which means "homecoming" in Norwegian and signified Asp's dream to return to the land of his ancestors.The ship was ready but was landlocked. The Atlantic Ocean, separating the United States from Norway, lies roughly 1500 miles from Hawley, Minnesota. However, Duluth, Minnesota and Lake Superior, with their way out to sea, was only a 4 hour drive from there. The ship, its captain, his family, and volunteers traveled overnight to get the ship to Duluth. On August 7th the ship was launched in Lake Superior and made a short maiden voyage around Lake Superior. The rest of the summer and into the fall, adjustments were made on the ship to help make it seaworthy. In October, Asp slipped on the deck and broke his leg. He never fully recovered from that, and, coupled with complications from leukemia, Robert Asp passed away on December 27th, 1980.The Hjemkomst and Asp's story does not end there. It was decided that the ship would still sail to Norway, in Asp's memory, in order to fulfill his dream. The year of 1981 saw preperations for the journey, including training in a crew and bringing in an experienced sailor from Norway who would serve as the Hjemkomst's captain, Erik Rudstrom. Finally, in May of 1982, the ship began its journey, starting with a sailing across Lake Superior, reportedly the toughest part of the journey. Aboard the ship and part of its crew were four of Robert Asp's children, sons Roger, Doug, and Tom, and daughter Deb. The full crew of 13 arrived in New York on June 8, 1982. Then they continued on their journey. The Hjemkomst ran into a tropical storm about 500 miles off the coast of New York three days after setting sail and suffered a crack in the hull. It was able to be blocked and the decision was made to carry on, as it would be twice as difficult to head back to New York.Robert Asp's dream was fulfilled on Saturday, July 17th, 1982, when the Hjemkomst reached the shores of Bergen, Norway. However, the crew would have to wait until Monday to land the ship, as most Norwegians were on their weekend holiday. On July 19th, the Hjemkomst docked at Bergen to crowds of people, including King Harald of Norway, friends and family from the Red River Valley, and thousands of Norwegian citizens. It then made its way to Oslo, Norway, where it completed its journey.Today, the Hjemkomst is housed at the Hjemkomst Center, built specifically to shelter the ship. It is a reminder of the powerful human spirit and a testament to one man's dream.Sources:1940 United States Federal Census. Charles O. Asp. Grand Plain Township, Marshall County, Minnesota. May 2, 1940. Retrieved from: http://interactive.ancestrylibrary.com/2442/m-t0627-01936-00446?pid=96893950&backurl=//search.ancestrylibrary.com//cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv%3D1%26db%3D1940usfedcen%26h%3D96893950%26tid%3D%26pid%3D%26usePUB%3Dtrue%26usePUBJs%3Dtrue%26rhSource%3D60901&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true Asp, Robert. A Dream Is a Dream-- Until It Becomes a Reality : Viking Shipbuilder. Fargo, North Dakota: V. Rose Asp, 1981. Dittmer, Lori. “Hawley, Home of the Hjemkomst.” 2011. Accessed October 23, 2016. http://www.hawley.govoffice.com/index.asp?SEC=233CF720-CA4A-49C2-8F9B-B1C52E62087C. “Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County.” 2016. Accessed October 23, 2016. http://www.hcscconline.org/current-exhibits/hjemkomst-viking-ship/. U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1937-2007. Robert Louis Asp, 25 September 1976. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Retrieved from: http://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&db=Numident&h=38429853&tid=&pid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&rhSource=6224Images Credits:Robert Asp. Retrieved from: https://hostfest.com/about/news/sahf-announces-2015-honorees/ Johnson, Kaci. Hjemkomst Ship. October 2016.
Crime and Bootlegging
Discovery of a whiskey ring in Minnesota with bootleggers, moonshiners and organized crime. Bootleggers were people who sold alcohol in small amounts, either in small bottles in the pockets of their jackets, or maybe in their boots like the name suggests. Moonshiners made illegal hard liquor, which was very dangerous and illegal, as it is today. Clay County was not exempt from the market of Canadian and moonshine whiskey. The arrest of Charley Shumacher in Moorhead for having 500 quarts of Canadian and American whiskey in his possession was dismissed from his charge. He told a juror that whiskey runners came to him and he traded a brand new automobile for 500 quarts of liquor. As they went away with the car, he later got arrested as officers took possession of the liquor.[1] Charley Shumacher got into trouble a year earlier as well when agents did a search of his resident and found a 290 quart of bottles of Canadian whiskey concealed under his bedroom floor that was valued then at $4.35. Shumacher was arrested and taken in before a United States commissioner at Fergus Falls and his case would come up for trial at the term of the U.S. circuit court in the fall of 1921. Mr. Darbey and his agents raided another place, a popular hotel and three quarts of booze was found and the man was arrested. Mr. Haugen of the European hotel in Moorhead and Mr. Magnuson the owner of the Rex was also arrested. [2]For more information on crimes in Moorhead, visit site two and ten.Sources:"The Country Press," The Country Press (Moorhead), August Friday, 1922, 11. "Arrested for Bootlegging?," The Country Press (Moorhead), August Friday, 13. Photo from the Moorhead Police Records, 1921, Historical and Cultural Society, Moorhead, Minnesota.
The Moorhead Brewery
In 1875, brothers George and Joseph Larkin of Winnipeg built a brewery near the site of today’s tennis courts in Moorhead’s Riverfront Park. After an unsuccessful business effort, the Larkin brother’s ale-making business was foreclosed and subsequently bought by a popular Moorhead Swedish immigrant John Erickson, who also happened to be a local politician, hotel and business magnate. Erickson the brew in his local saloons, and also shipped kegs and bottles of the suds up and down the Northern Pacific Railway line. According to the publication Land of Amber Waters: The History of Brewing in Minnesota, Erickson was “mayor of Moorhead from 1886 through 1889” and under his direction, the Moorhead brewery “grew from 279 barrels in 1878 to 1,835 in 1882. Erickson and his brew master, Fred Wachsmuth, took advantage of a small number of breweries to their west. Erickson’s newspaper ads in 1882 announced that they would ship to any point on the Northern Pacific line.”While the brewery initially did well, Erickson soon experienced “frequent” brew master “turnover” (Wachsmuth committed suicide after being fired by Erickson) accompanied by deep financial troubles, and eventually Erickson was evicted and the property was again foreclosed by the First National Bank of Moorhead in 1895. The brewery lay vacant for several years, until Ole Aslesen bought the brewery in August of 1897 and continued the operation until it burned to the ground in 1901, and Aslesen’s insurance losses prevented the brewery from being rebuilt.Sources:Hoverson, Doug. 2007. Land of amber waters the history of brewing in Minnesota. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. “Moorhead Brewery.” Clay County Historical Society Newsletter. January-February 1992. “Moorhead River Corridor Study.” http://www.cityofmoorhead.com/home/showdocument?id=1890 April 9, 2013. (Accessed 11/1/16). Peihl, Mark. “Moorhead’s Brewery Colorful Chapter in History.” Clay County Historical Society Newsletter 2016. “Randolph, The Homebrewer.” www.probstfieldfarm.org “Booster Publication.” From the HCSCC Collection. (Accessed 11/2/16).
O.E. Flaten
The Flaten family is from Norway. O.E. Flaten was born November 6, 1854 in Vanders Norway. He came to America at the age of seventeen. at the urging of his uncle, Ole Boe, who sent him $45 for his passage over the Atlantic. After five long weeks at sea, Flaten arrived in Quebec, Canada. From Quebec he traveled by water and stagecoach, to Northfield, Minnesota. Flaten stayed there for six years, working for the photographer John Grayton during the summer and farmers in the winter. In 1878, he moved to Minneapolis to work with another photographer, John Olson, who paid for Flaten’s move to Moorhead a year later in 1879.O.E. FlatenFlaten’s first studio was located on the southeast corner of First Avenue and Fourth Street South in Moorhead. About seven months after his arrival in Moorhead Flaten begun a business deal with Jacob Skrivseth to buy out Olson’s interest in the studio. They dissolved the partnership in 1881 and Flaten went into business on his own.[1] In 1884 he went into business with Ralph DeCamp and they were hired by the North Pacific Railroad to publicize their attractions. Flaten has taken over 1,500 photographs of Yellowstone National Parks on that trip.[2] His work as a photographer in Moorhead has captured Moorhead’s development from a settlement into an established city and documented several important events in the life of Moorhead and Fargo as well, from town fires, to massive floods, and changing infrastructure.In 1880 Flatten married Ann Skrivseth, a sister to his former business partner, Jacob. They had two children, Elmer and Mamie. Ann died in 1884 and Flaten remarried in 1885 to Clara Schow. They had five children, Oscar, Dora, Clara, Arthur, and Gilbert. Flaten died in February of 1933, due to an extended illness heart disease in Moorhead at the age of 78.[3] He continued his photography business until he retired in 1930.Soucres:Diary, Box 1, Folder 6, The Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County, Moorhead Minnesota. Mark Peihl, "Flaten Photographs First National Park," Clay County Historical Society, July 1992, ,accessed October 24, 2016. Mark Peihl, "Flaten Photographs First National Park," Clay County Historical Society, July 1992, accessed October 24, 2016. Photo from Flaten's own works, Diary, Box 1, The Historical and Cultural Society of CLay County, Moorhead Minnesota.
Moorhead's First County Courthouse
Moorhead has had an interesting evolution of courthouses. As the county seat, the courthouse needed to serve the wider needs of Clay County. Its first incarnation was built at the intersection of 5th Street and 1st Avenue North in 1872. The building was sold in 1878. Today the site of the first courthouse is located where the Moorhead Center Mall sits. The site was marked by a fountain until 2013, when a carpeted lounge was put in its place. For more information on the courthouse history of Moorhead, visit sites 30, 34, and 35.Sources:“History of Clay County.” 2010. Accessed October 15, 2016. http://claycountymn.gov/260/History-of-Clay-County Peihl, Mark. “County Seat Fight a Bitter Battle.” Clay County Historical Society Newsletter, 2001.Photo Credits:A Century Together: A History of Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota. Fargo, North Dakota: The Fargo-Moorhead Centennial Cooperation, 1975. 160.
Jake Schumaker
Jake Schumaker will be given a preliminary hearing for being in charge of selling liquor to a youth who had told police in court that he been had given the beverage to two Fargo minors a few days prior. Schumaker was arrested by police and then taken before Judge E.U. Wade. The youth was 16 years old would also be arraigned in police court. Fargo Police found one of the minors who was 15 years old around the back of a Broadway hotel, dizzy from the effects of the liquor. The Fargo minor was held on an intoxication charge, the Moorhead youth was arrested. Jake Schumaker faced serious charges since selling liquor to a minor was a penitentiary offense.[1]Prohibition agents agreed on what might have been the biggest U.S.-Canadian liquor smuggling conspiracy that was uncovered up north in recent years. Jake Schumaker was held in the city jail on a federal warrant, that was issued after an indictment by a grand jury in St. Paul. He was arrested by Moorhead Police. Schumaker would be taken to Fergus Falls to answer charges of conspiracy to smuggling liquor into the U.S. from Canada.[2]For other crimes, visit site six. Sources:"Moorhead Daily News." Held Schumaker for Selling Liquor; Boy Resells Intoxicant (Moorhead), February Wednesday, 1930. "Moorhead Daily News." Jake Schumaker Arrested Here on Federal Warrant (Moorhead), January Wednesday, 1931. Photo courtesy of the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County
Rev. Oscar H. Elmer: Moorhead “Pioneer Preacher” and Early Presbyterianism in the Red River Valley, 1871-1886
Oscar Henry Elmer was born on August 27, 1844 at Unionville, New York to Henry DeLancy and Julia Ann (DeKay), the second born son of twelve children. Oscar’s father was a harness maker and merchant in Unionville for many years. Elmer began his early education at Unionville Academy (New York) and Mt. Retirement Seminary (New Jersey), and then entered the then Presbyterian-affiliated Hamilton College in Clinton, New York as a sophomore in September of 1862. According to one record, Elmer had entered college with the intention of studying law, however after he “became impressed with the feeling that is was his duty to enter the ministry” entered Union Theological Seminary in New York City after graduating from Hamilton College in 1865.Immediately upon graduating from the then Presbyterian Union Theological Seminary in the spring of 1868, Elmer was appointed to a missionary position in Sauk Centre, Minnesota by the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, and stayed in Sauk Centre for three years until his arrival to Moorhead, Minnesota in October, 1871. Elmer’s arrival in the Red River Valley signaled the arrival of religion as a permanent social institution in the region. Prior to 1871, only a handful of failed missionary attempts had been conducted in the area. The first official church service of record in Moorhead was conducted on October 22, 1871, in the dining room of the Chapin House. At this time there were about “twenty shanties and tents” in the developing village. Of the four original buildings in Moorhead, Elmer’s home was one. Until June of 1872, when a “rough” chapel was built for approximately eight members, services were conducted by Elmer in railroad coaches, unfinished buildings and warehouses. Also in 1872, Elmer helped to develop the first school at the Moorhead Presbyterian Church, which is now near Fifth Street North, on a site which is now in front of Moorhead City Hall. Elmer was also active in land speculation, farming and timber claims, investing several hundred dollars in Moorhead Merchants Bank from profits received from his operations in Clay County in 1873. At the time of the formation of the Moorhead Presbyterian Church, Rev. Elmer helped to establish other Presbyterian church communities in the area. Throughout the Red River Valley, Elmer was seen traveling “up and down the valley in a homemade cutter” conducting missionary work for the Presbyterian Church. Elmer held pioneering church services and helped in developing churches at Grand Forks, Casselton, Wheatland, Tower City, and Mapleton. In addition to this, Elmer founded the Prairie Home Cemetery in 1875 in Moorhead after his brother and pioneering lawyer John Edgar had drowned in the Red River, apparently committing suicide due to suffering from “nervous difficulty.” John Elmer's body could not be shipped back East at that time and Rev. Elmer buried John Edgar in a make-shift grave. The following spring, Rev. Elmer organized a cemetery association entitled the Prairie Home Cemetery. John Elmer's body was then relocated to Prairie Home and buried as the first occupant in 1876.On May 2nd, 1878 Oscar Elmer married Caroline Knight at Monroe, New York. The couple bore five children. Caroline, or Carrie, was very involved in the Presbyterian Ladies Missionary Society throughout her life, sharing in her husband’s passion for Christian missionary work for over 25 years in Minnesota. In addition, the Elmer’s were instrumental in forming the first Moorhead hospital in 1882, located on what is now the corner of Eleventh and Center Avenue, with Elmer a Board Member and Secretary of the Hospital Association of Moorhead. Their home was located at 221 5th Street, Moorhead and has since become the present location of The Colonial apartment complex. In addition to involvement with the Hospital Association, Elmer was a staunch advocate for prohibition and battled Moorhead liquor establishments, crusaded for temperance causes such as the WCTU of Moorhead and supported political candidates who favored prohibition. According to historian Carroll Engelhardt, Elmer’s efforts to establish foundations for moral order in Moorhead for the middle-class, created an “ethos” that “permeated most social institutions and reform movements.” Elmer was instrumental in forming the Moorhead Good Templar Lodge in 1878 and Moorhead’s Reform Club to combat or provide an alternative to liquor establishments in support of prohibition efforts in Moorhead.In 1886, Rev. Elmer and his family relocated to Crookston, Minnesota where he was to stay until 1893, taking over the congregations of Knox and Warrendale in St. Paul, Minnesota. Apparently his public motivation stated for leaving Moorhead was that he wanted to be able to “educate his children” properly. While at St. Paul, Elmer also assisted nearby Presbyterian congregations at Hamline and Como. Elmer retired from full-time ministry in 1901 and remained active in the Presbyterian Church. Sadly, Caroline died on May 19th, 1904 during a “failed operation” and Oscar Elmer died only three months later, suffering a second paralytic stroke on August 15th, 1904.For more information on the Elmer family, please feel free to visit site 25.Sources“Aged Pastor Victim of Paralytic Stroke.” The Saint Paul Globe. (St. Paul, MN), August 17, 1904.Alden, Ogle & Company. 1889. Illustrated Album of Biography of the Famous Valley of the Red River of the North and the Park Regions of Minnesota and North Dakota: Containing Biographical Sketches of Settlers and Representative Citizens. Chicago: Alden, Ogle & Co.“Autonomy of Hamilton College.” The New York Times. (New York, NY), December 12, 1893.Lounsberry, Clement A. 1919. Early history of North Dakota essential outlines of American history. Washington, D.C.: Liberty Press. Engelhardt, Carroll L. 2007. Gateway to the Northern Plains: Railroads and the Birth of Fargo and Moorhead. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=328391.Fargo-Moorhead Centennial Corporation. 1975. A Century Together: A History of Fargo, North Dakota, and Moorhead, Minnesota. [Fargo]: Fargo-Moorhead Centennial Corporation.“Hamline.” The Minneapolis Journal. (Minneapolis, MN), June 21, 1904.Keillor, Garrison, and Ken LaZebnik. 2006. A prairie home companion: the screenplay. New York: Penguin. http://books.google.com/books?id=B-lkAAAAMAAJ.Morrison, Leonard Allison. 1893. The history of the Alison, or Allison family in Europe and America, A.D. 1135 to 1893; giving an account of the family in Scotland, England, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the United States. Boston, Mass: Damrell & Upham.Oscar H. Elmer Papers, MS 245. Institute for Regional Studies, North Dakota State University, Fargo.Tompkins, Hamilton Bullock. 1877. Biographical Record of the Class of 1865, of Hamilton College. New York: Printed for the class."United States Census, 1860", database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MC4G-Q7P: 30 December 2015), Oscar Elmer in entry for Henry D Elmer, 1860.“Wife of Minister Dies.” The Minneapolis Journal. (Minneapolis, MN), May 19, 1904.Image Credits“Oscar Elmer home, 221 5th Street S., Moorhead, Minn.” NDSU Digital Horizons. rs008069. North Dakota State University (Fargo, ND), (Accessed 10/22/16).“Carrie Knight Elmer.” Rootsweb.Ancestry.com http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~knight57/direct/knight/images/88df00.jpg (Accessed 10/22/16). (Public Domain). Lounsberry, Clement A. 1919. Early History of North Dakota: Essential Outlines of American History. Washington, D.C.: Liberty Press. p. 619."The Colonial Apartments, 221 5th Street S., Moorhead, Mn." https://www.google.com/maps/@46.8717294,-96.7724772,3a,76.1y,340.28h,60.75t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sXHNVoGNZhG-zuz5mqLIx5A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1 (Accessed 10/22/16).
Federal Post Office
The Federal Post Office Building in Moorhead, Minnesota, was built in 1915 to serve as both the federal courthouse and the post office. The building architect was Oscar Wenderoth, who was a government architect who designed several federal courthouse buildings across the country during his active years, mostly between the years of 1910-1915. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 during a county wide assessment of Clay County, Minnesota for buildings of historical significance. The Federal Post Office was selected due to being an example of a government designed building built for federal purposes and its successful transition from federal building into the Plains Art Museum in 1966. Because of urban renewal in the 1970’s, it is one of the few tangible reminders of Moorhead’s architectural past. Today, it serves as the Rourke Art Museum.Oscar Wenderoth, the architect who designed the Federal Post Office Building, began his career as draftsman at the architect firm of Theophilius Parson Chandler and eventually made his way as an architect for the government. He designed several other federal buildings and post offices in California and Washington during his time as Supervising Architect of Treasury, a position he was appointed to by President Taft in 1912. Wenderoth left that position after just three years, under mysterious circumstances that were never disclosed to the public. He went blind in 1920 and died in 1938.Sources:Michelson, Alan. “Oscar Wenderoth.” 2005. Accessed October 15, 2016. http://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/1530/ The New York Times. OSCAR WENDEROTH QUITS.; Resignation of Supervising Architect of Treasury Made a Mystery. April 11, 1915. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9502E6DD153BE233A25752C1A9629C946496D6CF United States Department of Interior, National Park Service. "Minnesota Historic Properties Inventory Form-Federal Post Office Building." http://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp/GetAsset?assetID=76f1efe3-dbfa-48f3-a5ab-2f0a82a23cfa. 1980.Image Credit:Harvey, Thomas. Federal Post Office Building. August 1979. Retrieved from: http://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp/GetAsset?assetID=76f1efe3-dbfa-48f3-a5ab-2f0a82a23cfa.
Carnegie Library and Urban Renewal
Of the many historic buildings torn down during the urban renewal process, one that stands out is the Carnegie Moorhead Public Library. The library was a one story Classical revival style building that was built in part to the Women’s Club of Moorhead, who persuaded the City Council in 1904 to establish a library fund and obtained a $12,000 donation from Andrew Carnegie for construction of the library.[1] Carnegie’s objective was philanthropic, hoping that “free public libraries would allow persons of limited income and educational opportunity to improve themselves intellectually as he himself had done”.[2]Planning for the library started around 1903, when Sarah Comstock in her local Women's Club of Moorhead with the help of an attorney George E Perley acquired a Carnegie grant of $10,000 to build a library in Moorhead. The only requirement was that the city had to make available a site and maintain the library after construction was finished. Moorhead used a Fargo architect, M.E. Beebe, and built a compact classical revival structure with a pediment entry and a central dome. The building had great dignity and architectural quality at the time of its demolition in the late 1960s. In 1961, Moorhead built a new public library on a different site, while in May of 1963, the Carnegie building was demolished and is now a parking lot.Services offered by the Moorhead Public Library early in its history eventually formed the Clay County library, which became the Lake Agassiz Regional Library in 1961. Mrs. Comstock thought that a public library was vital for the education of Moorhead. The Clay County Library was formally introduced in 1949 after many years of extension service provided by the Moorhead Public Library. The Carnegie Library, also known as the Moorhead Public Library, opened in 1906 on the corner of Sixth Street and Main Ave.The site of the urban renewal was the second oldest residential area in the city. Many buildings in the flood plain were deteriorating and the destruction of downtown was justified, thinking that a major redevelopment was needed to modernize the city. The city administration during this time were sensitive to the problems of growth and development in the downtown area and pushed hard for redevelopment, but Moorhead never did catch up to Fargo in their downtown boom.[3]To find out about Sarah Comstock's Moorhead home, visit site 26.Sources:Terry Shoptaugh, Images of America Moorhead (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2004). Downtown Moorhead Urban Renweal Area, 1969, Box 1, Folder 5, Historical and Cultral Society of Clay County, Moorhead Minnesota. Downtown Moorhead Urban Renweal Area, 1969, Box 1, Folder 5, Historical and Cultral Society of Clay County, Moorhead Minnesota. Savageau, Kate, Urban Renewal In Moorhead. Summer (2016): 9. Photo courtesy of Mark Peihl and the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County
The Moorhead Weekly News & George Nathan Lamphere, 1883-1900
“…a newspaper is a paper printed regularly with an established place of business and real bona fide subscribers, men who pay their subscriptions in money or its equivalent; that it should contain news of various classes: local, telegraphic, and editorial, both local and ‘of the heavy sort,’ and that it should have local and foreign advertisements.”—G.N. Lamphere, Definition of a Newspaper, Annual Meeting of the Minnesota State Editorial Association, 1893 George N. Lamphere was born in Mystic, Connecticut on August 23, 1845, to David and Mary Ann Lamphere. Lamphere received a “common education” until at the age of sixteen when after a short-lived effort at farming near Groton, he began an apprenticeship with his uncle, James M. Scofield, owner and publisher of the Hartford Morning Post newspaper in Hartford, Connecticut. His early newspaper training was interrupted however with the beginning of the Civil War, where Lamphere enlisted in the Union Army and the 16th Regiment of the Connecticut Volunteers. Lamphere was only sixteen years old at the time of his enlistment on July 19, 1862, and his war experience as a teenager is enough to write a novel. In fact, Lamphere, in later life, would do just that. Much of his autobiography, Experiences, and Observances of a Private Soldier in the Civil War relates to his experience with Company ‘B’ of the 16th Connecticut Volunteers and capture on April 20th, 1864 while engaged with Confederate forces at the Battle of Plymouth, North Carolina. For almost a month after his capture, Lamphere struggled with an infection in his left arm from a battle wound at the Libby Prison Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, until it prison hospital surgeons amputated it on May 22nd, 1864. After being relocated to the Columbia Prisoner of War Camp in South Carolina, the Confederate Armey paroled Lamphere on December 16th, 1864 as part of a prisoner exchange. Lamphere mustered out of military service with honors on June 24, 1865, at Baltimore, Maryland.According to the NDSU Institute for Regional Studies & University Archives, after military service Lamphere “went to Washington where he was appointed a shipping clerk. He later was a Clerk Class I, in the office of the Quartermaster General and then in the Census Office. He took part in the first Civil Service exam, becoming a clerk in the Treasury Department and eventually Chief of the Appointments Division there, despite a campaign by the Order of the American Union against him because his wife was Catholic. During this time, he was also a correspondent for several papers.” Also, while in Washington, Lamphere published The United States Government: Its Organization and Practical Workings in 1880, which was very successful and is still in publication as of 2016.In 1882 Lamphere came to Moorhead, Minnesota with his wife, Sarah Cecelia (Jones) and growing family of eleven children. Their family home lists in the 1891 Moorhead City Directory at “E S 7th 2 s of William.” The Elmer’s first prospect in local business was in real estate and insurance with William J. Bodkin (Bodkin & Company), located near Front and East 6th Street, and in 1883 the family purchased the Moorhead Daily News located near 5th and James, just off of Main Street (now 5th Street North and Main Ave). In Moorhead, Lamphere was involved in the temperance movement, supported WCTU efforts and prohibition, and was a “staunch supporter” of the Populist Party. In 1887, Lamphere would be a principal founder of the Moorhead, Leech Lake, Duluth & Northwestern Railroad. Lamphere would also help found and serve on Moorhead’s L.H. Tenney Post No. 103 G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) and serve on the Minnesota State Board of Education as Treasurer. In 1891, Governor William R. Merriam and the Minnesota Legislature appointed Lamphere to the Board of World’s Fair Managers (Columbian Exposition of 1893, Minnesota Building). Lamphere also served as Moorhead city auditor and a member of numerous public committees and organizations. Most notably, Lamphere was a well-known and contributory member of the Minnesota State Editorial Association.In 1900, the Lamphere family sold their business interests to his son-in-law William D. Titus in Moorhead and relocated to St. Paul where George became Superintendent or Secretary of the Minnesota Soldier’s Home at Fort Snelling. Lamphere would also fill the capacities of the Director of the Chamber of Commerce of St. Paul, treasurer of Park Congregational Church, and Vice Commander and National Convention Delegate of the Minnesota Union of Ex-Prisoners of War. Of further interest to Red River Valley history, Lamphere also published History of Wheat Raising in the Red River Valley in 1905, the first detailed study of wheat agricultural history in the region.In June of 1907, G.N. Lamphere and his wife relocated to Palouse, Washington, “being attracted” to the area as his son, George N. Lamphere Jr. and family had come to the Idaho/Washington border region a decade earlier from Moorhead. Lamphere Sr., with his son, helped to establish the Palouse Republic newspaper and once again, G.N. Lamphere served on the Chamber of Commerce as Secretary for nine years, served as mayor of Palouse for one term, and belonged to the Royal Arcanum and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. On August 20th, 1916, Cecelia Lamphere would die after a long struggle with cancer and on February 10th, 1918, Lamphere passed away due to a sudden attack of pneumonia. Stated in his Palouse Republic obituary, G.N. Lamphere “was conscientious and efficient and wherever he had lived” people held him in “high esteem. He felt keenly the misfortunes and sorrows of others, always espousing the causes of the masses, and was a helpful friend to many in the hour of need…he became endeared to the people as few men have and few, if any, can lay claim to having been of more service to the community.”Sources:“1891 Moorhead City Directory.” Hcscconline.org Historical & Cultural Society of Clay County. http://www.hcscconline.org/research/secondarypages/1891citydirectory/1891citydirectory_L.html (Accessed October 22, 2016). Alden, Ogle & Company. 1889. Illustrated Album of Biography of the Famous Valley of the Red River of the North and the Park Regions of Minnesota and North Dakota: Containing Biographical Sketches of Settlers and Representative Citizens. Chicago: Alden, Ogle & Co. pgs. 243-244. Engelhardt, Carroll L. 2007. Gateway to the Northern Plains: Railroads and the Birth of Fargo and Moorhead. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=328391. Fargo-Moorhead Centennial Corporation. 1975. A Century Together: A History of Fargo, North Dakota, and Moorhead, Minnesota. [Fargo]: Fargo-Moorhead Centennial Corporation. George N. Lamphere Papers, MS 1151, Institute for Regional Studies, North Dakota State University, Fargo. “George N. Lamphere Sr., Civil War Veteran, Answers Last Call,” The Palouse Republic (Palouse, WA), February 15, 1918. Gordon, Lesley J. 2015. A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut's Civil War. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1689333. Helmes, Winifred G. 1949. John A. Johnson, The People's Governor: A Political Biography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pgs. 40-43. Kellogg, Robert. 2008. Life and Death in Rebel Prisons. Applewood Books. Lamphere, George N. Experiences, and Observances of a Private Soldier in the Civil War. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham. Lamphere, George N. 1891. A/.L237. Gale Family Library. Minnesota History Center. George Nathan Lamphere papers. Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul. Lamphere, George N. 1880. The United States Government: Its Organization and Practical Workings. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott. http://www.gale.com/ModernLaw/. Lamphere, George N. 1905. "History of Wheat Raising in the Red River Valley." Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society. 10. Vol. 1. Martin, Lawrence A. 2010. Railroads in Minnesota, Part II. http://www.angelfire.com/mn/thursdaynighthikes/minnrrs175.html (Accessed 10/22/16). Minnesota. 1800. Executive Documents of the State of Minnesota for the Fiscal Year Ending July 31, 1894. Vol. II. Online version: Google Books. (OCoLC)656578885 Relyea, William H., and John M. Priest. 2002. 16th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. Shippensburg, Pa: Burd Street Press. Spalding, J. A. 1891. Illustrated Popular Biography of Connecticut. Hartford, Conn: Press of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co.Image Credits“George Nathan Lamphere of Moorhead and St. Paul. Owner/publisher of the Moorhead Daily News. Member of the Minnesota State Editorial Association.” por 27837 r1. Minnesota Historical Society. (Accessed 10/22/16). (Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society)
The Burnham Building, 420 Main Avenue Commercial Building, YHR Partners
Franklin J. Burnham spent his childhood near Norwich, Vermont and served as a Lieutenant in the Union Army with the 9th New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry, Companies E and K, during the Civil War from 1862 until mustering out in June of 1865. Burnham served with distinction in several key engagements of the Civil War and three times was wounded and promoted. After military service, Burnham taught “five terms” in schools in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Burnham attended Dartmouth College and graduated in 1869, and afterward taught education courses at Dartmouth and the surrounding vicinity for one year. Following this, Burnham moved west and attended the Chicago University Law School, and joined to the bar in 1871 when he graduated from Chicago University in the spring. After opening his law practice in Chicago later that year, Burnham’s home and law office were destroyed in the Great Fire of Chicago in October of 1871. Burnham, after this setback, relocated his law practice to Glyndon, Minnesota and was the third lawyer in Clay County by the end of 1872.After 1872, Burnham became an early Moorhead resident and businessman with extensive land dealings in Clay County. Burnham married Miss Harriet Laughton whom he had met in Chicago in 1873 and would have three children, Elizabeth, Frank, and James. In addition to starting the First National Bank of Moorhead and serving as the second bank President for 15 years, Burnham bought the 420 Main Avenue lot from the Lake Superior and Puget Sound Company, the town site owners, and built the current structure designed by W.H. Merritt and J.M. Bayer on the location in 1880 which is now the YHR Architecture firm. Burnham most likely “had his office in the building until he sold it in 1884. Fire insurance maps from 1884 to 1929 show the building used only as a residence.”Burnham’s law practice experienced a lot of transition in partnerships. W.K. Gould appears to be Burnham’s first business partner around 1880 when the Burnham building was erected until Gould’s death in 1883 when the firm became Burnham, Mills, and Tillotson. Then, Ira B. Mills was elected District bench judge in 1887 and Burnham decided to partner with William R. Tillotson (elected Mayor of Moorhead, 1892, 1901) and they continued with their joint law practice until Burnham’s death in 1898. Burnham served as Clay County’s first superintendent of public schools, founding member of the First Congregational Church of Moorhead, Clay County Attorney, Public Commissioner, Elder in the Presbyterian Church of Moorhead, and Clay County Surveyor. Burnham would pass away in his home April 17, 1898, and is buried in Moorhead’s Prairie Home Cemetery. For other sites designed by W.H. Merritt, visit sites 17 and 19. For information on W.H. Merritt, visit site 18. Sources“Civil War Shadowbox for 1st Lt. Franklin J. Burnham 9th NH Infantry.” www.rubylane.com https://www.rubylane.com/item/287526-4181/Civil-War-Shadowbox78-for-1st-Lt?search=1 (Accessed 11/20/16). (Image Credit)“CCHS July/August 1994 Newsletter.” www.archive.org https://archive.org/stream/JulAug94/Jul-Aug94_djvu.txt Clay County Historical Society. Moorhead, MN. (Accessed 11/3/16).Engelhardt, Carroll L. 2007. Gateway to the Northern Plains Railroads and the Birth of Fargo and Moorhead. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 49.“Franklin J. Burnham.” Findagrave.com http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=68384251&PIpi=95331559 (Accessed 11/2/16).Geo. A. Ogle & Co. 1902. Compendium of History and Biography of Northern Minnesota, containing a History of the State of Minnesota. Chicago: G.A. Ogle. P. 552, 742. (Image Credit, p. 743).Harvey, Tom. “420 Main Avenue Commercial Building.” Minnesota Historic Properties Inventory Form. October, 1979. http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/nrhp/nomination/80002013.pdf (Accessed 11/1/16).Littleton (N.H.). 1887. Chiswick, 1764. Apthorp, 1770. Littleton, 1784. Exercises at the Centennial Celebration of the Incorporation of the Town of Littleton, July 4th, 1884. Concord, N.H.: N.H. Democratic Press Co. pgs. 215-216.McGhiever, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28881265, (Accessed 11/1/16).“Moorhead River Corridor Study.” http://www.cityofmoorhead.com/home/showdocument?id=1890 April 9, 2013. (Accessed 11/1/16).Rhea, Gordon C. 2000. To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13 - 25, 1864. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press. pgs. 246-247.Turner, John and Semling, C.K. Bench and Bar of Clay County, History of Clay and Norman Counties, Minnesota, Their People, Industries and Institutions. Indianapolis. B.F. Bowen & Company. 1918. http://www.minnesotalegalhistoryproject.org/assets/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20Clay%20Cty%20B&B.pdf (Accessed 11/4/16).
George Saumweber
On Thursday evening, 1926 a raid was placed on George Saumweber’s barbershop that was located on South Fourth Street began with axes and shovels. The raid found one bottle of liquor and with it the arrest of Charles Morgan who was holding the liquor. Morgan took a guilty plea and a fine of $200. While searching the Saumweber barber shop the agents had dug up the shop floor boards to find the liquor. Saumweber was arrested with bootlegging. His bond wuld be released on a $1,000 bond and he had to await trial.[1] George Saumweber ended up getting six months in jail.This map shows where Saumwebers's barbershop was in Moorhead, and where some other blind pigs were as well.Sources: "Moorhead Daily News," Fargo Man Draws Fine (Moorhead), January Saturday, 1926. Photo couresy of Markus Krueger and the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County.
Peter Meehan and G.A. Saumweber
Four men were arrested in Moorhead by the federal prohibition agents Wednesday March, 15. The establishments that raided were, Peter Meehan, the soft drink parlor on 23 Fourth Street South, The Oxford club, 224 First Avenue South, Martin Redman Cigar Store, 11 Fourth Street North, and G. A. Saumweber barber shop, 15 Fourth Street South. No liquor was found at the Oxford club or the Redman establishment. The liquor was taken form Meehan and Saumweber’s. Peter Meehan, his son John, and Ray Milnor, an employee of the Saumweber, were all ordered to go Thursday before D.C. Carmen, the United States. Court Commissioner at Detroit Lakes.[1] A fun fact about Peter Meehan is that he was one of the first to get one of the 21 One Sale Licenses. On April 5th, of 1933, Moorhead had $2,130 in sales in its treasures on that day due to the first revenues coming from the beer licenses deposited by the 41 people and groups who had applied for permits in hopes of having their “On” and “Off” Sale Licenses. Those who applied for One Sales Licenses were: Peter Meehan, O.W. Saumweber, Martin Redman, Comstock hotel, Walter Seign, Charles Dougherty, and Ed Lodgard. Those who applied for Off Sale Licenses were: Leo Marks, Big Red Grocery, Walter Seign, O.M. Johnson, Wester Bottling Works, Comstock hotel, and Ed Lodgard.[2] The city would decide Thursday April 6th, to decide on the applications. So on April 7th, Peter Meehan, received his On Sale License.Sources:"Four Arrested in Liquor Raids," Moorhead Daily News (Moorhead), March Thursday, 1933. "Moorhead Daily News," $2,130 Deposited for Beer Permits at City Offices (Moorhead), April Wednesday, 1933. Photo 1 from the "Moorhead Daily News", Wednsday April, 1933. Photo/Map 2 from Markus Krueger and the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County.
Kassenborg Block
The Kassenborg Block was commissioned by Andreas Kassenborg in 1898 after he purchased the adjacent Douglas House. It was completed just before the turn of the century and before its architect and contractor W.H. Merritt declared bankruptcy in 1900. Merritt was also responsible for the first Moorhead Post Office and many of its early churches. The Kassenborg Block was built to serve the commercial needs of Moorhead. It has housed several bars and eateries on its lower floors, including Diemerts Cafe, which was active during prohibition, and later Kirby's Cafe. Today the block is the largest commercial building still standing from Moorhead's early history and is home to Rustica Eatery and Tavern. For more information on W.H. Merritt visit site 18 , and for more buildings by W.H. Merritt, visit sites 17 and 19.Sources:“James Douglas House.” 2015. Accessed November 3, 2016. http://www.douglashistory.co.uk/history/Places/james_douglas_house.htm. “Kassenborg Block.” Accessed November 6, 2016. http://www.mnwebsteps.com/grover/bios/spouse/gkass/kblock.htm. Olson, Dave. “Rustica Resturaunt, Bar to Open in Moorhead’s Kassenborg Block.” The Forum (Forum Communications Company), July 15, 2014. http://www.inforum.com/content/rustica-restaurant-bar-open-moorheads-kassenborg-block.
W.H. Merritt: Moorhead General Contractor and National Register of Historic Places Architect
William Henry Merritt was born in September of 1854 in Hustings, Michigan to Alexander “Alex” D. Merritt and Betsey Merritt (Davis). It appears that W.H. Merritt spent his adolescent years in Goodhue, Minnesota after moving to the area in about 1857 with his family. There is little information available regarding Merritt’s adolescent years in Minnesota. Later, however, the record indicates that in 1882 William married Harriet (Hattie) Elizabeth Syron. Harriet gave birth to three daughters over the next few years, Edna, Frances, and Lillian. Before the Merritt’s lived in Moorhead, the family had lived in various places including Helena, Montana, Anacortes and Olympia, Washington. After moving to Moorhead, Minnesota from Olympia in about 1890, Merritt would begin his influence on the early architecture of the Red River Valley. The Merritt family lived for many years thereafter in a home on 429 Ninth Street (North) in Moorhead which remains today.While in Moorhead, Merritt belonged to the architectural firm of Bayer, J.M. and W.H. Merritt. Merritt designed many buildings in Moorhead after 1890 and was heavily involved in private and municipal construction. Some of his notable projects while in Moorhead include the Burnham building, Kassenborg Block (1898), Moorhead Post Office, Moorhead County Courthouse and jail improvements, and the Moorhead Carnegie Public Library. Further, Merritt would remodel and rebuild Moorhead’s First National Bank Block in 1914. Merritt’s influence in construction and architectural design was not just confined to buildings in Moorhead, as he influenced many regional architectural projects in the late 19th and early 20th century in the Red River Valley. Many of his buildings that are still in existence in Minnesota and North Dakota are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Merritt family were influential community members in Moorhead, and participated in the Moorhead Lodge of Masons, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Builders’ and Traders’ Exchange, and quite a few other civic organizations.In 1920, the Merritt family relocated to Puyallup, Washington and then were living in Medford, Oregon by 1930. W.H. Merritt and family continued to be influential members of those communities, and he would have a tremendous impact on regional architectural design and building construction in the Northwest. Merritt, at this later point in his career, served generally in the capacity of General Contractor and builder, constructing several homes, buildings and developed commercial areas. In Anacortes, Washington, many of his buildings still remain today and are also listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). Some of his associated works, with partner T.A. Long in this area, includes the Anacortes Hotel, Wilson Hotel Block, Anacortes Post Office, Goodwin-Benedict-Havekost building and Columbian School. Interestingly, some of the structures in Anacortes were built or designed by Merritt before he lived in Moorhead, Minnesota.In Medford, Oregon, Merritt constructed or designed several buildings that are also listed on the NRHP. Some of these historic sites include the Merritt Bellinger House, Merritt Apartments, and the Patton, Hamilton and Edith House. Additionally, Merritt had helped design and construct the Merrick Block and Emerick Building in Medford and served as Superintendent of Construction on Medford’s Masonic Temple (Lodge No. 103) and managed the erection of Medford’s Pre-Cooling and Storage or the Pinnacle Packing warehouse. The Pinnacle Packing warehouse was one of the largest facilities of its kind in America at the time of its construction.Merritt would be a lifelong member of the Builders’ and Traders’ Exchange Member, and further became a noted speaker and officer in that organization. His significant impact upon architectural history and civic contributions in Minnesota, North Dakota, Washington State, Oregon, and California demand further study and investigation. Merritt’s architectural contribution on the National Register of Historic Places is noteworthy and undervalued. On July 24, 1936 in Medford, Oregon W.H. Merritt passed quietly into reminiscence. While his memory has somewhat departed the national consciousness, his handiwork is ever present on the minds of strangers who reside in his constructions and also pass them by, never knowing their creator. Sources:http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/nrhp/NRDetails.cfm-NPSNum=80002013.html http://www.douglashistory.co.uk/history/Places/james_douglas_house.htm John Turner & C. K. Semling eds., I History of Clay and Norman Counties, Minnesota 74-5, 81-5 (B. F. Bowen & Co., 1918). Improvement Bulletin. 1900. Minneapolis: Chapin Pub. Co. p. 10. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=60592231 Minnesota News. Duluth Evening Herald, Duluth, Minnesota. June 1, 1914. http://www.placeography.org/index.php/Moorhead_Public_Library,_102_6th_Street_South,_Moorhead,_Minnesota_(Razed) Medford. Medford Mail Tribune, Medford, Oregon. January 5, 1922. http://anacortes.pastperfectonline.com/bysearchterm?keyword=A.+F.+of+L.+Cannery+Workers+local#sthash.z92Ncbi2.dpuf http://focus.nps.gov/GetAsset?assetID=5fc5def7-836e-479c-9497-c273e0ef97b7 http://id.mind.net/~truwe/tina/buildingnotes.html Medford. Medford Mail Tribune, Medford, Oregon. December 10, 1926. https://www.newspapers.com/image/136092310/?terms=W.H.%2BMerritt http://id.mind.net/~truwe/tina/buildingnotes.html Obituary. “Harriett Merritt” Medford Mail Tribune, Medford, Oregon. November 02, 1952. "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M2LK-JNZ: accessed 21 November 2016), William H Merritt, Moorhead Ward 4, Clay, Minnesota, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 61, sheet 9A, family 164, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 693; FHL microfilm 1,374,706. "Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV2C-4F5L: 13 December 2015), William H Merritt, 1936; Burial, Medford, Jackson, Oregon, United States of America, Siskiyou Memorial Park; citing record ID 59799233, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com. "Minnesota Deaths and Burials, 1835-1990," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FDSC-WY6: 4 December 2014), W. H. Merritt in entry for Lillian Wells, 20 Apr 1915; citing Moorhead, Clay, Minnesota, reference cn2472; FHL microfilm 2,138,920. https://archive.org/stream/improvementbulle4716unse/improvementbulle4716unse_djvu.txt http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/nrhp/NRDetails.cfm-NPSNum=80002187.html "Minnesota State Census, 1905," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SPSJ-7W5: 15 November 2014), William Henry Merritt, Moorhead, Ward Number: 04, Clay, Minnesota; citing p. 43, line 18, State Library and Records Service, St.Paul; FHL microfilm 928,773. Minnesota State Census, 1905. Ancestry.com. Washington State and Territorial Censuses, 1857-1892 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data: Washington. Washington Territorial Census Rolls, 1857-1892. Olympia, Washington: Washington State Archives. M1, 20 rolls.
Douglas House
The Douglas House is the oldest house of its type still standing in Moorhead. It was built in 1872 for James and Wilhemina Douglas and they lived there together until 1887. The Douglas House was designed by W.H. Merritt, who was responsible for much of Moorhead's early architecture. James Douglas was very active in the early days of Moorhead, serving as its first postmaster and first probate judge. He also helped to found the second school in Moorhead and ran a steam ship line on the Red River. It was refurbished in the ealry 2000's and today the home is used by the community as Joni's Salon and Spa. The Douglas House and the adjacent Kassenborg Block are both eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. For more information on W.H. Merritt visit site 18, and for more buildings by W.H. Merritt, visit sites 14 and 17.Sources:“History.” 2009. Accessed October 19, 2016. http://jonisalonspa.com/about-us/history/. “James Douglas House.” 2015. Accessed November 3, 2016. http://www.douglashistory.co.uk/history/Places/james_douglas_house.htm. “Kassenborg Block.” Accessed November 6, 2016. http://www.mnwebsteps.com/grover/bios/spouse/gkass/kblock.htm. Olson, Dave. “Rustica Resturaunt, Bar to Open in Moorhead’s Kassenborg Block.” The Forum (Forum Communications Company), July 15, 2014. http://www.inforum.com/content/rustica-restaurant-bar-open-moorheads-kassenborg-block.
Old Moorhead Flour Mill
Old Moorhead Power Plant
The old Moorhead power plant provided clean water and power to the Moorhead community for over one hundred years, through the Great Depression and times of war. In 1895, the city of Moorhead decided to build a power plant in order to ease their reliance on privately held electric companies. The power plant was filled with corruption from the start, going through superintendents rapidly in the first five years of its operation. Water was drawn directly from the Red River and residents of Moorhead were cautioned to boil the water before drinking or cooking. By the turn of the century, an underground aquifer was known to exist thirty feet below the city. This aquifer was used up until the 1950's, when population booms called for water from the Red River to be used again. In the 1920's, the power plant became a symbol of Moorhead resilience, due to the fact that most power plants were owned by conglomerate utility companies while Moorhead retained control and ownership of its utilities. During the Great Depression of the 1930's the power plant was able to do well enough, due to new steam engines, to reduce its rates for its customers, easing the financial burden of many Moorhead citizens. Although the plant suffered during the war years, it was still able to provide for the community. Although in the last decades of the twentieth century the power plant fell into disuse, one of its four generators was operational until August 2011, when five new generators were built on the east side of town.The power plant sat vacant for months as the city attempted to come up with uses for the old space that would preserve the old building, but in 2012 a geotechnical report found that the ground underneath the plant was slowly sliding towards the river. The decision was made to demolish the building and that decision was carried out in 2014. But the site was not going to go to waste. The Plains Art Museum out of neighboring Fargo, North Dakota, turned the space into a heritage garden, using elements of the old power plant mixed with native flora, hoping to prove that former industrial spaces can be used for enjoyment and to meet community needs, once again standing for the resilience of the city of Moorhead.Sources:(I) Forum Staff Reports. “Demolition of the Old Power Plant.” The Forum (Forum Communications Company), July 9, 2014. http://www.inforum.com/content/demolition-old-power-plant.(II) “Heritage Garden and Amphitheater for Moorhead « Learn.” 2016. Accessed November 19, 2016. http://plainsart.org/learn/defiant-gardens/heritage-garden-and-amphitheater-for-moorhead-2/.(III) Moorhead River Corridor Study. Moorhead, Minnesota: Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Council of Governments and the City of Moorhead, 2013. http://www.cityofmoorhead.com/home/showdocument?id=1890. (IV) WDAY News. “Old Moorhead Power Plant Set for Demolition.” The Forum (Forum Communications Company), May 5, 2014. http://www.wday.com/content/old-moorhead-power-plant-set-demolition.
Park Elementary School
Minnesota has long prided itself on its education system and Moorhead was no exception. Park Elementary School, built in 1900, was the fifth in a series of six schools the school district of Moorhead, founded in 1873, built between 1874 and 1920 and is the only one that survives. The school is also the last remaining elementary school built prior to WWII before it was popular to build schools in a modern design that looked forward instead of back. It is a two story classical revival building of local yellow brick, built and designed by the Hancock Brothers, George and Walter, of Fargo, North Dakota. They were responsible for rebuilding much of downtown Fargo after the fire of 1893 and became the first licensed architects in North Dakota in after a 1917 law was passed. The school is unique in that it shows the strive for excellencein education being pushed for around the country at that time. Many schools being built in North Dakota and Minnesota were still following a one room schoolhouse layout. Park Elementary School was built as a ward school. Ward schools separated the grades into different rooms. In 1919, excitement over a possible population boom led to an addition being built, giving the school its "L" shape, but the addition was never really needed. In 1950 there was a growing focus on physical education and a gymnasium was built, using the same bricks as the main school building. Park Elementary School closed in the mid-1970's due to low attendance. It was transformed into Park Private School in 1984 after serving as a private parochial school for 8 years. That school closed in 1986. Today the school is used as an apartment building and for various community programs. Sources:Ramsey, Ronald L. Fargo-Moorhead: A Guide to Historic Architecture. n.p.: Plains Architectural Heritage Foundation, 1975. United States Department of Interior, National Park Service. "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form-Park Elementary School." 1988. Retrieved from: http://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp/GetAsset?assetID=80980b5f-2cbf-47c2-a507-09f0f0a161cd.Photo Credits:Ruff, Dale. Park Elementary School Front View. Feb 1988. Retrieved from: http://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp/GetAsset?assetID=4b1401fd-c2da-4a4e-8bcf-fb50eafe0667. Ruff Dale. Park Elementary School, South East Classroom 2nd Floor. Feb 1988. Retrieved from: http://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp/GetAsset?assetID=4b1401fd-c2da-4a4e-8bcf-fb50eafe0667
Old Main- Concordia Campus
Old Main was built to house the growing size of Concordia’s student body that over grew the walls of Bishop Whipple and Academy Hall. It was used as a place for classrooms, a library, gymnasium, auditorium, and offices. The president at the time was Bogstad, and he saw the creation of the originally termed New Main. Bogstad recommended the building should cost $50,000 and be built to meet educational and recreational needs of the Concordia students. He met resistance when the board fought him on the price and said the building could not cost any more than $25,000.Bogstad fought this. He sought a $12,000 donation from Andrew Carnegie that would take place once Concordia raised $37,000. Then in 1905, the board found out that building a $50,000 structure was indeed possible. New Main opened in 1907 in January. This allowed for the space for more enrollment for students and to better serve the needs of the college.In 1966, the Concordia’s Board of Regents decided to renamed Old Main to Bogstad Hall, in respect to the man who created it. However, students protested this, being in favor of the old name. In October of 1966, more than 500 students congregated together at Prexy’s Pond to pretest the name change, and demand that the Old Main name remain. The students then made the assertion that the Prexy’s Pond shall be called Bostad’s Pond instead.The next year, President Knutson announced a motion to reestablish the name of Old Main. Over the years the library, gymnasium, and offices have moved to other buildings on campus. In the 1970’s, there was a major renovation done that allowed for more departments to open up on the Concordia campus. Old Main is still used today, and is still a symbol of Concordia.Sources:Sjoberg, Lisa. "Old Main Shall Remain." Concordia College Archives. March 2014. https://www.concordiacollege.edu/news-media/detail/old-main-shall-remain/ Photo 1 courtesy of New Main by Alison Cassel, Concordia Student Photo 2 courtesy of Concordia College Department of History http://scalar.usc.edu/works/concordia-college-department-histories/media/P449020.jpg
Garrison Keillor and the Elmer brothers: The History of Prairie Home Cemetery
Under the leadership of Rev. Oscar H. Elmer and a local cemetery association, the Prairie Home Cemetery was founded in 1875. A motivating factor behind forming a cemetery association was that Rev. Elmer's brother and pioneering Brainerd, Minnesota lawyer John Edgar had drowned in the Sheyenne River after visiting his brother in May of 1874, apparently committing suicide due to suffering from some type of “nervous difficulty.” John Elmer's body was in poor condition when it was recovered from the river, so Rev. Elmer buried John Edgar in a make-shift grave until he could secure funds for a proper coffin and burial location. The following spring as the flooding subsided, Rev. Elmer needed to move his brother's remains to a more secure location closer to Moorhead, and so organized a cemetery association to meet the needs of the growing (and dying) Moorhead community. Upon completion of this, John Edgar Elmer's body was then relocated to the new Prairie Home Cemetery and re-buried as one, if not the first 'occupant' in 1876. The grave site still exists to this day, just across the street from the Concordia college campus.The history of the cemetery does not end there, however. Apparently, the famous and well-loved Minnesota radio show Prairie Home Companion owes the location (and the Elmer brothers) for its' namesake. According to the Prairie Home website, Garrison Keillor, well-known American author, humorist and the host of the radio show, encountered the Prairie Home Cemetery "after a reading at Moorhead State University in 1971, which was followed by a wild party at Mark Vinz's house, after which the partygoers took Garrison Keillor to the train station and sang "Red River Valley" on the platform as the eastbound Empire Builder pulled in about 2 am. The name of Prairie Home Companion came from that memorable evening, as close as Garrison Keillor can remember: "You couldn't name a show Prairie Home Cemetery, so I substituted Companion for Cemetery, in honor of the people on the platform."Sources:Keillor, Garrison, and Ken LaZebnik. 2006. A Prairie Home Companion: The Screenplay. New York: Penguin. http://books.google.com/books?id=B-lkAAAAMAAJ. Oscar H. Elmer Papers, MS 245. Institute for Regional Studies, North Dakota State University, Fargo. http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/features/hodgepodge/25anniversary/list/c_cemetary.html (Accessed 10/31/16). http://www.inforum.com/news/3836153-throwback-thursday-when-prairie-home-companion-got-its-name-moorhead-cemetery (Accessed 10/31/16).
Comstock House
Built in 1882, in block 3 of the Highland Addition to the city, one of the highest points in Moorhead which was a sure way to avoid the annual flooding from the Red River Valley stands the Solomon G. Comstock House.Comstock used the architectural firm Kees & Kisk from Minneapolis, Minnesota to sketch and make the plans for the house. The house is in the style of Queen Ann East Lake style design. It is an eleven room, two story wood frame building, built in the Victorian style architecture. All of the lumber had to be of the best quality and if it was not, it would have to be removed at the contractor’s expense. The house has three fireplaces on the main level.The property included the whole city block, it had a carriage house, where the family kept three horses, Kitty, Billy, and King. The family also had a buggy for general use. Behind the main house was a separate building called the Ice house, it was used as a cool room for storing food. There were also compartments in there for a wood house, tool room, and a privy room for the hired man and maid.The house is owned and operated by the Minnesota State Historical Society, and was given to the Society in 1965 by George and Sarah Comstock. Sources:Cited by the tourguides from the Comstock House. Photo from Kate Savageau
Solomon Comstock
Solomon Comstock came to Moorhead in 1871. He came from a modest background, born in May 9, 1842, in Maine. His father was in the lumber business and from a young age Comstock knew that was not what he not what he wanted to do with his life. Comstock attended the Maine Wesleyen Academy in Readfield, Maine in his early twenties. It was known for its law degrees.Comstock received practical training in a law office of Judge Humphrey in Bangor. This was his first practical experience in the legal profession that he received. Two years later Comstock went to the University of Michigan to strengthen his education to prepare him for admittance to the bar. This term at the university and in 1869 he was admitted to the bar in Omaha, Nebraska, and he received the official total of attorney and counselor at law. Omaha was facing a depression at the time during the post war years and the town was not prospering and yet the amount of lawyers was still growing, Comstock was unable to find a job.Railroads offered a great advantage for employment for Comstock, long with an adventure. The South Pacific was laying track in Texas and needed a bookkeeper for its construction crew. The Southern Pacific eventually went bankrupt as well and Comstock found himself in Minnesota. In 1870 he worked in St. Paul as a licensed attorney for awhile, then again was out of work, all was looking bleak for Comstock, until he moved to Moorhead.Comstock found another job on the Northern Pacific as a laborer in Moorhead in 1871. Moorhead was only a tent town in 1871. A tent town with a lot of crime and violence going around. In 1872, Moorhead began pointing officials and selected Comstock as the first Clay County Attorney on April 26, 1872. There was a huge gun fight and the city demanded law and order, Comstock was the only one qualified and with a law degree. There were gambling houses and gun fights and almost every night there was a shooting. Comstock sought to build Moorhead into a respectable town.Comstock served as the Clay County Attorney from 1871 to 1877, Moorhead had transitioned from a shanty tent town, to a railway town, to an agricultural trading post. In 1875 Comstock was elected to the State House of Representatives, that is where he met James J. Hill. Hill sought to control the bankrupt railways. -St. Paul and the Pacific Railroad, and he needed legislators on his side. Comstock felt for Hill and sided with his ways, seeing that Moorhead needed the railroad and aided Hill in return for a profitable townsite business.Comstock helped to open the Bishop Whipple School, he donated the land that was needed for the school. Eventually the school closed, and later it would be the site for Concordia College. In 1885, Moorhead was in need of another school to serve its increasing population, under the 1858 Normal School Act of Governor Henry Sibley. The only condition was that the community had to donate the land for the site. The condition was easily done when Comstock donated six acres of land for the school.Comstock had great pride in Moorhead. He valued education as he made it important to build schools in his town. Moorhead was once just a town filled with violence and crime, he sought to clean it up and make it a safe and respectable place to live. He built Moorhead up with railroads, and businesses there. Solomon Comstock died on June 3 of 1933.For more information on the civic efforts of Solomon's wife, Sarah, please visit site 13.Sources:Harness, Greg. "Solomon Gilman Comstock Portrait of a Pioneer." Master's Thesis, Minnesota State University, 1975. Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society
St. John the Divine Episcopal Church
One church in Moorhead stands out among all the rest for its unique style and that is St. John the Divine Episcopal Church on 8th Street. Its unique style is known as “shingle style” and it is the only such building in the area. Built with a cruciform, that is, the shape of a cross, layout, the church features a tower and low dormer windows. It was the work of renowned architect Cass Gilbert, who also designed the Woolworth Building in Manhattan, which was once the tallest building in the world, as well as several state capitol buildings, including one for the capitol of Minnesota in St. Paul. St. John the Divine Episcopal Church, built in 1898, is similar to another in Minnesota, the Virginia Street Church, built in 1886. According to the inventory form on file at the National Register of Historic Places, the building of the church marked a second boom for Moorhead, where it was coming out of a period of stagnation. It favors early English elements of an arched timber entry, as well as making use of polygonal spires and, of course, its wooden shingles.Sources:Heilbrun, Margaret. Inventing the Skyline: The Architecture of Cass Gilbert. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2000. United States Department of Interior, National Park Service. "Minnesota Historical Properties Inventory Form-St. John the Divine Episcopal Church." 1980. Retrieved from: http://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp/GetAsset?assetID=b206428c-a573-4e43-b94e-62809c9a80e5Photo Credit:Harvey, Thomas. St. John the Divine Episcopal Church. August 1979. Retrieved from: http://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp/GetAsset?assetID=979a6598-e4b4-40d4-9e80-d14ed532248b
Moorhead Dairy Queen
Isn't That a Dilly? Those were the words uttered by one of the inventors of the popular ice cream treat, the Dilly Bar, in 1955 at the Dairy Queen in Moorhead, Minnesota. Opened in 1949 by Bob and Phyllis Litherland, the Dairy Queen was being used as a training and testing site for new treats when someone placed a blob of ice cream on a piece of cardboard, stuck a medical tongue depressor in it, and coated it in chocolate. Originally the coating was only available in chocolate, but is now available in in cherry and butterscotch. While the process for making the Dilly Bar has since been mechanized by corporate, the Moorhead Dairy Queen still makes thousands of bars with the original process perfected by Bob Litherland every year. They can sell up to 50,000 of the bars in a single season, which typically lasts about eight months.To visit the Moorhead Dairy Queen is a retro experience, with a walk-up ordering window and no drive through. It is also one of the few locations in the world operating under an older contract that allows them a certain amount of freedom with their menu choices. Unlike the modern DQ Grill and Chill locations, Dairy Queens with original contracts are allowed to serve throwback frozen treats, such as the Monkey Tail, a frozen banana dipped in chocolate, or the Chipper Sandwich, vanilla ice cream in a chocolate chip cookie sandwich dipped in chocolate, as well as local hot favorites, such as polish and bowls of chili. They are also able to choose their own suppliers, enabling them to support other local businesses in the process. Isn’t that a dilly? Sources:Moorhead Dairy Queen. “FUN FACT-Novelties 1954.” 2016. Accessed October 24, 2016. http://moorheaddairyqueen.com/specials-details.php?ID=15. Moorhead Dairy Queen. “About Moorhead Dairy Queen.” 2016. Accessed October 24, 2016. http://moorheaddairyqueen.com/about-us.php. Varriano, Jackie. “The Chain Breaker: A Dairy Queen Like No Other.” Serious Eats 2015,. Accessed October 24, 2016. http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/06/diy-dairy-queen-moorhead-minnesota.html.
Moorhead's Second County Courthouse
The second county courthouse building was on the corner of 8th Street and 1st Avenue North and built for around $2100. It was built in 1878 and was torn down by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930’s. This was the first courthouse built after the battle with the town of Glyndon over where the county seat would be located was settled. Moorhead won and today the county seat of Clay County remains in Moorhead. For more information on Moorhead's courthouses, visit sites nine, 34, and 35. Sources:“History of Clay County.” 2010. Accessed October 15, 2016. http://claycountymn.gov/260/History-of-Clay-County Peihl, Mark. “County Seat Fight a Bitter Battle.” Clay County Historical Society Newsletter, 2001.Photo Credits:A Century Together: A History of Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota. Fargo, North Dakota: The Fargo-Moorhead Centennial Cooperation, 1975. 160.
The Fairmont Creamery Company Building: Moorhead
"Confidence in the future development of the Country and not the immediate requirements promoted the building of the Moorhead plant at its present site."—J.H. Deems, first Plant Superintendent of the Moorhead Fairmont Creamery, Fairmont’s Magazine, October, 1928The Fairmont Creamery Company building in Moorhead was the result of humble beginnings in Fairmont, Nebraska which incorporated as a business on March 29, 1884, by local implement dealer Wallace Wheeler and attorney Joseph H. Rushton. From 1884 until May 1924, when the Fairmont Creamery Company building was completed and opened in Moorhead, the dairy enterprise had undergone tremendous growth becoming one of the largest dairy distributors in the nation. In fact, Fairmont Creamery would be “one of four national dairies” eventually to be headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska by 1907. According to historian Janet Jeffries Spencer, Fairmont’s success was due in part to the “complete line of dairy products offered” as they “sold eggs, poultry, fresh and frozen fruits, vegetables, and ice.”The Moorhead Fairmont Creamery Company building, located at 801 2nd Avenue North, was “selected for its proximity to the railroad” and is near the city’s central business district. Officers of the Fairmont Creamery Company had noticed the potential of the Red River Valley for many years and needed a new plant in the area to support their growing outlets on the northern Great Plains.Thus, construction began on the “largest creamery and produce plant” in the area. According to historian Rod Eggleston, who worked on registering the creamery on the National Historic Registry in 1982, the “development included efforts by the Company to establish a market for cream products and poultry products which lead to the development of experimental farms. These were model farms promoting the planting of such crops as corn, alfalfa and clover, and feeding turkeys with "Fairmont Flake Buttermilk" and then exporting these products to markets in the east. 12,325,000 "Cream Checks" were mailed to farmers between Fairmont's opening in 1924 through 1929."Let Your Cows and Fairmont Checks Pay Your Bills" was a company slogan and advertisements pointed out the advantages of a 10-gallon can of ice cream versus one acre of wheat.”The Fairmont Creamery continued to be in business, promoting agriculture and local dairy markets, until its purchase by the Cass-Clay Creamery in 1980. The Creamery officially closed in 1981. Currently, the building has been turned into elderly rental housing.Sources:Janet Jeffries Spencer, To Make a Good Product Better: The Fairmont Creamery Company, 1884- 1984, Nebraska History 65 (1984): 387-394. "Fairmont Creamery Company. " Moorhead - The Gateway of the Great Northwest," Fairmont Magazine, (October, 1928.), p. 10. Eggleston, Rod. “Fairmont Creamery Company.” National Register of Historic Places Inventory. Minnesota Historical Society. http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/nrhp/nomination/83000901.pdf http://focus.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/83000901 (Accessed 10/23/16). Murray, Stanley Norman. "A History of Agriculture of the Red River Valley Of The North, 1812-1920." University of Wisconsin. Robinson, Edward V. D. Early Economic Conditions and the Development of Agriculture in Minnesota. (University of Minnesota, Studies in the Social Sciences 3.) Minneapolis, 1915.Image Credits:“Special Notice.” The Record-Argus. (Greenville, PA), April 8, 1943. “Fairmont Creamery Company.” National Register of Historic Places Inventory. Minnesota Historical Society. http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/nrhp/nomination/83000901.pdf http://focus.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/83000901 (Accessed 10/23/16).
Minnesota Stage Company's Burbank Station Stop
“Burbank Station was a simple log cabin on a high bank looking over the Red River some 225 feet southwest of the present American Legion building on Moorhead’s 1st Avenue North. Just who built it and when is unclear. Local historian and artist Orabel Thortvedt interviewed many early pioneers. Most agreed that Burbank Station was built by Lewis Lewiston probably in 1860.Randolph Probstfield, Edwin Hutchinson and Adam Stein are generally recognized as the first permanent residents of Clay County, each arriving in 1859. But many other folks passed through, built a home, stayed a few years and left. Lewiston was such a person. A young Ohio native, Lewiston and his English born wife tended the station for the stage company. Lewiston may have built the cabin as a home for his family before stages started running or he might have taken it over after its previous occupant and builder left. At any rate, Burbank Station was short lived. In August 1 862 the Dakota War depopulated the Red River Valley. Lewiston and his family took refuge at Fort Abercrombie. After hostilities ended and stage travel resumed about 1864, the facility was located at Lewiston Station, 7 miles south of Moorhead. Except for an occasional squatter, Burbank Station was abandoned.Some people have claimed that homesteader Job Smith lived in the cabin in 1870. Others suggest that Smith’s cabin was located further east, near the present Fairmont East retirement home. Levi Thortvedt, traveling with his family to a homestead northwest of Glyndon in June 1870, saw the cabin empty. "It was an old, log building of hewn logs with fairly good roof, but the door and windows were out... A lot of thick and tall weeds grew all over the west side of the house. Bullet holes could be plainly seen in the hued logs from the outside."In 1871, Andrew Holes bought Smith’s claim for the Northern Pacific Railway on what is now downtown Moorhead. The railroad reached the Red River that fall and established Moorhead. He held onto the part of the claim occupied by Burbank Station and may have lived in the cabin for a time. The cabin on 4th Street and 4th Avenue was the long time home of the Moorhead Garden Club.In 1878, when his own fine home was completed (where the American Legion building stands), he sold the log structure to Charles Whitcomb. A clerk in Bruns’and Finkle’s store, Whitcomb moved the cabin to a new location at the present 225 North 10th Street. He veneered the 20-inch-thick log walls with bricks (Moorhead pioneer B. F. Mackall later called it "the warmest house in the city"). Whitcomb lived there with his family until the early 1890s when he sold it to the Robert Neubarth family. The Neubarth’s remained in the home until 1931. By then it had seen better days. The Neubarth’s tore down the house to make way for a new home but knowing something of its past, they saved the logs and donated them to the city. (During the demolition, Mr. Neubarth found in the attic a gold ring and a little boy’s boot. The boot is now on display in the Moorhead section of our permanent exhibit.) In May 1932, the city turned the logs over to the recently formed Moorhead Garden Club. The Club made plans to reconstruct the cabin in Bowman Park (now part of Woodlawn Park) to serve as a clubhouse and "as a shrine to the early pioneers." Using volunteer and depression relief labor, contributions and help from the city, the foundation was in place by the end of the year and the cabin completed early in 1933. The Garden Club realized that Whitcomb’s brick exterior had kept the logs in remarkably good shape so they covered the reconstructed building with split-log siding. In a unique arrangement, the city turned administrative control of the cabin over to the Garden Club with the provision that if the Club were ever to disband, control would revert to the city. Many local residents donated artifacts to be displayed at the cabin. On May 26, 1934, 1000 people attended a dedication ceremony at the site. For years the Club held meetings, open houses and their annual peony contests there. They also rented the cabin for special events. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the city paid for the utilities and insurance on the building while the Parks Department handled maintenance. In 1951 the city rescinded the 1934 arrangement and took over the cabin.”Source:Clay County Historical Society Newsletter. September/October 1996 Vol. XIX. No. 5, pgs. 9-10. http://www.inforum.com/content/historic-moorhead-log-cabin-may-move-again
Historic Usher’s Restaurant: American Legion Building, Melvin Hearl Post No. 21
Usher’s House, a restaurant located in Moorhead at 700 1st Avenue North, is a site that is of historic importance to the Moorhead, Minnesota community. Originally the American Legion Building, Usher’s was a public works project constructed on May 13, 1936 under the direction of Minnesota Works Projects Administration and engineer Frank J. Plut, made possible by federal grant funding to the city of Moorhead in August of 1935. Nels Melvey was the local Moorhead contractor who directed the construction efforts as foreman and employed advanced stonecutting techniques taught by the architects in manipulating the heavy-ashlar, cut-granite fieldstone.The building was designed by young Moorhead architects George Carter and Alan H. Meinecke to “memorialize figures of local significance from the Great War” and “was a source of community pride during a period of great economic diversity.” According to the Clay County Historical Society, the WPA “mandated that the project put as many men to work as possible and that 'building materials cost be kept to a minimum. The architects came up with an ingenious idea that influenced WPA structures all over the state. They convinced several Sabin area farmers to donate many tons of field stone, which they had cleaned from their fields. Carter and Meinecke taught workers how to cut the stones into blocks and set them in place to build the walls. The Idea worked brilliantly. The WPA officials were so impressed that they hired the young men to design similar buildings all over the state.”Originally, the American Legion Building, Post No. 21, was named after Pvt. Melvin E. Hearl who was a casualty of World War I. The relief cast concrete detail above the entrance reveals the letters ‘A’, ‘L’, ‘M’, and ‘H’ in the four corners, which stand for American Legion and Melvin Hearl. There are four portraits at the upper cast cornice moldings, however only two have been identified as of 2016. “Forum reporter Craig McEwen has tentatively identified two of the busts as the likenesses of Nels MeIvey, foreman and general contractor for the project, and Edgar Sharp, a Moorhead attorney who was instrumental” in funding the project. The other two cornice moldings “are unidentified, but may be the architects, Carter and Meineke.” A time capsule still resides in cornerstone of the building which may identify more information regarding the former American Legion Post’s architectural history.Sources:“American Legion Building-Moorhead MN” 2016. The Living New Deal. University of California at Berkeley. https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/american-legion-building-moorhead-mn/ (Accessed 10/23/16). “Clay County Historical Society Newsletter.” May/June 1990. Clay County Historical Society. Moorhead, MN. https://archive.org/details/MayJun90 (Accessed 10/23/16). Moorhead American Legion Building, 700 First Avenue North, Moorhead, Clay County, MN.” HABS MINN,14-MOHE,1-. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/item/mn0274/ (Accessed 10/23/16) “Usher’s House: Casual Fine Dining.” http://www.ushershouse.com/ (Accessed 10/23/16). Richard M. Chapman, “American Legion Building, WPA construction, Moorhead, 1936, Usher's Restaurant today.,” Deep Mapping Moorhead, Minnesota, accessed October 23, 2016, http://lincolnmullen.com/projects/deepmap/items/show/54.
Moorhead's Third County Courthouse
The third incarnation of the Clay County courthouse was built on the eastern half of the land the present building sits on in 1882, on eastern half of 11th Street and 8th Avenue North. It cost $50,000 to construct. One of Moorhead’s earliest residents, John Bergquist, owned a brickyard and manufactured bricks for the building, as well as donated the land the courthouse would sit on. The clay for the bricks came from his original homestead just a few blocks away near the river. The land he donated was also part of his original homestead. The building was torn down in the early 50's to make way for the current building. For more information on Moorhead's courthouses, please visit sites nine, 30, and 35. Sources:“History of Clay County.” 2010. Accessed October 15, 2016. http://claycountymn.gov/260/History-of-Clay-County Peihl, Mark. “County Seat Fight a Bitter Battle.” Clay County Historical Society Newsletter, 2001.Photo Credits:A Century Together: A History of Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota. Fargo, North Dakota: The Fargo-Moorhead Centennial Cooperation, 1975. 161.
Moorhead's Fourth Courthouse
John Bergquist Cabin
Bergquist Cabin in Moorhead, Minnesota is a small, 14’ x 20’ log cabin made with hand-hewn oak logs, the largest of which reaches one foot in height. Its original brick chimney and shingle roof is still intact, although the placement of its windows and doors has changed over the years as the needs of the cabin changed. It is located on a bend of the Red River, today on the edge of a park. What makes this cabin special is its place in Moorhead’s history as the first permanent settlement structure in the town. Prior to its construction, Moorhead was filled with tent buildings and poorly constructed wooden homes that did not last long. It was built not as a subsistence structure, one that was built without ideas of permanence, but as a home, a place for a family to live permanently. John Gustav Bergquist came from Sweden c. 1870 and built a cabin with the intent to farm the area around it. While he did farm for several years, eventually he moved to a different home in the early 1880’s, near his new brickyard business on the east end of town. He then divided the land he had once farmed, giving some of it to the city so that they could build a new courthouse in 1882-1883. The cabin was restored in the 1970’s by John Bergquists son, Jim, and his grandson, a local news weatherman, Dewey Bergquist. The Bergquist cabin today stands as testimony to the early lives of Moorhead settlers and to the man who helped build the town. For more information on another of Moorhead's early settlers, Randolf Probstfield, viist site 37. Sources:“Bergquist Cabin.” Accessed October 22, 2016. http://www.hcscconline.org/the-bergquist-cabin/. A Century Together: A History of Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota. Fargo, North Dakota: The Fargo-Moorhead Centennial Cooperation, 1975. “Clay County Historical Society Newsletter.” Pioneer Cabin Comes Alive. 1993. https://archive.org/stream/JulAug93/Jul-Aug93_djvu.txt. United States Department of Interior, National Park Service. "Minnesota Historic Properties Inventory Form- John Bergquist Cabin." http://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp/GetAsset?assetID=ae1ba9bf-bf3f-43f6-8cf9-2c5d9bf643b9. 1980.Image Credits:Harvey, Thomas. John Bergquist Cabin. August 1979. National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved from http://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp/AssetDetail?assetID=ae1ba9bf-bf3f-43f6-8cf9-2c5d9bf643b9. Johnson, Kaci. John Bergquist Cabin Fall 2016. October 2016.
Randolph Probstfield
Randolph Michael Probstfield was born in Germany in 1832. When he was 22, he left Germany and traveled to the United States. He worked many odd jobs including a treasurer, clerk, school director, county commissioner, senator, and of course, a farmer. In 1868, Probstfield and his wife, Catherine Goodman Probstfield, established a homestead in Oakport Township. This made Probstfield one of the earliest settlers in Moorhead and the homestead was created before Fargo-Moorhead actually existed.The initial Probstfield family included eleven children and all were involved in educational and social activities. Probstfield built the first school house and also taught students in his area. Probstfield was also a major contributor to agriculture, he experimented and ran tests for the U.S. Bureau of Agriculture that the Red River Valley was fertile for crops.1862, Indian fighting along the frontier, caused panic amongst the settlers. This caused the family to move towards another settlement at the Hudson Bay compound, Georgetown. The family eventually also had to evacuate Georgetown, against his will, and went to Fort Abercrombie, but got into an argument over a cow, and had to leave the settlement to St. Cloud for a year. When he was finally able to go back to his settlement near Georgetown, working for the Hudson Bay Company, then the Postmaster. Probstfield found land near the Red River that was not in fear of flooding and built a house. The steamboats went along the river near the house. The family also started to farm. Probstfield's house was a stop for the steamboats, he would chop wood for them, and his wife Catherine would cook meals for the passengers. This was one way that the family created their income. One year the steamboat failed, and trains came into the picture.The house was originally a two-story house, the second floor was used as a greenery, then as bedrooms as they had more children. Grasshoppers was a big difficulty when farming, a whole year of crops were eaten by the grasshoppers. In Probstfield's diary, it often says how the grasshoppers came and what they ate. The farm had a regular crop, including tobacco and sugar beets. He often won at awards for farming at the Clay County Fair, and they ended up eventually making him a judge because he kept winning.In addition to farming, Probstfield was also very interested in politics, on the side of the small farmer. Very concerned with fairness, he thought that farmers were being taken advantage of by the railroads. He ran as a candidate of the Populist Party but lost both times he ran for office.Probstfield also faced many challenges in his life, including a financial crisis, where grasshoppers overtook his crop, an Indian uprising, and chronically ill family members. He ended up losing his wife and one of his daughters in a span of a few months. Catherine Probstfield suffered a stroke while visiting her daughter in the hospital who was there for a tumor and later passes away on December 18, 1899, in Saint Paul. Her daughter Dora was there with a terminally ill form of cancer. Dora died not long after in March of 1900. This was a very hard time on Probstfield because he was at home, and the news of losing two of his family members in such a short amount of time was very troubling for him.For more information on another early Moorhead settler, visit the John Bergquist Cabin, site 36. Sources:The Probstfield Family, Box 10, Folder 11, The Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County, Moorhead, MN Photo, The Probstfield Family, 10, The Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County, Moorhead, MN
