I (Sal) started this site today (Monday, January 14th of 2008) to organize my notes from reading a book called, "The History of Stevens County" by Edna Mae Busch" (190pp @1976) at the Stevens County Historical Society. This is for a county-wide community project I'm doing (see Stevens County: Demographics, History, etc...).
Unique Facts:
"First city to adopt a city manager (pp. 115)
"Tinta Wasota" (hill where high school is located) was used by the Sioux Indians to send smoke signals to the tribes
American Indian School:
*see Stevens County: History)
"In 1910 the U of M established the West Central School of Agriculture on the campus, which successfully educated the area's high school students in a boarding school environment until 1963. It is this time period that garnered the campus its placement on the National Register of Historic Places as the West Central School of Agriculture and Experiment Station Historic District. Handsome Prairie School structures, such as Behmler Hall and the Education building, built during the WCSA years and designed by well-known state architect Clarence H. Johnston, Sr., continue to serve the campus well."
Related Sites:
Native Indian, from Goodnewseverybody.com
Wilbert H. "Bert" Ahern
Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of History
University of Minnesota, Morris
West Central (Agriculture) School and Experiment Station:
-Opened on Monday, October 3rd of 1910
-School newspaper called "The Moccasin"
-enrollment was going down
University of Minnesota-Morris
-opened in 1960 -"arrival of instructors and students from foreign lands... the community has benefited from this." (pp.121)
Busch tells the history of almost all the churches that had services at the time back in 1976.
Stevens County had the oldest and poorest quality jail system in the state when it was first built.
Hotels were huge businesses at the time when hunters from all over would come. Busch stated that one hotel sold 105 breakfasts at one morning!
The old Armory was located at the current (2008) site of our Morris Public Library before the "fire". It was the central community gathering area, which it had a capacity of 1,200 people. One famous band that played here was "Lawrence Welk". The "new" (currently being renovated as of January 2008 and will be finished this Spring-Summer) Armory is located along Hwy 28 across the street from Heartland Chevyrolet.
In 1883, they had a doctor name Dr. Stephen Duly, who was from Russia. In the 1890's, Dr. John O. Dyrnes traveled to Madagascar as a missionary doctor. One outstanding doctor to be noted by Busch was Dr. Caine. He started a hospital right from his home. He became such an all-around community resident, that he became mayor, a city council member, served in the board of education, etc...His funeral at the Armory became the largest recorded crowd ever.
-Morris Bottling Works "Johnny Pop" was started by John Walsh, an Irish. He sold it in 1904 to Ole Severson.
1885:
-Cheese Factory
-Candy
-Garter Factory
-Newspapers
There has been many different recorded names for the local paper. One that sticked out the most for me was "Stevens County Reporter", which became the "Stevens County Tribune" later.
Some distinguished lawyers that came out of Morris that made it "big" were:
-Tom Mangan, who became a State Senator
-Royal A. Stone, who became Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court
-Corn & Alfalfa Show in December 1913
This event attracted "big names" like-State Govenor, President of the University of Minnesota, James J. Hill, etc...
Related Sites:
Wikipedia-Alfalfa
"(Medicago sativa) is a flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae cultivated as an important forage crop. In the UK it is known as lucerne and Lucerne grass in India.
Alfalfa is a cool season perennial legume living from three to twelve years, depending on variety and climate. It resembles clover with clusters of small purple flowers. The plant grows to a height of up to 1 metre, and has a deep root system sometimes stretching to 4.5 metres. This makes it very resilient, especially to droughts. It has a tetraploid genome. The plant exhibits autotoxicity, which means that it is difficult for alfalfa seed to grow in existing stands of alfalfa. Therefore, it is recommended that alfalfa fields be rotated with other species (e.g. corn, wheat) before reseeding."
-John Eul, whose hardware store currently exists still since the 1930's
-Unger's and Henry's Candy Company both started in 1929
"Every time you turn your head, you expect to see a new house started. One cause of this building boom in Morris is a splendid school; another, our various church accommodations; third is a desirable society and good police regulations. We were going to say fourthly the good conditions of our streets but we guess we won't," so reported the Stevens County Tribune in 1881." (pp. 42 "125th Anniversary of Morris")
-Lake Crystal and Pomme de Terre used to be connected through Green River (along the current Green River Road), which the community was planning a canal to be built to connect the two; however, this project was projected to be too costly! Lake Crystal used to be a community hot spot during the winter for ice skating, hockey, and bonfires along the coast. (pp.146)
-Greyhound used to have services here (pp. 151)
Books/Pamphlets
Education