Category Archives: Historic Articles

The Old Drug Store (1857)

Places

by David R. Schleper

On May 28, 1857, David Lennox How arrived in Shakopee by riverboat from Alden, Michigan via Chicago, and opened the Old Drug Store. It was a three-story building on the north side of First Avenue, between Lewis and Holmes streets. The first owners were David Lennox How and D.W. C. Wisner.

D. L. How & Bro. Ad

David continued in the business until 1870, when he sold out to Edward G. Halle and Charles H. Lord. D.W.C. Wisner retired in 1858 and sold his part of the enterprise to Dr. J.S. Weiser, who held it until he was killed in action in the Civil War in 1861.

(Below is D. L. How)

D. L. How

The Old Drug Store operated in the frontier community in which Dakota Indians performed dances on the main street and frequently peeked into the windows of the white settlers’ homes. Bears, deer, and other wild animals were plentiful and roamed within a short distance of the city limits in the 1850s and 1860s.

The Strunks operated the store since 1874. Herman H. Strunk came to Shakopee in 1854 from St. Louis, Missouri, where he was working as a drayman since coming to Germany in 1838. He married Mary Ann Dinklage in St. Louis, and on September 1, 1852 Charles Joseph Strunk, known as Joseph, was born.

(Below is Herman H. Strunk):

Herman H. Strunk

Joseph got into the drug store business on a hot July day in 1866. Herman and Joseph were returning from a fishing trip when they stopped to weigh their catch. They met Arnold Grafenstad, a Shakopee cabinet maker. “I can get your boy a job in the drug store in town if he wants it,” Grafenstad told the elder Strunk.

The 15-year-old Joe Strunk was happy to get away from the family farm, and to earn some money, so soon he was performing small tasks and errands for E.G. Halle, who had purchased David Lennox How’s drug store. Joe, or C.J. Strunk, went on to practice the art of pharmacy for 66 years, until, at his time of death in February 1930, he was the oldest pharmacist in Minnesota. His wife was Mary Gellenbach Strunk.

Old Drug Store

(Below is the Old Drug Store in the 1920s):

Old Drug Store in the 1920s

Herman also followed his son into the drug store business when he bought the City Drug Store on Lewis Street with G.W. Gellenbeck in 1871. Strunk purchased the Old Drug Store in 1874, and moved his stock from the Lewis Street location to main street in Shakopee. The store had been operated continuously by the Strunk family except for a brief time in 1953-1955 until it was closed for good in June of 1977.

An ad in the Argus in the 1870s listed drugs, medicine, white leads, glass, dry and mixed paints, lard, linseed, turpentine, artist materials and many more items. Pills, tinctures, and ointments were made by hand. A large cast iron mortar with heavy cast iron pestles was used.

When C.J. Strunk died in 1930, A.M. Strunk continued the operation until his death in 1938. Then Joe B. and George H. Strunk continued the store. At that time, the third floor was removed and the store remodeled. Strunk Pharmacy remained in this building until 1972, when it moved to a building on Lewis Street between Second and Third avenues. (This is now Pablo’s restaurant.)

In 1957, the Old Drug Store celebrated its 100-year birthday celebration. In the basement they found many interesting files and old records. One was the first recorded prescription, which was issued to F.H. Themes on November 10, 1863, for silver nitrate solution, a prescription for tonsillitis.

A journal of Shakopee’s first doctor, Dr. J.S. Weiser, who was later killed while serving with the Union army, was in the basement. Some of the records included Comfort Barnes, who got box pills for Andrew for 25 cents. John Hinds visited and got advice for his wife for $1.00. Henry Pauly paid $5.00 to have his wife deliver a baby. Comfort Barnes extracted a tooth for Johnny at 50 cents. And George Keyser received medicine and attendance at night for $10.00.

Other finds in the Old Drug Store were part of history, according to the Shakopee Valley News, including:

  • An old map of 1855, showing Minnesota with only 18 counties (it currently has 87).
  • An old, badly damaged still, which was used in compounding drugs years ago, and which was very suspicious of the revenooers in the prohibition era.
  • Two tickets to the 1893 World’s Fair and Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.
  • An ingenious device known as a pill machine, used in the days when the pharmacist had to full their own pills!

In 1879 it was one of only four places in Shakopee that had a telephone.

The Old Drug Store did not have many of the items which a modern drug store had; it did offer a wide variety of goods and services to the customers. A soda fountain was installed in 1870. Prayer books, text books for school, and other items, including paint, were offered.

The Strunk Pharmacy at the Old Drug Store closed after 120 years of service in June of 1977.

(Some information from Shakopee Scrapbook by Michael, Patricia, and Joseph Huber; Strunk Pharmacy to Note 100th Birthday During Year by Argus Tribune, March 7, 1959; Local Pharmacy Oldest in State; Has Been in Business 100 Years by Shakopee Valley News, March 7, 1957; Strunk Pharmacy Ends 120 Years of Service, Shakopee Valley News, June 14, 1977.)

The Wasson House also known as the American Hotel (1853-1912)

Places

By David R. Schleper

The first hotel built in Shakopee was the Wasson House, named after its owner and proprietor, Frank Wasson. It was built in 1853 by Barney Young. The hotel was built in the days when steamboats and stagecoaches furnished all transportation to its hospitable portals, and whose solid timbers were brought to Shakopee by steamers plying up and down the Minnesota River between the village of St. Paul and Shakopee.

The Wasson House was a favorite stopping place for traders and travelers, and was headquarters for the boatmen when their boats were tied up at the levee below, waiting to unload freight and take aboard fresh cargo of the spoils of the pioneers. The Wasson House was built when the country was a wilderness and the Dakota were neighbors.

The big frame building was a prominent stage house and hostelry in the pioneer days. By 1854, the Wasson House was a fixture, one of only six buildings in Shakopee (other than the tipi tanka of the Dakota). During the next few years the boom changed things so rapidly that there was quite a town in Shakopee, but back in 1853, when the Wasson House was erected, there was naught but wilderness, a stage road, and the river steamboats being the only connection links with white civilization.

A year or so later, William Sherrerd purchased the hotel and conducted the hotel under that name of the American Hotel, which it is best known. It became the social center for the settlement, with many a hospitable gathering and social revel for the sturdy pioneers.

As the years passed the hotel changed hands a number of times, finally falling into disuse as a public house, and eventually half of it was removed, reducing it to the proportions of a dwelling house for which it had been used for many years.

Gertrude Berens had lived there for many years before Fred Gollmeier bought it in 1911. He lived there with his family, as well as William Wandschneider and his family.

On Sunday night, March 15, 1912, at 7 p.m., the once famous Wasson House, which had crowned the river bank above the steamboat landing for 59 years, caught fire from a defected flue, and in a couple of hours the north half was razed and the left side was standing, a charred and blackened skeleton.

Neighbors saw the blaze and gave the alarm, and the fire bell and the fire whistle brought out half the town to witness the spectacular fire. The fire department had a line of hoses running from the hydrant to the corner of Lewis and First Street in short order, but there was no water. So people thought that the hydrant was frozen, while others say it was not properly opened. It took more than half an hour after the fire started before a line of hose was run to the power house and the pump called upon to take the place of the standpipe. By that time, the fire had consumed the roof and upper floors, and the deluge of water simply held the flames from preventing other property to be up in flames.

During the long wait for water, the firemen and bystanders managed to save much of the furniture downstairs. They even carried out two Coral ranges. Both families suffered the loss of practically all of their clothing and a number of pieces of furniture which could not be removed from the sleeping rooms upstairs.

The Wasson House/American Hotel has found shelter and refreshment from statesmen, lawyers, and governors, as well as regular people of Minnesota. The old landmark is no more.

(Some information from “Old Landmark Prey to Flames,” The Shakopee Tribune, March 22, 1912.)

Remember When: October 2017

Remember When

1892 Shakopee Courier

Oct. 6, 1892

Mr. Callum has moved from the Titus house to a house up above the depot.

Mrs. Wm. Pinger has come back to Shakopee to live after living in St. Paul for a few years.

The Receiver of the property of the Russ Jones desk company, has taken possession of the machinery they brought over here.

Mrs. Henschel has opened up her stock of confectionary and fruit, and all the little fellows are going there to get a big lot for their nickel.

Two boys, Henry Cargill and Otto Kochlin are under arrest for burglarizing Marx’s saloon; they cases to be decided this afternoon as to whether they should be held to the grand jury, or discharged.

John Theis’ tomato trees, mentioned by us some weeks ago, not being injured by frost—we didn’t have any—were loaded down with the biggest kind of tomatoes, some of which we received from him lately. They have been noticed in several of the agricultural papers, since the description given in the Courier.

Oct. 13, 1892

The Shakopee Co-operative Barrel Company has employed four new men to help furnish barrels for the Mill Co.

The bridge across the creek to the trestle is now completed.

The Wampach Manufacturing Co. shipped three laundry wagons and five delivery wagons to Minneapolis last week.

Oct. 20, 1892

Casper Scott has lately stocked up with a fine lot of new boots and shoes, for gents and ladies, of the best makes, at rock bottom prices.

A Valuable Machine.—Gregory Hattenberger of Eagle Creek, on Monday last received from Illinois a “combined corn husker and fodder cutter,” something new around here. His sons will have charge of it through the country wherever engaged. It separates the corn from the stalk, throwing the corn into the wagon box on one side, and the fodder cut up, ready to feed on the other side of the machine. Farmers using this combined cutter, can feed the whole of their fodder now, a great saving.

Herman Covnick has taken the place vacated by Wm. Dols as assistant of the Milwaukee office.

Fire broke out on Wednesday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. in the barn of William Heidenreich and extended to those of Peter Radermacher and Peter Mergens on the block between Holmes and Fuller. They were entirely destroyed, a big wind blowing from the west making it a very dangerous conflagration, but owing to the determined action of our fire department the farther spread of the flames was prevented in this locality. But the high wind carried with it big sparks over two blocks east on to August Abel’s stable on Sommerville street, so that we had two fires going at the same time. Abel’s stable was destroyed but Derberger’s, which had also caught from this last fire, was saved. The firemen worked hard, and we may consider it a very lucky event that more valuable buildings and property were not burned, considering the wind. As it was, more or less serious loss was sustained in hay and feed etc. Word was sent to Chaska and St. Paul by Mayor Weiland, but was countermanded soon thereafter.

When the chimney sweep blows his morning horn, it remindeth people that they should have their chimneys cleaned. Great conflagrations may be prevented by so doing.

Oct. 27, 1892

Miss Lottie Farncamp has come to Shakopee to reside. She will occupy her cottage on the hill below O. S. Brown’s place.

Mrs. Titus has rented her house to Joe Bierline.

Flags over city hall, postoffice and bank at half mast on Tuesday account of death of Mrs. Harrison.

The Occidental hotel has enlarged their dining room, putting in a hardwood floor, and otherwise repairing up.

1892: Scott County Argus

Oct. 6, 1892

On Monday August Grosskopp tried to stop the cylinder of a separator with the first finger of his left hand. Dr. Smith trimmed down the rough edges of the finger.

Chas. Smith has moved into the Heidenreich building on Second street.

J. A. Dean has moved in the Juergens house on Second street lately vacated by Paul Fischer.

Oct. 13, 1892

Geo. Huber shot three large geese at one shot in Dean’s lake last Friday, the largest weighing twelve pounds.

Judge Cadwell has rendered a decision in the Russ Jones Desk Co. case against the city in favor of the city. By the decision the city saves the $3,000 bonus which was deposited in the bank, and secure a lead on the building for the $3,000 which had been paid over to the company to purchase the building. So by the transaction the city is a loser of only some machinery, engine and the expense of the suit. The city will probably sue the assignee of the company to recover the machinery and engine which originally belonged to the plant, and was removed from the building to Minneapolis.

Oct. 20, 1892

Joe. Buch is now employed in the mill.

Farm for sale. My farm of seventy acres east of town known as the Mrs. Haas farm. Thomas Pinches.

Oct. 27, 1892

August Abel is building a new brick barn, 19×28, on the street and alley corner, back of his house.

One thing must be insisted on in Shakopee in the future. That no building of any sort, size or description be allowed built of boards within the fire limits, whether covered with sheetiron or not. Build of stone or brick only.

Two gentlemen of the road who gave their names as Thomas Hyland and August Schultz, went through August Abel’s tailor shop last Friday and took a pair of pantaloons. The same day they broke into the Conter House and took several articles of clothing belonging to John Merten. A search warrant was sworn out by Mr. Abel and the parties were found at Ring’s hotel with some of the articles in their possession. They told Police Officer Rose where they had hid the rest, so all lost articles were recovered. They had their hearing before Justice Stevens Monday, and will board with landlord Hilgers until the Grand Jury meets.

1917: Shakopee Tribune

Oct. 5, 1917

Gem Theatre Sold. A deal was closed on Monday whereby Mr. Frank Veigel who has conducted the Gem Theatre the past year sold the same to Mr. W. A. Shelton of Williston, N. D. The new proprietor took possession the same day. We are glad to know that Mr. Veigel and family expect to remain here at least during the winter months.

The Schroeder brickyards are a busy place this time of the year a kiln of 500,000 brick being burned this week.

Oct. 12, 1917

The George Diederich family of Marystown moved on Saturday into the Niedenfuehr house, which Mr. Diederich bought last spring.

The John Sames family moved to their farm in Eagle Creek on Monday. The home they vacated is being occupied by the Carlton family.

The First National Bank has just installed a very unique and valuable feature as a window display.

This consists of a Weekly Map Window Service showing interesting Maps and Illustrations. They advise us that these Maps will show the leading events of whatever part of the world happens to be in the limelight. Just now, of course, the big interest is in Europe; so these Maps will show the battle front in Europe; just where our American boys will be; together with pictures of interest in connection with same.

These Maps will be changed weekly, and will show geographically the progress of armies and other events of world interest. Special attention is going to be given to the showing of the location of our American boys in France.

The Bank decided that after the Maps have had their turn in the window, they will present them to the local high school, making a most valuable educational feature for the school.

Oct. 19, 1917

Dies On Train. The body of an elderly unidentified man was taken from Omaha passenger train No. 3 on Thursday morning. Passengers had heard him moan and upon investigation found he was dead. Coroner Reiter was called and had the body removed to Hirscher’s undertaking parlors. A letter found in one of his pockets was addressed to William A. Brown, the postmark being Evanston, Ill. A card was also found showing that he had money on deposit in a bank at Eagle River, Wis. His destination according to the railroad ticket was Fenton, Ia. Coroner Reiter is awaiting a reply to a telegram sent to Evanston as to the disposal of the body.

For Sale—My modern seven room house on Lewis street. Bath, electric lights, hot water heat, hardwood thruout; fine garage. Small amount of cash will handle. Inquire of L. D. Nye or at the office of the Minnesota Stove Co.

The Fourth Annual Corn Show will be held at the Shakopee High School, Saturday, November 10. Now is the time to start saving your good ears of corn. There are rumors that there will be another carnival that night. We hope it will be as good as the one last year when everyone had the time of their lives.

The mill was shut down the first two days of the week according to the new government ruling, limiting the number of bushels of wheat to be used, weekly.

Willie Gross had the misfortune to fall while playing near the bridge last Saturday and as the result is carrying his left arm in a sling, having suffered a severe fracture.

Mr. Swanson of Casselton, N. D., arrived here on Tuesday and is the new miller at the local mill. His family is expected here soon. They will occupy the Riggs house on First street.

1917: Scott County Argus

Oct. 5, 1917

Michael Hergott, who bought the former Quigley place, moved into town Wednesday.

Miss Isabel Strunk has accepted a position in the mill office and began work there Monday.

Hirscher Bros. have purchased a new Studebaker truck for use in their furniture and undertaking business, and will build a handsome hearse that may be used with the truck as an auto hearse. The firm is known all over the state—and further—for their expert cabinet work and it is safe to say that the hearse, when completed, will be a handsome vehicle and the equal in appearance of any auto hearse owned hereabouts.

New Rye Mill Construction is Now Going Forward. Shane Bros. & Wilson company’s three story rye and meal mill is rapidly assuming proportions. When the structure shall have been completed and the machinery installed Shakopee will have the most modern and up-to-date rye and meal mill in this part of the state. The machinery will be operated by electric power. Score one more for Shakopee’s progress in the manufacturing line.

Oct. 12, 1917

Mrs. A. J. Munro and son Angus left Tuesday to join Mr. Munro in their new home in Cedar Rapids. Shakopee friends are sorry to lose them but wish them every success.

Fred Reimer, residing north of town, has purchased Rudolph Selbig’s residence property and will move to Shakopee next month. Lee Schaefer and family, who will vacate the Reimer residence, will move to the home vacated by A. J. Munro.

Oct. 19, 1917

Harry Broekhuizen has rented the Reis building on First street and will move his shoe repairing shop there about the last of this month.

Fish as Food

The Bureau of Fisheries at Washington is giving a series of demonstrations in the cooking, smoking, drying and salting of fish through this state and have made arrangements for a lecture and demonstration for Shakopee at the High School next Monday afternoon.

All persons interested are asked to be present.

Oct. 26, 1917

County Fuel Administrators Appointed. John Thiem, cashier of the First National Bank, has been appointed by Judge John F. McGee, federal fuel administrator for Minnesota, chairman of a committee of fuel administrators for Scott county. Associated with Mr. Thiem on the committee are J. S. Effertz of Belle Plaine, A. M. Schaefer of Jordan and Michael Schreiner of New Prague…

The L. Schaefer family have moved into the home recently vacated by A. J. Munro.

Shakopee Team Wins First Place

Last Friday a county canning contest was held at the Belle Plaine fair. Miss Baker, of the Extension Division of the State University, conducted the contest, in which Belle Plaine, Jordan, New Prague and Shakopee were each represented by a team. As a team Shakopee won first place, Belle Plaine second, Jordan third and New Prague fourth. Jordan carried off the first and second prizes for the best individual canning exhibit, New Prague taking third place. Money prizes were offered for both team work and individual exhibits. Shakopee was represented by Marguerite Schaefer, Mabel Raatz, Margaret Lies and Lilian Newgard.

The girls of the various teams were not the only ones who receive the benefit of the contest. A large number of ladies profited by the demonstrations, lectures and exhibits so nicely prepared along lines of the use and conservation of food. The educational features of the Belle Plaine fair were certainly well planned and executed, and without a doubt will leave lasting results.

1942: Shakopee Argus-Tribune

Oct. 1, 1942

Official Inspects County Plane Spotting Service

Inspection of the 13 aircraft observation posts in Scott county was completed Tuesday by Lieut. Gobel of the Minnesota State Gerard, state supervisor and organizer of the state’s aircraft spotting service.

Lieut. Gobel was accompanied on his four-day tour by W. B. Schroeder, county director, who set up the county organization. The lieutenant was well satisfied with the county organization and pronounced it a “splendid job…”

Shakopee Air Raid Wardens First Aid Started This Week

Nearly 100 of the men selected as air raid wardens for the City of Shakopee began their qualifying course in first aid at the high school auditorium, Monday night.

The first aid course, which must be successfully passed by all men serving as wardens, is to be given under the leadership of Dr. F. H. Buck, Dr. B. F. Pearson and Ray C. Schroeder…

Oct. 8, 1942

Court House Cardiograph. If two unidentified hunters who borrowed a tractor on the Clarence Marshall farm north of Shakopee Sunday night , knew what nearly happened to them, they wouldn’t try that trick again. It seems, according to the sheriff’s office who was called for assistance Marshall was aroused by the sound of his tractor some distance from his house. Suspecting theft he grabbed his gun and made for the scene. In the meantime Mrs. Marshall called Sheriff Wermerskirchen, although it was out of his territory. He took the old Indian road and there met Mr. Marshall, who advised that everything was OK. Apparently two hunters, whose car had become mired, borrowed the tractor to free the car and then drove away. They were just plain lucky Marshall didn’t see them driving the tractor down the road.

Shak-O-Hi News

Youthful Victory Aides from the high school filled the school buses and were off to husk Mr. Huss’ corn Friday morning. The husking bee was just a little tribute to Mr. Huss’ fine cooperation in helping put the lunch project across. He donated the land for the school garden, plowed it without charge, and donated all the corn that the cooks could can.

Work gangs of happy boys and girls were ready when school opened–boys in overalls, girls in slacks and hair bound up in turbans. Under the supervision of Mr. Metcalf and Mr. Maloney, 18 rows, ¾ of a mile long, were harvested.

While one group worked in the field, those in school remained at their usual task, shelling out an extra grain or two of knowledge. “It is more fun working to help someone than it is to work for money,” was the conclusion of one youth.

Oct. 15, 1942

Shakopee Branch County Defense Council Formed. At a meeting called at the City hall last Saturday evening by Chm. Berg of the County Civilian Defense Council, Shakopee’s defense council was organized by electing Mayor J. J. Cavanuagh, chairman; Miss Elizabeth K. Ries, director of citizen service, and Paul Ries, commander of defense…

Shakopee Has Woman on City Mail Delivery Job

For some months now Shakopee women, like others throughout the nation have been taking their places in the local factories and shops, doing what was always considered a “man’s job.”

Latest addition to the list is a mail-carrier in the person of Dolores Ries, who began her duties in Shakopee Monday morning. Employed as a substitute carrier, Miss Ries is taking the place of John Lynch, who reported for duty in the Naval Reserve Friday…

Watch Your Rifle

Frequent and emphatic complaints about broken windows, shattered light bulbs and slain birds has brought the declaration from R. L. Brown, police chief, that any type of rifle seen in the hands of children within the city limits of Shakopee, will be confiscated.

Chief Brown said his order applied to air rifles and .22’s alike. The list of complaints, he said, is growing daily and he is taking this means of warning rifle-owners that careless use of these guns must stop.

Citizens Favor Scrapping Court House Iron Fence

At a large meeting of representative citizens of Shakopee and vicinity gathered at the public school building Tuesday evening to round out plans for the scrap drive this Thursday afternoon, the question of the advisability of making some disposition of the obsolete and long since antiquated iron fence surrounding the court house yard, incidentally came up on the floor of the meeting.

The consensus of opinion as expressed was that the fence which has done service for more than half a century has long ago outlived its usefulness and should be scrapped. After some brief discussion the meeting by motion went on record as favoring the dismantling of the fence, the County Board to make such disposition of the salvaged material as its members may see fit, was carried by a unanimous vote of those assembled. Of course, there are other sections of the county whose people may be interested in this question, and whose interest should be consulted, but there could be no speculating as to how the group of citizens who voiced their conviction Tuesday evening has felt about the matter.

Oct. 22, 1942

Government Wants 500,000 Standard Typewriters

Due to the fact that typewriter manufacturers have practically converted their factories into defense manufacturing, there are not enough typewriters being made to supply the general needs and the considerable number needed in the army and the navy. Therefore the government is setting up plans for buying used typewriters.

The government wants 500,000 standard machines immediately. But they must be machines which were made after January 1, 1935. They will be bought from civilians at the factory trade-in allowance for such machines as of February 1, 1941.

Dallas F. Capesius has been appointed to handle the typewriter procurement program in Shakopee and vicinity. So that if there should be anyone here who has a typewriter he or she does not need and is willing to dispose of it in the way and manner described, it is suggested that Mr. Capesius be seen about it. His office is located at 120 ½ Shakopee Theatre Bldg., for further particulars.

Albert Czaia Believed Drowned in River Friday

Albert Czaia, for many years a familiar figure in Shakopee, is believed to have drowned in the Minnesota river here Friday afternoon. Searchers working along the river bank north of the Siebenaler ice house in West Shakopee, where Czaia had been fishing, discovered his cane and marks in the mud which indicated he had slipped into the stream.

Firemen dragging the river in the area, had not recovered the body up to Wednesday noon.

The aged man had been a resident of St. Francis home here and had a custom of fishing in the river. When he failed to return to the home early Friday evening, a search was instituted and it was learned he had been last seen on the river bank where his cane was found.

Oct. 29, 1942

Old Bridge To Be Razed for Scrap Metal. What seems to be the death knell for an old Shakopee landmark, which through the years has fostered rich memories of life and living in this Minnesota River town, was sounded at 10 a.m. Monday, October 26, when Deputy United States Marshal Elmer J. Kennedy served, on Mayor J. J. Cavanaugh, a United States Requisition Order claiming the old bridge that spans the Minnesota river at the north end of Lewis street.

Court House Cardiograph. Perhaps spelling “doom” for the iron fence around the court house, came a letter Tuesday morning to County Auditor A. A. Mertz, requesting the board of county commissioners to consider scrapping the rail. The letter pointed out that sentiment in the community apparently favored its removal. It is just a guess, but we’ll bet the commissioners will vote for the removal of the fence. One commissioner said: “If it will hit a Jap or a Nazi I’ll be glad to let the fence go.”

1967: Shakopee Valley News

Oct. 5, 1967

Dedication of the new Shakopee Edward and Grace Sweeney Elementary School, Tenth Avenue and Marystown Road, was held last Sunday, October 1, beginning at 2 p.m., with an open house and tours of the building from 2:45 to 5 p.m…

Evidence of vandalism by shooting was reported this week by Roman Luce whose farm is four miles south of Shakopee on Scott County No. 79 (O’Dowd Lakes Road), just northwest of Marystown. Luce brought in this electric fence charger that had holes, apparently pierced by bullets. He pointed out that “apparently some fun-loving fire-arm bearers had their fun channeled in the wrong direction.” The Scott County Sheriff’s department reported that also this past week was received a complaint of shooting mail boxes on Scott County Road No. 76.

Oct. 12, 1967

600 Tour School. Reported at the regular monthly meeting of the Shakopee Public School District No. 720 Monday evening of this week was that more than 600 attended the Dedication and Open House at the new Sweeney Elementary School on Sunday, October 1.

Break-In At Beverage Firm

Reported to Shakopee police was a break-in some time Wednesday evening of last week, October 4, at Rudy Gmitro Beverage, Inc., 134 South Main.

Entry was gained from the alley side through the basement and then through the warehouse on into the offices of the firm.

Missing were an adding machine and an electric typewriter.

Approval was given the Shakopee Utilities Commission for the letting of bids on the proposed garage and warehouse building, a 200 by 150 foot structure, proposed for the site at Naumkeag and Scott County Road 17.

Sealed bids are to be accepted until 3 p.m. Monday, October 30, by the Utilities Commission at the office in the Shakopee City building…

Pointed out was that the proposed new structure would include a meeting room that could also be used for public gatherings such as the Golden Age club and similar activity.

Oct. 19, 1967

Break-Ins At 3 City Firms Within 4 Days. City of Shakopee had a rash of three break-ins in four days this past week, with some $150 in cash and merchandise taken from Strunk’s Pharmacy on East First, $3,800 in guns from Engel’s Place on East First and an attempt to open the safe at Maus Super-Valu on West First apparently not successful…

87 Free Films Available From Phone Company

Northwestern Bell Telephone Company isn’t in the theater business, but it does have 87 different films available to loan to the public free of charge, W. R. Mahady, Shakopee manager, said this week.

Films cover a variety of subjects, including suggestions on home decorating, national defense, telephone research and development, safety, and, of course, several on good telephone usage, he added…

Oct. 26, 1967

Boy Scout Paper Drive Resumes On November 4

Shakopee Boy Scout Troop No. 218 has received notice that salvage paper can be collected again on a temporary basis.

The Shakopee troop is conducting a city-wide paper drive, to include newspapers only, on Saturday, November 4.

This date would resume the regular first Saturday of the month date the troop has used to collect paper since the 1920’s…

West End River Bridge Span ‘Choice’ Highway Dept. Reports

That the State Highway Department engineers would recommend proceeding with the original location of the new bridge span for the Minnesota River at Shakopee, from the Highway 169-212 wye just northeast of the city to just west of Rahr Malting on West First, was the report given by Highway Department engineers at a meeting Tuesday evening for this week in the Council Chambers of the Shakopee City Building.

This announcement came in a follow-up report by Highway engineers on the comparative cost and engineering studies of the west end location for the bridge span with that of the location at the east edge of Shakopee as sought by city officials, primarily to serve Valley Industrial Park…

Maurice Stans On Nixon Bandwagon

Maurice H. Stans, budget director under former President Dwight Eisenhower, and a member of the 1925 Shakopee High graduating class, for whom Stans Park was recently dedicated and named in his honor, has been named national finance chairman of the Nixon-For-President committee.

Stans made an appearance in Shakopee with former Vice President Nixon during the Eisenhower administration, when Nixon came to Shakopee as guest speaker at a testimonial dinner for Stans on Thursday, September 16, 1965. This event was sponsored by the Shakopee Education Association and the Shakopee Federation of Teachers in recognition of Stans’ assistance in the program for scholarships for post-high school study for Shakopee High graduating seniors.

1992: Shakopee Valley News

Oct. 1, 1992

After moving its restored house from 303 East First Avenue to 437 East Fourth Avenue, Van Horn Home Improvements has moved back to First Avenue. Van Horn Home Improvements has purchased an old house at 339 West First Avenue which will enjoy the same kind of window, door and siding improvements that the old Van Horn location enjoyed. Van Horn Home Improvements will be celebrating the Open House of its new offices at 339 West First Ave. today, tomorrow and Saturday (Oct. 1-3), 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be a 25-percent discount available on Ply-Gem custom-made vinyl-replacement windows and doors. All Ply-Gem’s new styles will be on display. Free refreshments will also be available.

Out with the old, in with the new. Construction of a new Minnesota River bridge in downtown Shakopee continues this fall. Lunda Construction Co. of Black River Falls, Wis., is removing remnants from a previous bridge and will construct concrete piers. The bridge is expected to be completed in November 1993. Bid-letting on the companion downtown mini-bypass project is scheduled Oct. 23. The total project is scheduled for completion in November 1994.

Norwest remodeling, will add drive-up banking service

Remodeling and expansion projects at the Shakopee office of Norwest Bank were celebrated Sept. 15 during a ground-breaking ceremony.

According to Todd Schwartz, consumer bank manager and vice president, a new parking lot and five-lane drive-up banking area are being constructed adjacent to the south side of the bank. The new drive-up area will include a 24-hour automated-teller machine.

The bank’s interior will be remodeled to include a larger reception area and a teller station specifically designed to provide more access to those with disabilities. Also, there will be remodeling to provide separate offices and additional space for bankers to work individually with customers…

SACS’ endowment campaign begins

The Shakopee Area Catholic Schools (SACS) has begun a campaign to establish an education endowment. The endowment committee, chaired by Bert Notermann, is aiming for a $600,000 goal, in hopes that the fund will eventually grow to $1 million.

The endowment was established in March 1991 but the committee chose to hold off on the campaign until the parish center improvements at St. Mark’s were completed…

Oct. 8, 1992

Residents say taxes high but city services good

While Shakopee residents believe that in comparison to other suburban communities their property taxes are on the high side, they also appreciate the city services they get and are willing to pay for them.

And overall, a whopping 87 percent of city residents believe the quality of life in Shakopee is either “good” or “excellent…”

Oct. 15, 1992

Towering heights. Construction of a 265-foot malthouse tower at Rahr Malting Co. in Shakopee was completed this week. The malthouse is the fifth such structure at Rahr, and represents a major expansion by the Minneapolis-based firm. Construction of the tower required continuous pouring of concrete over about 400 hours involving 80 workers and two 12-hour shifts over about three weeks. The entire project is expected to be complete by January 1994.

City Council orders study proposal on Lions Park arena

Shakopee city officials hope they can get some lingering questions answered, once and for all, about a proposal to put a permanent roof over the Lions Park ice arena.

The council voted 5-0 on Oct. 6 to direct staff to prepare a “request for proposals,” for a feasibility study to provide those answers.

Among the topics council members want answers about concern the cost to operate the arena, anticipated revenues, and outlook for ice-rental income…

Oct. 22, 1992

SACS endowment campaign gets under way this week. The campaign to raise $600,000 in endowment funds for the Shakopee Area Catholic School (SACS) officially got under way this Wednesday as members of the advance gifts committee met for an orientation and training meeting. About 250 prospects from St. Mark’s and St. Mary’s in Shakopee, and St. Mary’s of Marystown, will be visited for lead-off gifts…

Hockey team will have a home away from home

The Shakopee Hockey team will hold its practices and games this coming winter season at the Eden Prairie Community Center.

According to Dale Vaughan, Shakopee High School’s director of activities, Shakopee will play all its home games at the Eden Prairie facility. Two of the Indians’ 10 home games will be played Saturday at 2 p.m. The other eight home games will be played weekdays at 4 p.m.…

Oct. 29, 1992

$10.6 million school bond referendum set for Feb. 2

The Shakopee School Board Monday voted unanimously to hold a $10.59 million bond referendum Feb. 2 for the acquisition of land, school expansions and improvements to facilities.

On Saturday, the School Board met in a special work session during which recommendations from facility committee members and Kevin Sullivan of Wold & Associates, the St. Paul architectural firm chosen for the design of the additions to Pearson and Sweeney elementary schools, were reviewed.

The board then came up with a pared-down version of the committee’s wish lists. If the referendum is successful, the district will make the following improvements:

* Expansion and remodeling at Pearson Elementary, estimated to cost $3.8 million…

* Expansion and remodeling at Sweeney Elementary, estimated to cost $4.345 million and be completed by August 1994…

* Land acquisition for expansion of the high school and outdoor facilities would cost an estimated $1.543 million, with a completion date of August 1994…

* Technology improvements throughout the district would cost an estimated $795,000, and be phased-in throughout 1993 and 1994…

* Another district project would include remodeling so that buildings are handicapped-accessible, at an estimated cost of $150,000…

Mishap causes five-day shutdown at Anchor Glass

The Shakopee Fire Department was called to Anchor Glass Container Corp. early Friday after a furnace – which holds 300 tons of molten glass – leaked, spewing 150 tons of the hot liquid to a retaining vat, according to Plant Manager Don Hennen.

The incident resulted in a shutdown until Wednesday…

Samuel Hibler and a Bookstore (and More) in Shakopee: 1855

People

Samuel Hibler, a young man from Pennsylvania, opened a first-class bookstore in the fall of 1855. “Hurrah for Shakopee!” said the Shakopee Independent on Nov. 17, 1855, “Such an establishment is needed in Shakopee, and no man that we know of is better qualified to transact that same business than is Mr. Hibler. May success attend him for his enterprise.”

Samuel Hibler set up a book seller and stationer in just a few days, according to the article.

Though the idea of a bookstore in Shakopee was wonderful then (and wish the same now!), there is more about Samuel Hibler than just the bookstore!

On a cold stormy night in the last days of January 1856, James B. Wakefield, Henry P. Constans, Spier Spencer and Samuel V. Hibler, with several others, whose names are not important to this history, were assembled in a small store by a warm stove in Shakopee. All were poor in purse, but in youth, health and courage, were rich and hopeful.

This was a year ever memorable in Minnesota of inflated prices of land and of wild speculations. Immigrants had been coming into the territory in great numbers. For several years past great improvements had been made and fortunes acquired in a day, by speculators in lands, town-sites and corner lots. The prospects for the year just beginning were very flattering.

The conversation of this small company turned upon these interesting subjects and the project was proposed of striking out somewhere and founding a city. Others were doing this very thing and were rapidly acquiring wealth and why should they not do the same? They agreed to go forth into the wilderness and find a suitable place for a town-site, survey and plat it and settle down as permanent citizens and build a town.

Speculation was not the sole motive of this project. A desire to secure permanent locations, the establishment of business and to contribute their mite, toward the building up and development of the country, as well as the bettering of their financial condition, induced this determination.

The first intention was to go into Freeborn County, but on examining the map of southern Minnesota, the valley of the Blue Earth River fixed the attention of the company. The buffalo and elk hunter, the trapper, the Indian and the explorer, had already told their stories, of the beauty and fertility of the Blue Earth valley. Thomas Holmes had talked in glowing language of the forks of the Blue Earth River as an eligible location for a town.

In fact, a small, rough log cabin, on the north bank of the stream was built by Thomas A. Holmes in 1854 at the two branches of the Blue Earth River in Faribault County. It was very crudely built, quite low and not more than ten by twelve feet in size, and had evidently been built as a mere temporary shelter. He erected this cabin, with the intention of making a claim of the land adjoining, with a view of eventually laying out a town in the vicinity.

This he never did, however, but went so far as to employ two men, whose names are now forgotten, to go upon the land and to occupy this cabin a short time.

This cabin was the first advance made in the building of a human habitation, on the capacity and architectural style of a Dakota tioti. It was the first house erected in the county. But in 1854, Thomas A. Holmes decided to focus more on Shakopee.

And so, in 1856, the group of men from Shakopee decided to go to the head-waters of the Blue Earth River. The winter had been long and cold. It was now the beginning of February and the snow lay twenty inches deep on the level and great drifts were piled in every direction, but what are such difficulties to western energy, bent on great projects?

The company hired one Huffman, with his team and sled, and gathered together a few provisions. They gathered flour, pork, beans, some culinary utensils and a ten gallon keg of a peculiar fluid extract of rye, which latter article had been recommended by solicitous friends, as a valuable medicine in cases of frost-bites, snake-bites, chills, or general prostration. Well-armed with guns, pistols and plenty of ammunition, Samuel and others started for the forks of the Blue Earth, across a trackless region.

The cold was intense, and the roads, where there were any, were blockaded. South of Mankato no roads existed. After a tedious journey, on Feb. 6, 1956, Samuel and his group crossed the lands where Blue Earth City now stands, and proceeded about a mile further south, to the cabin of Moses Sailor, the first settler. The group stayed overnight with Moses Sailor.

Having traveled all day over trackless prairies, plunging through deep snow drifts, sometimes breaking the way for the team, Samuel and the other pioneers were well nigh exhausted and they enjoyed the hearty welcome, the warm fire, the corn bread and bacon of the first settler.

Having fully explained their designs to Moses Sailor, the next morning the pioneers, with Moses in the lead, entered upon the lands where the future city was to be built. Moses, knowing the ground well, pointed out to them in glowing language the beauty and adaptability of the location for a town-site. But few words are necessary with men of business and it was forthwith decided to found the town. They were shown the small log cabin of Thomas A. Holmes, in which they stored their goods and took up their abode for the present.

On the following day Wakefield and Spencer started out with the team, on their return to Shakopee, leaving Constans and Hibler to hold possession of the country.

Henry and Samuel were left alone and went to work to render themselves as comfortable as possible in their cabin. Their usual amusements were chopping wood and carrying it up the steep bank of the river, to their cabin, keeping fire and cooking their victuals. Frequently informal visits would be made to Moses’s, where they would get a warm meal, which visits would be kindly returned by Moses in a day or two, and these courtesies were usually, according to the strict etiquette of the times, rendered mellow and agreeable.

Thus the time passed until about March 7, 1856, when James returned with a pocketful of official commissions and accompanied by another new settler, George B. Kingsley. Spier did not return, but stayed in Shakopee.

During this time of organization of the county, there were not probably more than fifteen white male voters in the county. The pioneers, now four of them, Wakefield, Constans, Hibler, and Kingsley, all living in the small cabin, decided that their quarters were too small and uncomfortable and determined at once to build a larger house.

This they proceeded to do and, after a week or two of hard work and the assistance of the Sailor boys, the result was the Elkhorn, erected on the proposed town-site of Blue Earth City. It was the first house on the town-site. The building was constructed of rough logs and was very roomy, being sixteen by twenty-two feet, one story high, large chimney, puncheon floor, and one civilized window. As soon as completed they removed into this commodious tenement and it became the general rendezvous, and head-quarters of the county for some time.

Spring set in about the middle of March and the snow soon entirely disappeared, but it was still cold. Provisions had run very low and Moses had also exhausted his store. The weather continued cold—the ice in the streams was breaking up—the waters getting high and traveling was impossible. Day after day even weeks passed, but no one came bringing provisions. No one could go after supplies, and starvation was imminent. They were at last reduced to buckwheat slapjacks, the flour being stirred up with water, and as a rarity occasionally seasoned with ground cinnamon bark. This was the only article of food for some weeks, except that on several occasions some wild game—a squirrel or a rabbit—would be shot.

And to add greatly to their miseries, their stock of tobacco became entirely exhausted—not a crumb left. “Oh for one chew! Just one smoke!” was the repeated exclamation. Barks and roots were tried but gave no relief—pockets were worn out with the involuntary search for the weed and in the silent hours of the night weird dreams came to them of jolly plugs of pure Cavendish, great smoking Meerschaums, and Royal Havanas, dancing in the air.

During this trying time, however, an event occurred which threw the company into great excitement—a fine fat raccoon was discovered in a tree top, at a short distance! Here now was something of real importance. It had of course to be taken by some means as they were out of meat. It was one of those great emergencies, where presence of mind, steady nerves, and skill alone triumph. So the mighty hunter Constans, by far the best marks-man in the party and a dead shot, was deputed to bring down the raccoon.

Henry approached the game with that silence, stealth and cunning, known only to the skilled hunter. He took deadly aim with a rest, he fired—the raccoon did not stir. Quickly loading again with great care and circumspection, he shot again but strange to say there were no signs of trouble in that tree top. And now, alas, it was found that the shots were all exhausted. What was to be done?

Henry wore a vest, on which were some round buttons. He pulled out his knife and off came the buttons. This was serious, so the gun was reloaded with the heavy buttons. Henry, concentrating his powers, took another deadly aim—fired and down came the raccoon, and down also came the hunter! The gun killed, or nearly so, at both ends. It had kicked him fair on the nose, knocking him over. His nose was smashed. But they got the raccoon, and they had a great old time eating once again!

Life in Faribault County during this time was not especially attractive and began to hang heavily upon our pioneers. No amusements—but few neighbors, no mails, nothing to do, except the cooking of their meals and carrying in their wood and water. Their stories had all been told a dozen times, invention even was exhausted, no reading matter but that which had been read and re-read until it had become disgustingly stale. A vocal band was organized and much time spent in singing. Quiet games of cards were played, with no other purpose than to kill time, or as was often the fact to determine definitely who should bring in the next bucket of water, or back in the next load of wood. The last days of the month arrived and with it the occurrence of a great and long hoped for event.

Settlers now began to come into various parts of the county rapidly and locate. A number of claims were taken and cabins erected, and as the pleasant month of June arrived, the ground became settled and the great work of surveying the town-site was begun.

Thomas Hood, of Shakopee, a first-class surveyor, was employed and a surveying corps was organized. The surveying and staking out of the city required about a month’s labor, and was completed in the first days of July.

Samuel, the register of deeds of the county and one of the original town proprietors, was holding a section adjoining the town-site of Blue Earth City as a claim. He had erected a small cabin and made some other improvements in the land. The land was very valuable, and since Hibler wasn’t on the claim, Theophius Bowen jumped the claim. He wanted to contest Hibler’s right to own the land on the local land office.

The jumping of claims was in those days very unpopular. Many people lost their lives in this territory because of claim jumping. Law and order was not well established and trespassing often resulted in the strong and bloody hand.

On Oct. 15, 1856, Samuel and several friends proceeded to the house on his claim and ordered Bowen off the premises. A young man, Alfonso Brooks, was in the house at the time with Theophius Bowen. High words followed between Samuel and Theophius, and when they got into a scuttle, Alfonso tried to interfere. Hibler, who had a stout cane in his hand, struck Brooks over the head. Alphonso stooped down to pick up a piece of brick from the small pile in the corner, and as he arose, Samuel struck him again on the head several times.

Alfonso fell and died in about an hour. His skull was broken.

Alfonso was buried in the graveyard at Blue Earth City. He was a young man of good habits, intelligent, of inoffensive character, and not one of the principal parties to the quarrel. He was stricken down in the prime of his life.

Theophius immediately went to Mankato to make a complaint against Samuel and some others, whom he considered implicated. The complaint was made before the justice of the peace, who issued a warrant for the arrest of Hibler and others. Samuel Hibler got an attorney from Shakopee, Thomas J. Galbraith, and James Dow, an attorney from Red Wing. Lewis Branson of Mankato was the prosecuting attorney.

Attorney Thomas J. Galbraith (who would be involved in the U.S.-Dakota Conflict in 1862) moved to discharge the prisoners because they had no jurisdiction over the territory where the offense had been committed.

They were discharged.

Samuel never returned to the county. He went to Shakopee, where he remained for a short time. And then he returned to Pennsylvania, his native state.

Theophius subsequently pre-empted the land in dispute, and later it was laid out as an addition to Blue Earth City.

The current opinion of the time was that the killing of Alfonso was mainly an accident, and that Samuel was not seriously to be blamed under the circumstances.

And so, Shakopee lost a bookstore, Samuel V. Hibler moved back to Pennsylvania, and Alfonso Brooks lost his life.

See what happens when you read?!!!!

(Some information from The History of Faribault County, Minnesota: From Its First Settlement to the Close of the Year 1879 (1896) by Jacob Armel Kiester. Minneapolis: Harrison & Smith; The Bench and Bar of Faribault County by J.A. Kiester at geneaologytrails.com/minn/Faribault/.countyhistory.html; and New Book Store, Shakopee Independent, Nov. 17, 1855.)

A Gunfight at 3 a.m.: 1947

Events

Night Officer Pat Thielen was making his rounds shortly after 3 a.m. in downtown Shakopee in 1947. As he was driving out of the alley next to the telephone company, he heard the tinkle of falling glass. He thought it might be in the rear of Metcalf’s, so he drove down Holmes Street and turned into the alley between the Pure Oil and the Standard Oil gas stations. As he passed the station, Pat saw a figure dart out between the pumps at the Standard Station, and a car parked across the street did a U-turn and picked up the person. Then the car raced east on First Avenue toward Savage.

When Thielen saw the car, he skidded on the ice, and broke a headlight against a telephone pole. Pat started the chase, with the two vehicles driving in excess of 80 miles per hour. They roared past the First Presbyterian Church, which was dedicated on Feb. 25, 1900, and was used until 1967. The church is now the Igelsia del Dios Vivo, Columna y Adoyo de la Verdad, La Luz Del Mundo on 502 First Avenue East. The three bandits, driving a 1941 Buick Road-master, opened fire at Pat, and Pat returned fire, emptying his pistol at the fleeing machine.

The bandits’ bullets struck the police car, one through the center of the right windshield, and one at the edge of the roof, also on the right side. The slugs were .41 caliber weapons. Thielen believed that the burglars were professionals, as the driver kept his machine on the left side to protect himself, while his companions fired, one from each rear window of the car.

When the firing started, the burglars slowed down, and when Thielen fired back, they sped away, rapidly outdistancing the police car. Pat, who was a veteran of the heavy combat in the South Pacific during World War II, noted that if he had a Browning automatic rifle, he could have stopped them. But without it, the bandits escaped.

Thielen was unhurt except for flying glass. He headed back to town and alerted the nearby law enforcement agencies.

A few years later, Don Miles from the State Crime Bureau called Pat and they met at the Carver County Jail. A prisoner was there, and he was being interrogated. The prisoner described how he and his friends had been hired for $500 to come to Shakopee in 1947 to scare a new police officer out of his job. They spent a day watching his routines, and the next night the burglars broke a window in the gas station to get his attention. The prisoner mentioned that Pat had come so fast that they had to get the hell out in a hurry. While firing on the officer’s car and making a bee line out of town, the prisoners and friends got four bullets in the back of their car.

When Don mentioned that Pat was there now, listening, the prisoner said, “Oh, my God, no!” and clammed up. Unfortunately, Pat realized that is was no use pursing it as the statute of limitations had already run out!

(Some information from Robert George Thielen: The Legend of “Pat” Thielen by the Shakopee Heritage Society, 2007, p. 11-13.)

Shakopee’s City Hall

Places

Compiled by David R. Schleper

The first Shakopee City Hall was built at the northeast corner of Lewis and Second streets, across from what is now known as Bill’s Toggery. The plan was drawn by Charles Bornarth (who ended up using the same plan for the Jordan City Hall). It was built in 1883, and Frank Buch was the contractor for the new two-story building.

The city hall was used until September 1957. The City decided to abandon and raze the old city hall, which was a termite terminal, in September 1957. (That area became a parking lot, and is now being renovated for a new downtown parking lot across from Bill’s Toggery.)

Meanwhile, the city hall was moved to the north side of First Avenue. The First National Bank was here for many years, and was the location of a bank robbery that happened in 1929. The City of Shakopee decided to buy the building for $20,000, and the city offices were moved to the first floor on June 15, 1958. This was the second location of the city hall. The City of Shakopee was in this location for 32 years.

In 1968, the original fire bell, which was in the tower of the first city hall, on the northeast corner of Second and Lewis, was decoratively placed for posterity at the front of the city office at the second city hall. The bell, cast in bronze, was sandblasted at Rahr Malting to get a revived look. The bell bared the names of officials of earlier times, cast in relief on the side of the bell: George E. Strait, mayor; David L. How, president of the council; Julius Coller, city recorder, and Jacob S. Kunsman, chief of the fire department. (The bell is now located at Fire House #2 in Shakopee.)

Meanwhile, the First National Bank moved to Holmes Street, on the northeast corner of Holmes Street and Second Avenue. Before this, this location was the location of the first brick house, which was built in 1853 by Mr. Coulton. The location became the house of the Sherrard family, and when David Lennox How married Mary M. Sherrard in 1862, they moved into this house.

Dr. H. P. Fischer remodeled it to become the first hospital in Shakopee, the Shakopee Hospital. From a hospital, it became an apartment, and then the American Legion Club. It was finally razed in 1955 to build the First National Bank building, which opened on Feb. 10, 1958. (This was the fifth place for the bank, which started at the old National Hotel in 1865.)

The First National Bank became Marquette Bank. The building is on 129 Holmes St. S., and became the third city hall. On Feb. 11, 1993, the city hall was occupied. The third city hall was about one block from the second city hall, which was about one block from the first city hall.

And finally, this year, 2017, a new city hall, Shakopee’s fourth city hall, was built on the east side of downtown Shakopee, near the police station. The location is 485 Gorman St. If you need to contact people at City Hall, please call 952-233-9300. The website is http://www.shakopeemn.gov/.

City hall at northeast corner of Second Avenue and Lewis Street
City hall at northeast corner of Second Avenue and Lewis Street
City hall at 129 First Ave. E.
City hall at 129 First Ave. E.
City hall at 129 Holmes St. S.
City hall at 129 Holmes St. S.
City hall at 485 Gorman St.
City hall at 485 Gorman St.

The Bridge over the River: 1880

Places

By David R. Schleper

Lewis Street Swing Bridge
Lewis Street Swing Bridge

Peter Geyermann was born in Germany on Dec. 13, 1825, son of Henry and Christina Nell Geyermann. He came to America on July 7, 1851, and was located at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he worked on a farm for a few weeks. For a short time he worked on the Michigan Central railroad in Indiana, before he began chopping wood in northern Illinois for two years. Peter then purchased a tract of timber land in Illinois along the Chicago & Aurora Railroad. In 1853, he was in the mercantile business in Aurora for two years.

In 1855, Peter moved to Minnesota Territory and took a preemption claim in Carver County. Two years later he sold out and moved to Shakopee, where he was involved in the merchandise business.

In a letter to his brother and sister-in-law, Peter described his life in Shakopee. This letter was translated from German to English in January 1991 by Ernst Wirt, Mitchell, S.D:

Shakopee, Nov 30, 1855

Dear Brother and Sister-in Law,

I wrote to you on August 30, a letter but I never got an answer which surprised me very much.

In our family we have lots of news to report. Our sister Anna Maria got married on the 23rd of July with the blacksmith. He comes from Saxony. His name is Johann Heinz. He is a very ambitious and hard working man. And on the 20th of August, it pains me very much to write that our dear and only brother, Joseph, died. He was such a strong and young brother (just like Michel and Joseph were). Our Joseph was about 10 days sick. He had something called the red Ruhr. He was very happy here in America because he didn’t have to take care of anybody, only himself, and he remembered where his home was. He never had it so good in his whole life. He could eat and drink anything he wanted. It didn’t cost him a penny. I never saw him so happy as in the time I saw him here.

Our sister Anna Marie was not too happy when our other sister, Magdalene left here because her new husband died on the 10th of September of the same sickness like Joseph. On the same day died also Simon Derbach. They all lived with me. You can’t imagine the hardship. It was not only that all those people died, but everybody also sick in the house. I was very depressed and always was thinking that I was the next to go. I wanted to move from here and look for a different place.

So I did. I moved to Shakopee, Minnesota Territory, and I live outside in the country. I bought a claim there. The land belonged to the government and was not yet sold. The law says whoever comes first and homesteads it has a claim to it, but you have to be over 21 years of age. I had to take 160 acres of land and you were supposed to build a house on this land, and supposed to take care of the land. And whoever is doing this first has the first right and claim. For this I paid $300.00 but if I ever wanted to sell it, then I would have to pay $1.25 per acre and I have to announce this 3 months in advance. If I don’t pay it in time then I can sell it to someone else, but I must leave the homestead. This can take the time of 1 or 2 years. The house that exists is in very poor condition in the country and we are in the process of building a new one. Last Wednesday we started.

You are probably surprised to hear that people build houses here in the winter, but here in the country people take tree stems and they make very nice houses (log houses). So if you plan to build a house you have to see that you get all the logs nearby, bring it to the place, and cut them into the measurements as big as the house is supposed to be. Then you go and call on 8 to 10 neighbors and then everything will be put together in one day but the roof. The rest a person has to do himself and that goes better than anybody can imagine. Once you are between 3 and 4 years in America, you become a pretty good builder, and you acquire all the tools that craftsmen need to make a building.

Our land is ½ mile long and ½ mile wide. That is called 160 ruten (rods?) and the house is as wide as 1 rod is. (ed. note: 5.5 yards) Now you can imagine how big the house is. I have approximately 40 acres of wood on my land, approximately 6 acres of meadow and the rest are hedges. But we don’t do it here the same way we did it in (Lehnheck?). Here we take 2 or 3 young oxen and put them into a yoke, and then the land will be worked. One yoke of oxen I own and that cost me $150. Animals are very expensive here. I must say that animals are much more expensive now than when I came to America, because when I came to America, a yoke of oxen I could buy in those days for $60. Here the animals are not quite so expensive as in the old states like in Illinois where I came from.

I am now about 600 miles away NW from Arora (Aurora, Illinois) and it is much colder than there. We had already for 14 days, snow, but this week is exceptionally nice weather and the snow was almost melting away. I hope there is not new snow coming, but we will take it. It would be alright if we got snow so tomorrow morning and Sunday we want to go hunting for deer, while we are waiting to finish the house, because when the house is ready, we won’t have much time. That’s why we want to go and hunt now. And when the Indians don’t come back and take the animals away, there is plenty of deer over here.

What I’m talking about are the natives or the wild people and they don’t do anything else but hunting, but they do not hurt the white people. If it would ever happen, they have to deliver the murderer, or they receive very harsh treatment, and get blamed for that by their own people. The wild man don’t want to work at all. They think work takes something away from their honor. They do not do anything else but hunting and be a warrior, and that is the main reason that America is not so populated as Europe. These wild people have friction among themselves. There are lots of different tribes, and if anybody enters their territory, then they have a war.

We and our sister Magdalena live here on my land. She will get married. Her husband’s name is Hilliarius Schumacher. He comes from a town called Metternich, near Cologne. She is married on the 23rd of October.

Our Margaret is a servant in Shakopee. She gets $2 a week. Our Marie is a servant still in Arora (Aurora). She got the best conditions. She is in good health, and receives good money. Wherever she works, the people don’t let her go. They like her. She’s a very ambitious girl and she is the biggest and heaviest of us all. She could have got married many times before if she liked to. I think she wants to remain there until next spring, and then she will come here with our Anna Marie who still lives in the same house where I live. She would have been gone before but I was expecting some money, and I couldn’t get the money until next spring.

The letter gives a good explanation of Shakopee in 1855.

Peter married Emelia Berreau in Shakopee. They had six children.

Peter and Emelia operated Geyermann’s General Store between First and Second avenues and Lewis Street in downtown Shakopee, which included groceries, dry goods, boots and shoes, hats and caps, dress goods, clothing, and crockery. The store opened in 1857.

A Board of Trade was organized in March 1878, with Peter as president. The editorial of the Shakopee Argus noted that:

“Shakopee is now a metropolitan city. It has twelve street lamps, each with the illuminating power of ten lightning bugs. On a dark night the flickering rays of light are cast fully twenty feet around and on a clear night with a full moon, the city is brilliantly lighted up.”

Peter also became mayor of Shakopee. He was mayor from 1873-1876, and again in 1878. While he was mayor in 1878, Peter was involved in controversy. The town needed a bridge over the Minnesota River. After lots of discussion over several years, the legislature voted in favor of building a bridge in Shakopee. The bridge was to be built on Fuller St.

The mayor owned a store on Lewis St., so he vetoed the resolution for building the bridge on Fuller St. He wanted it on Lewis Street, so that people arriving over the bridge would go directly to his store. Another resolution, putting the bridge on Holmes Street, was also vetoed by the mayor. They tried other sites, including one near Murphy’s Landing, and later the Shakopee Argus editor looked out from the third floor of his building, and saw a huge cottonwood tree across the river. He suggested that they could lasso the tree, and build the river across at that part. Obviously, that did not win, either.

After many more meetings, the mayor won out, and the bridge was built on Lewis St. in 1880.

Many people were upset, though, and the mayor’s store was boycotted by many residents, especially the people in the First Ward, who wanted the Fuller St. site. So effective was the action that Peter and Emelia were forced out of business, and after 24 years in the business, they left the town of Shakopee.

Peter and Emelia moved to the little town of Hersey (now called Brewster) where they started a new general merchandise store. After several years, the family established stores in Pipestone, Worthington, and Storm Lake, Iowa. In the 1920s, Peter and Emelia’s sons opened stores in Huron, Mitchell, Madison, and Brookings, South Dakota. In the 1940s they added stores in Sioux Falls and Rapid City, as well as Beatrice and Hastings, Nebraska. Record books of the old Brewster, Minnesota store noted that a man’s suit cost $9.50, a boy’s boots cost $2.13, eight yards of printed goods cost 66 cents, a gallon of oil was 25 cents, butter was just 20 cents a pound, and Rock and Rye was $1.00 a bottle.

Emelia Berreau Geyermann died in 1907, and Peter Geyermann died in 1911.

Meanwhile, the Lewis Street Swing Bridge in Shakopee was opened for river boat traffic heading further west in 1880.

On July 15, 1896, the boat the Daisy was heading up the Minnesota River when it hit the bridge, knocking over its smoke stacks. It seems that the boat didn’t wait until the Lewis Street Swing Bridge was open before it crashed!

When the Holmes Street Bridge was built in 1927, the Lewis Street Swing Bridge was open for foot traffic. In 1942, with the war effort, the scrap metal was requisitioned by the government, and the Lewis Street Swing Bridge supplied the metal. It was estimated that it contained 100 tons of needed metal for bombs, jeeps, and ships.

And so that is what happened with the Swing Bridge on Lewis St. in downtown Shakopee.

(Some information from The Shakopee Story by Julius A. Coller, II, pages 118-120; Shakopee Scrapbook by Michael C. Huber, Patricia A. Huber, and Joseph C. Huber; Taped Interview of Jack Coller on KSMM Radio, July 1982; and information from Rick Geyermann via email to David R. Schleper.)

Remember When: September 2017

Remember When

1892 Shakopee Courier

Oct. 6, 1892

Mr. Callum has moved from the Titus house to a house up above the depot.

Mrs. Wm. Pinger has come back to Shakopee to live after living in St. Paul for a few years.

The Receiver of the property of the Russ Jones desk company, has taken possession of the machinery they brought over here.

Mrs. Henschel has opened up her stock of confectionary and fruit, and all the little fellows are going there to get a big lot for their nickel.

Two boys, Henry Cargill and Otto Kochlin are under arrest for burglarizing Marx’s saloon; they cases to be decided this afternoon as to whether they should be held to the grand jury, or discharged.

John Theis’ tomato trees, mentioned by us some weeks ago, not being injured by frost—we didn’t have any—were loaded down with the biggest kind of tomatoes, some of which we received from him lately. They have been noticed in several of the agricultural papers, since the description given in the Courier.

Oct. 13, 1892

The Shakopee Co-operative Barrel Company has employed four new men to help furnish barrels for the Mill Co.

The bridge across the creek to the trestle is now completed.

The Wampach Manufacturing Co. shipped three laundry wagons and five delivery wagons to Minneapolis last week.

Oct. 20, 1892

Casper Scott has lately stocked up with a fine lot of new boots and shoes, for gents and ladies, of the best makes, at rock bottom prices.

A Valuable Machine.—Gregory Hattenberger of Eagle Creek, on Monday last received from Illinois a “combined corn husker and fodder cutter,” something new around here. His sons will have charge of it through the country wherever engaged. It separates the corn from the stalk, throwing the corn into the wagon box on one side, and the fodder cut up, ready to feed on the other side of the machine. Farmers using this combined cutter, can feed the whole of their fodder now, a great saving.

Herman Covnick has taken the place vacated by Wm. Dols as assistant of the Milwaukee office.

Fire broke out on Wednesday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. in the barn of William Heidenreich and extended to those of Peter Radermacher and Peter Mergens on the block between Holmes and Fuller. They were entirely destroyed, a big wind blowing from the west making it a very dangerous conflagration, but owing to the determined action of our fire department the farther spread of the flames was prevented in this locality. But the high wind carried with it big sparks over two blocks east on to August Abel’s stable on Sommerville street, so that we had two fires going at the same time. Abel’s stable was destroyed but Derberger’s, which had also caught from this last fire, was saved. The firemen worked hard, and we may consider it a very lucky event that more valuable buildings and property were not burned, considering the wind. As it was, more or less serious loss was sustained in hay and feed etc. Word was sent to Chaska and St. Paul by Mayor Weiland, but was countermanded soon thereafter.

When the chimney sweep blows his morning horn, it remindeth people that they should have their chimneys cleaned. Great conflagrations may be prevented by so doing.

Oct. 27, 1892

Miss Lottie Farncamp has come to Shakopee to reside. She will occupy her cottage on the hill below O. S. Brown’s place.

Mrs. Titus has rented her house to Joe Bierline.

Flags over city hall, postoffice and bank at half mast on Tuesday account of death of Mrs. Harrison.

The Occidental hotel has enlarged their dining room, putting in a hardwood floor, and otherwise repairing up.

1892: Scott County Argus

Oct. 6, 1892

On Monday August Grosskopp tried to stop the cylinder of a separator with the first finger of his left hand. Dr. Smith trimmed down the rough edges of the finger.

Chas. Smith has moved into the Heidenreich building on Second street.

J. A. Dean has moved in the Juergens house on Second street lately vacated by Paul Fischer.

Oct. 13, 1892

Geo. Huber shot three large geese at one shot in Dean’s lake last Friday, the largest weighing twelve pounds.

Judge Cadwell has rendered a decision in the Russ Jones Desk Co. case against the city in favor of the city. By the decision the city saves the $3,000 bonus which was deposited in the bank, and secure a lead on the building for the $3,000 which had been paid over to the company to purchase the building. So by the transaction the city is a loser of only some machinery, engine and the expense of the suit. The city will probably sue the assignee of the company to recover the machinery and engine which originally belonged to the plant, and was removed from the building to Minneapolis.

Oct. 20, 1892

Joe. Buch is now employed in the mill.

Farm for sale. My farm of seventy acres east of town known as the Mrs. Haas farm. Thomas Pinches.

Oct. 27, 1892

August Abel is building a new brick barn, 19×28, on the street and alley corner, back of his house.

One thing must be insisted on in Shakopee in the future. That no building of any sort, size or description be allowed built of boards within the fire limits, whether covered with sheetiron or not. Build of stone or brick only.

Two gentlemen of the road who gave their names as Thomas Hyland and August Schultz, went through August Abel’s tailor shop last Friday and took a pair of pantaloons. The same day they broke into the Conter House and took several articles of clothing belonging to John Merten. A search warrant was sworn out by Mr. Abel and the parties were found at Ring’s hotel with some of the articles in their possession. They told Police Officer Rose where they had hid the rest, so all lost articles were recovered. They had their hearing before Justice Stevens Monday, and will board with landlord Hilgers until the Grand Jury meets.

1917: Shakopee Tribune

Oct. 5, 1917

Gem Theatre Sold. A deal was closed on Monday whereby Mr. Frank Veigel who has conducted the Gem Theatre the past year sold the same to Mr. W. A. Shelton of Williston, N. D. The new proprietor took possession the same day. We are glad to know that Mr. Veigel and family expect to remain here at least during the winter months.

The Schroeder brickyards are a busy place this time of the year a kiln of 500,000 brick being burned this week.

Oct. 12, 1917

The George Diederich family of Marystown moved on Saturday into the Niedenfuehr house, which Mr. Diederich bought last spring.

The John Sames family moved to their farm in Eagle Creek on Monday. The home they vacated is being occupied by the Carlton family.

The First National Bank has just installed a very unique and valuable feature as a window display.

This consists of a Weekly Map Window Service showing interesting Maps and Illustrations. They advise us that these Maps will show the leading events of whatever part of the world happens to be in the limelight. Just now, of course, the big interest is in Europe; so these Maps will show the battle front in Europe; just where our American boys will be; together with pictures of interest in connection with same.

These Maps will be changed weekly, and will show geographically the progress of armies and other events of world interest. Special attention is going to be given to the showing of the location of our American boys in France.

The Bank decided that after the Maps have had their turn in the window, they will present them to the local high school, making a most valuable educational feature for the school.

Oct. 19, 1917

Dies On Train. The body of an elderly unidentified man was taken from Omaha passenger train No. 3 on Thursday morning. Passengers had heard him moan and upon investigation found he was dead. Coroner Reiter was called and had the body removed to Hirscher’s undertaking parlors. A letter found in one of his pockets was addressed to William A. Brown, the postmark being Evanston, Ill. A card was also found showing that he had money on deposit in a bank at Eagle River, Wis. His destination according to the railroad ticket was Fenton, Ia. Coroner Reiter is awaiting a reply to a telegram sent to Evanston as to the disposal of the body.

For Sale—My modern seven room house on Lewis street. Bath, electric lights, hot water heat, hardwood thruout; fine garage. Small amount of cash will handle. Inquire of L. D. Nye or at the office of the Minnesota Stove Co.

The Fourth Annual Corn Show will be held at the Shakopee High School, Saturday, November 10. Now is the time to start saving your good ears of corn. There are rumors that there will be another carnival that night. We hope it will be as good as the one last year when everyone had the time of their lives.

The mill was shut down the first two days of the week according to the new government ruling, limiting the number of bushels of wheat to be used, weekly.

Willie Gross had the misfortune to fall while playing near the bridge last Saturday and as the result is carrying his left arm in a sling, having suffered a severe fracture.

Mr. Swanson of Casselton, N. D., arrived here on Tuesday and is the new miller at the local mill. His family is expected here soon. They will occupy the Riggs house on First street.

1917: Scott County Argus

Oct. 5, 1917

Michael Hergott, who bought the former Quigley place, moved into town Wednesday.

Miss Isabel Strunk has accepted a position in the mill office and began work there Monday.

Hirscher Bros. have purchased a new Studebaker truck for use in their furniture and undertaking business, and will build a handsome hearse that may be used with the truck as an auto hearse. The firm is known all over the state—and further—for their expert cabinet work and it is safe to say that the hearse, when completed, will be a handsome vehicle and the equal in appearance of any auto hearse owned hereabouts.

New Rye Mill Construction is Now Going Forward. Shane Bros. & Wilson company’s three story rye and meal mill is rapidly assuming proportions. When the structure shall have been completed and the machinery installed Shakopee will have the most modern and up-to-date rye and meal mill in this part of the state. The machinery will be operated by electric power. Score one more for Shakopee’s progress in the manufacturing line.

Oct. 12, 1917

Mrs. A. J. Munro and son Angus left Tuesday to join Mr. Munro in their new home in Cedar Rapids. Shakopee friends are sorry to lose them but wish them every success.

Fred Reimer, residing north of town, has purchased Rudolph Selbig’s residence property and will move to Shakopee next month. Lee Schaefer and family, who will vacate the Reimer residence, will move to the home vacated by A. J. Munro.

Oct. 19, 1917

Fish as Food

The Bureau of Fisheries at Washington is giving a series of demonstrations in the cooking, smoking, drying and salting of fish through this state and have made arrangements for a lecture and demonstration for Shakopee at the High School next Monday afternoon.

All persons interested are asked to be present.

Harry Broekhuizen has rented the Reis building on First street and will move his shoe repairing shop there about the last of this month.

Oct. 26, 1917

County Fuel Administrators Appointed. John Thiem, cashier of the First National Bank, has been appointed by Judge John F. McGee, federal fuel administrator for Minnesota, chairman of a committee of fuel administrators for Scott county. Associated with Mr. Thiem on the committee are J. S. Effertz of Belle Plaine, A. M. Schaefer of Jordan and Michael Schreiner of New Prague…

The L. Schaefer family have moved into the home recently vacated by A. J. Munro.

Shakopee Team Wins First Place

Last Friday a county canning contest was held at the Belle Plaine fair. Miss Baker, of the Extension Division of the State University, conducted the contest, in which Belle Plaine, Jordan, New Prague and Shakopee were each represented by a team. As a team Shakopee won first place, Belle Plaine second, Jordan third and New Prague fourth. Jordan carried off the first and second prizes for the best individual canning exhibit, New Prague taking third place. Money prizes were offered for both team work and individual exhibits. Shakopee was represented by Marguerite Schaefer, Mabel Raatz, Margaret Lies and Lilian Newgard.

The girls of the various teams were not the only ones who receive the benefit of the contest. A large number of ladies profited by the demonstrations, lectures and exhibits so nicely prepared along lines of the use and conservation of food. The educational features of the Belle Plaine fair were certainly well planned and executed, and without a doubt will leave lasting results.

1942: Shakopee Argus-Tribune

Oct. 1, 1942

Official Inspects County Plane Spotting Service

Inspection of the 13 aircraft observation posts in Scott county was completed Tuesday by Lieut. Gobel of the Minnesota State Gerard, state supervisor and organizer of the state’s aircraft spotting service.

Lieut. Gobel was accompanied on his four-day tour by W. B. Schroeder, county director, who set up the county organization. The lieutenant was well satisfied with the county organization and pronounced it a “splendid job…”

Shakopee Air Raid Wardens First Aid Started This Week

Nearly 100 of the men selected as air raid wardens for the City of Shakopee began their qualifying course in first aid at the high school auditorium, Monday night.

The first aid course, which must be successfully passed by all men serving as wardens, is to be given under the leadership of Dr. F. H. Buck, Dr. B. F. Pearson and Ray C. Schroeder…

Oct. 8, 1942

Court House Cardiograph. If two unidentified hunters who borrowed a tractor on the Clarence Marshall farm north of Shakopee Sunday night , knew what nearly happened to them, they wouldn’t try that trick again. It seems, according to the sheriff’s office who was called for assistance Marshall was aroused by the sound of his tractor some distance from his house. Suspecting theft he grabbed his gun and made for the scene. In the meantime Mrs. Marshall called Sheriff Wermerskirchen, although it was out of his territory. He took the old Indian road and there met Mr. Marshall, who advised that everything was OK. Apparently two hunters, whose car had become mired, borrowed the tractor to free the car and then drove away. They were just plain lucky Marshall didn’t see them driving the tractor down the road.

Shak-O-Hi News

Youthful Victory Aides from the high school filled the school buses and were off to husk Mr. Huss’ corn Friday morning. The husking bee was just a little tribute to Mr. Huss’ fine cooperation in helping put the lunch project across. He donated the land for the school garden, plowed it without charge, and donated all the corn that the cooks could can.

Work gangs of happy boys and girls were ready when school opened–boys in overalls, girls in slacks and hair bound up in turbans. Under the supervision of Mr. Metcalf and Mr. Maloney, 18 rows, ¾ of a mile long, were harvested.

While one group worked in the field, those in school remained at their usual task, shelling out an extra grain or two of knowledge. “It is more fun working to help someone than it is to work for money,” was the conclusion of one youth.

Oct. 15, 1942

Shakopee Branch County Defense Council Formed. At a meeting called at the City hall last Saturday evening by Chm. Berg of the County Civilian Defense Council, Shakopee’s defense council was organized by electing Mayor J. J. Cavanuagh, chairman; Miss Elizabeth K. Ries, director of citizen service, and Paul Ries, commander of defense…

Shakopee Has Woman on City Mail Delivery Job

For some months now Shakopee women, like others throughout the nation have been taking their places in the local factories and shops, doing what was always considered a “man’s job.”

Latest addition to the list is a mail-carrier in the person of Dolores Ries, who began her duties in Shakopee Monday morning. Employed as a substitute carrier, Miss Ries is taking the place of John Lynch, who reported for duty in the Naval Reserve Friday…

Watch Your Rifle

Frequent and emphatic complaints about broken windows, shattered light bulbs and slain birds has brought the declaration from R. L. Brown, police chief, that any type of rifle seen in the hands of children within the city limits of Shakopee, will be confiscated.

Chief Brown said his order applied to air rifles and .22’s alike. The list of complaints, he said, is growing daily and he is taking this means of warning rifle-owners that careless use of these guns must stop.

Citizens Favor Scrapping Court House Iron Fence

At a large meeting of representative citizens of Shakopee and vicinity gathered at the public school building Tuesday evening to round out plans for the scrap drive this Thursday afternoon, the question of the advisability of making some disposition of the obsolete and long since antiquated iron fence surrounding the court house yard, incidentally came up on the floor of the meeting.

The consensus of opinion as expressed was that the fence which has done service for more than half a century has long ago outlived its usefulness and should be scrapped. After some brief discussion the meeting by motion went on record as favoring the dismantling of the fence, the County Board to make such disposition of the salvaged material as its members may see fit, was carried by a unanimous vote of those assembled. Of course, there are other sections of the county whose people may be interested in this question, and whose interest should be consulted, but there could be no speculating as to how the group of citizens who voiced their conviction Tuesday evening has felt about the matter.

Oct. 22, 1942

Government Wants 500,000 Standard Typewriters

Due to the fact that typewriter manufacturers have practically converted their factories into defense manufacturing, there are not enough typewriters being made to supply the general needs and the considerable number needed in the army and the navy. Therefore the government is setting up plans for buying used typewriters.

The government wants 500,000 standard machines immediately. But they must be machines which were made after January 1, 1935. They will be bought from civilians at the factory trade-in allowance for such machines as of February 1, 1941.

Dallas F. Capesius has been appointed to handle the typewriter procurement program in Shakopee and vicinity. So that if there should be anyone here who has a typewriter he or she does not need and is willing to dispose of it in the way and manner described, it is suggested that Mr. Capesius be seen about it. His office is located at 120 ½ Shakopee Theatre Bldg., for further particulars.

Albert Czaia Believed Drowned in River Friday

Albert Czaia, for many years a familiar figure in Shakopee, is believed to have drowned in the Minnesota river here Friday afternoon. Searchers working along the river bank north of the Siebenaler ice house in West Shakopee, where Czaia had been fishing, discovered his cane and marks in the mud which indicated he had slipped into the stream.

Firemen dragging the river in the area, had not recovered the body up to Wednesday noon.

The aged man had been a resident of St. Francis home here and had a custom of fishing in the river. When he failed to return to the home early Friday evening, a search was instituted and it was learned he had been last seen on the river bank where his cane was found.

Oct. 29, 1942

Old Bridge To Be Razed for Scrap Metal. What seems to be the death knell for an old Shakopee landmark, which through the years has fostered rich memories of life and living in this Minnesota River town, was sounded at 10 a.m. Monday, October 26, when Deputy United States Marshal Elmer J. Kennedy served, on Mayor J. J. Cavanaugh, a United States Requisition Order claiming the old bridge that spans the Minnesota river at the north end of Lewis street.

Court House Cardiograph. Perhaps spelling “doom” for the iron fence around the court house, came a letter Tuesday morning to County Auditor A. A. Mertz, requesting the board of county commissioners to consider scrapping the rail. The letter pointed out that sentiment in the community apparently favored its removal. It is just a guess, but we’ll bet the commissioners will vote for the removal of the fence. One commissioner said: “If it will hit a Jap or a Nazi I’ll be glad to let the fence go.”

1967: Shakopee Valley News

Oct. 5, 1967

Dedication of the new Shakopee Edward and Grace Sweeney Elementary School, Tenth Avenue and Marystown Road, was held last Sunday, October 1, beginning at 2 p.m., with an open house and tours of the building from 2:45 to 5 p.m…

Evidence of vandalism by shooting was reported this week by Roman Luce whose farm is four miles south of Shakopee on Scott County No. 79 (O’Dowd Lakes Road), just northwest of Marystown. Luce brought in this electric fence charger that had holes, apparently pierced by bullets. He pointed out that “apparently some fun-loving fire-arm bearers had their fun channeled in the wrong direction.” The Scott County Sheriff’s department reported that also this past week was received a complaint of shooting mail boxes on Scott County Road No. 76.

Oct. 12, 1967

600 Tour School. Reported at the regular monthly meeting of the Shakopee Public School District No. 720 Monday evening of this week was that more than 600 attended the Dedication and Open House at the new Sweeney Elementary School on Sunday, October 1.

Break-In At Beverage Firm

Reported to Shakopee police was a break-in some time Wednesday evening of last week, October 4, at Rudy Gmitro Beverage, Inc., 134 South Main.

Entry was gained from the alley side through the basement and then through the warehouse on into the offices of the firm.

Missing were an adding machine and an electric typewriter.

Approval was given the Shakopee Utilities Commission for the letting of bids on the proposed garage and warehouse building, a 200 by 150 foot structure, proposed for the site at Naumkeag and Scott County Road 17.

Sealed bids are to be accepted until 3 p.m. Monday, October 30, by the Utilities Commission at the office in the Shakopee City building…

Pointed out was that the proposed new structure would include a meeting room that could also be used for public gatherings such as the Golden Age club and similar activity.

Oct. 19, 1967

Break-Ins At 3 City Firms Within 4 Days. City of Shakopee had a rash of three break-ins in four days this past week, with some $150 in cash and merchandise taken from Strunk’s Pharmacy on East First, $3,800 in guns from Engel’s Place on East First and an attempt to open the safe at Maus Super-Valu on West First apparently not successful…

87 Free Films Available From Phone Company

Northwestern Bell Telephone Company isn’t in the theater business, but it does have 87 different films available to loan to the public free of charge, W. R. Mahady, Shakopee manager, said this week.

Films cover a variety of subjects, including suggestions on home decorating, national defense, telephone research and development, safety, and, of course, several on good telephone usage, he added…

Oct. 26, 1967

Boy Scout Paper Drive Resumes On November 4

Shakopee Boy Scout Troop No. 218 has received notice that salvage paper can be collected again on a temporary basis.

The Shakopee troop is conducting a city-wide paper drive, to include newspapers only, on Saturday, November 4.

This date would resume the regular first Saturday of the month date the troop has used to collect paper since the 1920’s…

West End River Bridge Span ‘Choice’ Highway Dept. Reports

That the State Highway Department engineers would recommend proceeding with the original location of the new bridge span for the Minnesota River at Shakopee, from the Highway 169-212 wye just northeast of the city to just west of Rahr Malting on West First, was the report given by Highway Department engineers at a meeting Tuesday evening for this week in the Council Chambers of the Shakopee City Building.

This announcement came in a follow-up report by Highway engineers on the comparative cost and engineering studies of the west end location for the bridge span with that of the location at the east edge of Shakopee as sought by city officials, primarily to serve Valley Industrial Park…

Maurice Stans On Nixon Bandwagon

Maurice H. Stans, budget director under former President Dwight Eisenhower, and a member of the 1925 Shakopee High graduating class, for whom Stans Park was recently dedicated and named in his honor, has been named national finance chairman of the Nixon-For-President committee.

Stans made an appearance in Shakopee with former Vice President Nixon during the Eisenhower administration, when Nixon came to Shakopee as guest speaker at a testimonial dinner for Stans on Thursday, September 16, 1965. This event was sponsored by the Shakopee Education Association and the Shakopee Federation of Teachers in recognition of Stans’ assistance in the program for scholarships for post-high school study for Shakopee High graduating seniors.

1992: Shakopee Valley News

Oct. 1, 1992

After moving its restored house from 303 East First Avenue to 437 East Fourth Avenue, Van Horn Home Improvements has moved back to First Avenue. Van Horn Home Improvements has purchased an old house at 339 West First Avenue which will enjoy the same kind of window, door and siding improvements that the old Van Horn location enjoyed. Van Horn Home Improvements will be celebrating the Open House of its new offices at 339 West First Ave. today, tomorrow and Saturday (Oct. 1-3), 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be a 25-percent discount available on Ply-Gem custom-made vinyl-replacement windows and doors. All Ply-Gem’s new styles will be on display. Free refreshments will also be available.

Out with the old, in with the new. Construction of a new Minnesota River bridge in downtown Shakopee continues this fall. Lunda Construction Co. of Black River Falls, Wis., is removing remnants from a previous bridge and will construct concrete piers. The bridge is expected to be completed in November 1993. Bid-letting on the companion downtown mini-bypass project is scheduled Oct. 23. The total project is scheduled for completion in November 1994.

Norwest remodeling, will add drive-up banking service

Remodeling and expansion projects at the Shakopee office of Norwest Bank were celebrated Sept. 15 during a ground-breaking ceremony.

According to Todd Schwartz, consumer bank manager and vice president, a new parking lot and five-lane drive-up banking area are being constructed adjacent to the south side of the bank. The new drive-up area will include a 24-hour automated-teller machine.

The bank’s interior will be remodeled to include a larger reception area and a teller station specifically designed to provide more access to those with disabilities. Also, there will be remodeling to provide separate offices and additional space for bankers to work individually with customers…

SACS’ endowment campaign begins

The Shakopee Area Catholic Schools (SACS) has begun a campaign to establish an education endowment. The endowment committee, chaired by Bert Notermann, is aiming for a $600,000 goal, in hopes that the fund will eventually grow to $1 million.

The endowment was established in March 1991 but the committee chose to hold off on the campaign until the parish center improvements at St. Mark’s were completed…

Oct. 8, 1992

Residents say taxes high but city services good

While Shakopee residents believe that in comparison to other suburban communities their property taxes are on the high side, they also appreciate the city services they get and are willing to pay for them.

And overall, a whopping 87 percent of city residents believe the quality of life in Shakopee is either “good” or “excellent…”

Oct. 15, 1992

Towering heights. Construction of a 265-foot malthouse tower at Rahr Malting Co. in Shakopee was completed this week. The malthouse is the fifth such structure at Rahr, and represents a major expansion by the Minneapolis-based firm. Construction of the tower required continuous pouring of concrete over about 400 hours involving 80 workers and two 12-hour shifts over about three weeks. The entire project is expected to be complete by January 1994.

City Council orders study proposal on Lions Park arena

Shakopee city officials hope they can get some lingering questions answered, once and for all, about a proposal to put a permanent roof over the Lions Park ice arena.

The council voted 5-0 on Oct. 6 to direct staff to prepare a “request for proposals,” for a feasibility study to provide those answers.

Among the topics council members want answers about concern the cost to operate the arena, anticipated revenues, and outlook for ice-rental income…

Oct. 22, 1992

SACS endowment campaign gets under way this week. The campaign to raise $600,000 in endowment funds for the Shakopee Area Catholic School (SACS) officially got under way this Wednesday as members of the advance gifts committee met for an orientation and training meeting. About 250 prospects from St. Mark’s and St. Mary’s in Shakopee, and St. Mary’s of Marystown, will be visited for lead-off gifts…

Hockey team will have a home away from home

The Shakopee Hockey team will hold its practices and games this coming winter season at the Eden Prairie Community Center.

According to Dale Vaughan, Shakopee High School’s director of activities, Shakopee will play all its home games at the Eden Prairie facility. Two of the Indians’ 10 home games will be played Saturday at 2 p.m. The other eight home games will be played weekdays at 4 p.m.…

Oct. 29, 1992

$10.6 million school bond referendum set for Feb. 2

The Shakopee School Board Monday voted unanimously to hold a $10.59 million bond referendum Feb. 2 for the acquisition of land, school expansions and improvements to facilities.

On Saturday, the School Board met in a special work session during which recommendations from facility committee members and Kevin Sullivan of Wold & Associates, the St. Paul architectural firm chosen for the design of the additions to Pearson and Sweeney elementary schools, were reviewed.

The board then came up with a pared-down version of the committee’s wish lists. If the referendum is successful, the district will make the following improvements:

* Expansion and remodeling at Pearson Elementary, estimated to cost $3.8 million…

* Expansion and remodeling at Sweeney Elementary, estimated to cost $4.345 million and be completed by August 1994…

* Land acquisition for expansion of the high school and outdoor facilities would cost an estimated $1.543 million, with a completion date of August 1994…

* Technology improvements throughout the district would cost an estimated $795,000, and be phased-in throughout 1993 and 1994…

* Another district project would include remodeling so that buildings are handicapped-accessible, at an estimated cost of $150,000…

Mishap causes five-day shutdown at Anchor Glass

The Shakopee Fire Department was called to Anchor Glass Container Corp. early Friday after a furnace – which holds 300 tons of molten glass – leaked, spewing 150 tons of the hot liquid to a retaining vat, according to Plant Manager Don Hennen.

The incident resulted in a shutdown until Wednesday…

Pelagie Eliza Faribault Manaige

People

Aug. 27, 1845 – Dec. 1, 1937
by David R. Schleper

Pelagie Eliza Faribault Menaige

Pelagie Eliza Faribault, daughter of Oliver Faribault and Wakan Yanke (or Woman Who Sits at the High Place), was born at her parents’ log cabin in East Shakopee, the same log cabin which is now at The Landing in Shakopee. Wakan Yanke was pregnant when they built and established the trading post in 1844, and Eliza, as she was called, was born on Aug. 27, 1845, the sixth of nine children.[1]

Eliza grew up with her three sisters, Mary Josephine (Jessie), Jane Luce, and Sarah-Iréne, in the cabin and adjacent warehouse which was built on the west side of what was later called Faribault Springs, using tamarack logs which were obtained from a swamp nearby.[2] Because Oliver was part Dakota, and Wakan Yanke was Dakota, Eliza was also part Dakota. The French and Métis people called this area Prairie des Français (French Prairie), along the Rivière Saint-Pierre.

Eliza remembered about her early life, including the bark huts, called tipi tanka, and ti´pi. She also remembered Chief Ŝakpe II and Ŝakpedan, or Little Six. Her father conducted a trading post in Tiŋta-otoŋwe, in the area now called Shakopee.[3]

She remembered her father conducting a trading post for a few years, and building a warehouse in which he stored furs purchased from the Dakota Indians. She only faintly remembered her father, as he died in the fall of 1850, when Eliza was 4 ½ years old.[4] Eliza remembered the gaudy trinkets that were available to the Dakota Indians.

An Indian trail passed south of the Faribault Trading Post and cabin in Tiŋta-otoŋwe, and Eliza remembered watching the processions of ponies with packs strapped to their backs and long dog trains, each load drawn by four to eight or more dogs. Furs and skins formed the bulk of the freight. Later the ponies and dogs were replaced by six oxen and long trains of two-wheeled Red River carts. Eliza could still remember the ear-piercing squeaks of the poorly lubricated wooden axles that heralded the approach of the trains.

According to Florence Leach, granddaughter of Pelagie Eliza Faribault Manaige, three Dakota Indians who were killed in the Battle of Shakopee in 1858 are buried near the house and close to the orchards near Faribault Trading Post. “The graves are flat, and you cannot see them. Grandfather Faribault buried them and concealed the graves so the Chippewa (Ojibwe) would not find the bodies and scalp them. We were traders and friendly to all Indians.”[5]

An Indian girl was also buried there.[6] According to Florence, “Grandmother said this girl was a very fine horsewoman, and one day she was on horseback and racing across the fields with a group of young men. The girl was in the lead, but she turned in her saddle to see how far ahead she was, and to wave to the men, when her horse stumbled and she was thrown and broke her neck. She died, and they buried her here.”[7]

Florence also recalled that Pelagie, her grandmother, remembered that the girl had bracelets on her wrists. “I know these Indians are buried here because when I was a little girl, my brother and I started to dig into the graves to see if we could find the bracelets. We did not think it was wrong, for we were just little children.”[8]

“Grandmother caught us digging, and she was so worried that she called the priest. He told her not to worry, we had done no harm; but just a few years later we tried it again, and uncovered bones. It scared us because we hadn’t believed anyone was really buried there. Of course, Grandmother found us, covered the hole, and she was frightfully upset; again she called the priest, and he comforted Grandmother. We all went out to the graves, and he said a little prayer.”

“Then the priest told Grandmother he didn’t think those Indians minded our digging for them one bit, as long as we were only trying to find out if they were really there. Now, the priest felt sure our curiosity was satisfied, and we would let them rest in peace.”[9]

Eliza attended school in a little log schoolhouse near their home.[10] When she was 14 years old, she was taken to Québec City, where she attended a school conducted by the Ursuline nuns at Monastère des Ursulines de Québec. It is the oldest institution of learning for women in North America. Eliza remembered, “We traveled from Faribault to Hastings by stage, and took a steamboat to La Crosse. From La Crosse we traveled by train and it was the first time I ever rode on a railroad train. I don’t remember the cities we went through, but I clearly recall our arrival at Québec. It all seemed unreal to me as I had never before been away from the frontier….”[11] Eliza attended school at Monastère des Ursulines de Québec for two terms, and then she returned home.

As a young woman, Eliza was often visited by Charles A. Manaige, whose father, Pierre Manaige, was a native of France, and his mother was part-Winnebago, or Ho-Chunk Indian. On July 30, 1870, Charles married Pelagie in Mankato.[12] They returned to Shakopee, where they spent their lives.

Pelagie and Charles had four children, two sons and two daughters. Isabelle was born in 1871, and married Harvey Randolph Leach in Des Moines, Iowa, and they had nine children. Melvin was born in 1872, and died April 12, 1931. He married and lived in Brooklyn, New York. Eugene Curtis was born 1874, and died of tuberculosis in 1903. Grace was born in 1876, and died at Friendship Manor in November of 1966.[13]

Pelagie died on Dec. 1, 1937. She is buried at the Valley Cemetery in Shakopee, Minnesota.[14]

[1] Find a Grave Memorial of Pelagie Eliza Faribault Manaige # 6783076, created by Cindy K. Coffin, April 03, 2011.

[2] Williams, Richard (2000). Oliver Faribault and Early Settlement at Faribault Springs. La Compagnie des Hivernants de la Rivière Saint-Pierre (HSP) Journal, 5 (3), 11-16.

[3] Winter, Marian B. (2003). A Visit with a Great-Granddaughter of Oliver Faribault. La Compagnie des Hivernants de la Rivière Saint-Pierre (HSP) Journal. From a working scrapbook 3061B in 1930s, and in the Sibley House Museum and the Minnesota Historical Society collections.

[4] Winter, Marian B. (2003). A Visit with a Great-Granddaughter of Oliver Faribault. La Compagnie des Hivernants de la Rivière Saint-Pierre (HSP) Journal. From a working scrapbook 3061B in 1930s, and in the Sibley House Museum and the Minnesota Historical Society collections.

[5] Interview of Patricia Jeanine Manaige Cates by David R. Schleper (2016) in Prior Lake, MN.

[6] Letter to Pat Cates from Ron Wilber related to the Burials on Shakopee Property (1998). Black River Falls, WI: HoChunk Historical Presentation, October 21, 1998.

[7] Winter, Marian B. (2003). A Visit with a Great-Granddaughter of Oliver Faribault. La Compagnie des Hivernants de la Rivière Saint-Pierre (HSP) Journal. From a working scrapbook 3061B in 1930s, and in the Sibley House Museum and the Minnesota Historical Society collections.

[8] Interview of Patricia Jeanine Manaige Cates by David R. Schleper (2016) in Prior Lake, MN.

[9] Winter, Marian B. (2003). A Visit with a Great-Granddaughter of Oliver Faribault. La Compagnie des Hivernants de la Rivière Saint-Pierre (HSP) Journal. From a working scrapbook 3061B in 1930s, and in the Sibley House Museum and the Minnesota Historical Society collections.

[10] Winter, Marian B. (2003). A Visit with a Great-Granddaughter of Oliver Faribault. La Compagnie des Hivernants de la Rivière Saint-Pierre (HSP) Journal. From a working scrapbook 3061B in 1930s, and in the Sibley House Museum and the Minnesota Historical Society collections.

[11] Winter, Marian B. (2003). A Visit with a Great-Granddaughter of Oliver Faribault. La Compagnie des Hivernants de la Rivière Saint-Pierre (HSP) Journal. From a working scrapbook 3061B in 1930s, and in the Sibley House Museum and the Minnesota Historical Society collections.

[12] Interview of Patricia Jeanine Manaige Cates by David R. Schleper (2016) in Prior Lake, MN.

[13] Interview of Patricia Jeanine Manaige Cates by David R. Schleper (2016) in Prior Lake, MN.

[14] Find a Grave Memorial of Pelagie Eliza Faribault Manaige # 6783076, created by Cindy K. Coffin, April 03, 2011.

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Joseph Godfrey

People

ca. 1830 – July 1, 1909
In Prairie des Français ca. 1844-1848
by David R. Schleper

Joseph Godfrey was born to an African American mother, Courtney, and a French Canadian father in the early 1830s in Mendota, across the Rivière Saint-Pierre (St. Peter’s River) from Fort Snelling.

Joseph’s mother, Courtney, was enslaved. She was born into slavery around 1812 in Virginia, and was owned by James Garland until 1820, when he sold her to his brother, U.S. Army Captain John Garland. The captain took Courtney to supposedly free Michigan and Wisconsin, and then in 1826 he moved to Fort Snelling, bringing Courtney, his slave, to the area later called Minnesota. In fact, James Garland actually claimed and received extra compensation from the Army for Courtney. “When soldiers brought their slaves from the South to the Upper Mississippi Valley, the federal government knew it and allowed it. More importantly, the government budgeted for it, using taxpayer dollars to defray the cost involved in keeping slaves at the forts.”[1]

So Joseph Godfrey, by birth and race, was enslaved. He was one of maybe a few African Americans who was born into slavery in Minnesota, and he was the only one who had grown from birth to adulthood in Minnesota as an enslaved person. “In Minnesota, there were never large gangs of farm workers, or auction blocks. There weren’t those trappings of the worst forms of slavery,” Walt Bachman said in 2013. “But there is ample evidence of brutality towards slaves in Minnesota, including a slave who was whipped to death by her Army officer master. Slavery, wherever it was practiced, was a pernicious institution, and Minnesota was no exception.”[2]

James Garland sold Courtney to Alexander and Lucy Faribault Bailly in 1831. Alexander was a prominent fur trader, and was ¼ Ottawa, and Lucy was the sister of Oliver Faribault, and was ¼ Dakota. According to Philander Prescott and his wife, Nahanamenah (Spirit of the Moon), Lucy mistreated other people’s children, including Joseph and a Dakota girl, Angelique Skaya, who were enslaved at their house. “And whilst I am speaking about the whipping business—Mrs. Bailly had a little black child raised in the family and a young Sioux girl. Those two children, I actually believe, would get from 25 to 50 lashes a day and sometimes more, every day almost. I frequently would leave the house to get away from the miserable crying of those children when she was cowhiding them.”[3] Joseph and Angelique were between 3 or 4 years old when this happened.

In the early 1840s, Alexander and Lucy either sold or gave Joseph to Oliver Faribault and Wakan Yanke. “At the trading post countless tasks might have been assigned to a slave: supplies and trade goods that Faribault exchanged for furs would have to be toted and warehoused; when furs arrived they would need to be counted, sorted, bundled, and loaded for transport downriver; and sundry nineteenth-century household chores such as water drawing and fire tending” would have kept Joseph Godfrey very busy.[4]

In about 1848 Joseph escaped, walked about 40 miles southwest along the Rivière Saint-Pierre to Traverse des Sioux, a village at a shallow river crossing.[5] There he presented himself to Alexander Huggins, a militant abolitionist Presbyterian missionary whom he had previously met, probably at the Pond Mission House in Prairieville, the name Rev. Samuel W. Pond called Tiŋta-otoŋwe. [6] Joseph was enslaved at Prairie des Français (French Prairie) at the Faribault Trading Post, which was across the springs from the Pond Mission House.

According to Alexander Huggins’s son, Joseph said he “had been beaten and abused and could stand it no longer.”[7]

Almost immediately, however, Godfrey fled to join the Indian bands led by Chiefs Wabasha and Wakute along the Mississippi River. Joseph was afraid that he would be taken back into slavery if he stayed at the missionary’s home. He felt more comfortable as a refugee among a band of Dakotas whose language and customs he had learned in the fur trade. Lacking free papers, he became Minnesota’s only home-grown fugitive slave. In 1853 Godfrey moved back along the Minnesota River in south central Minnesota.

Joseph lived with Dakota Indians for over 12 years after his escape from Oliver Faribault and Wakan Yanke. He married Takanheca, the daughter of Wahpaduta (Red Leaf) in 1857, and had a son on a new Dakota reservation in southwestern Minnesota.[8]

In the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, Joseph, the enslaved man who escaped his owners, was approached by a Dakota man who announced that all the white people had been killed at the Agency. On the spot, Godfrey was asked what side he would take. Afraid for his life and family, Godfrey felt compelled to join the war.

Godfrey surrendered along with a group of about a thousand Dakota on Sept. 26, after the Sept. 23 Battle of Wood Lake. He was the first person tried by the military commission on Sept. 28, 1862. Because Joseph did not want to die, he agreed to testify against 11 of the 38 Dakota warriors who were hung on Dec. 26, 1862.[9] Although he did not get convicted for murder, he was convicted for participating in the fighting and sentenced to death by hanging. President Abraham Lincoln commuted his sentence to ten years imprisonment. He later got a full pardon.[10]

Joseph was sent to Camp McClellan in Davenport, Iowa to serve his prison sentence. After three years, he was pardoned and freed in 1866.

Upon Joseph’s release, he settled on the Santee Reservation, where he was united with his son. He was a farmer, and married a Dakota woman, Icazontewin, also known as Emma, in 1866. She died in 1895. When she died, Joseph married Jennie Goodtreacher in 1898.[11]

Joseph passed away from natural causes in July 1, 1909, and was buried at the Episcopalian Cemetery on the reservation.[12]

[1] Lahman, Christopher P. (2011). Slavery in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1787-1865: A History of Human Bondage in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., p. 67.

[2] Bachman, Walt (2013). Northern Slave, Black Dakota: The Life and Times of Joseph Godfrey. Bloomington, MN: Pond Dakota Press.

[3] Parker, Donald Dean (editor) (1966). The Recollections of Philander Prescott Frontiersman of the Old Northwest, 1819-1862. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, p. 152

[4] Bachman, Walt (2013). Northern Slave, Black Dakota: The Life and Times of Joseph Godfrey. Bloomington, MN: Pond Dakota Press, p. 39.

[5] This river crossing was used by generations of Dakota and early French fur traders as a trading outpost. Traverse des Sioux was the site of treaty negotiations in 1851 between the U.S. government and the Dakota.

[6] Bachman, Walt (2013). Northern Slave, Black Dakota: The Life and Times of Joseph Godfrey. Bloomington, MN: Pond Dakota Press.

[7] Eli Huggins to Folwell, November 12, 1918. Folwell Papers, MHS Box 47.

[8] Anderson, Gary Clayton, and Alan R. Woolworth, eds. Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1988.

[9] Anderson, Gary Clayton, and Alan R. Woolworth, eds. Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1988.

[10] Francois, Sherick. “Godfrey, Joseph (c.1830–1909).” MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society. http://www.mnopedia.org/person/godfrey-joseph-c1830-1909 (accessed July 20, 2017).

[11] Bachman, Walt (2013). Northern Slave, Black Dakota: The Life and Times of Joseph Godfrey. Bloomington, MN: Pond Dakota Press.

[12] Bachman, Walt (2013). Northern Slave, Black Dakota: The Life and Times of Joseph Godfrey. Bloomington, MN: Pond Dakota Press.

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