Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Mudcura Sanitarium (1908-1951), later known as the Assumption Seminary (until 1970), was located on what was once Highway 212 just west of Highway 169, near the Seminary Fen.

The sulfur springs, mud, and plants from this area had been used by Dakota medicine men for many years before the settler-colonists discovered their healing attributes.

The treatments at Mudcura used these plants and mineral-rich mud when treating people for medical ailments, including for arthritis, asthma, nervous disorders, and even alcoholism.

Mudcura Sanitarium was not located in Shakopee, though it was close. It was located between the cities of Chaska and Chanhassen, and just across the river from Shakopee. Though located in Chanhassen, many postcards named the place as in Shakopee.

One of the masseurs at the place was Dr. Gustave Herman Seidler. Dr. Seidler was born in Gerbstadt, Germersheim, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany on December 9, 1867. He married twice. The first woman died in Germany, and Dr. Seidler was left with two daughters, Bertha and Helene, according to an article in the November 21, 1913 Shakopee Tribune, “Instantly Killed.”

He married for a second time in Germany, and moved the family to America in 1904, and to Shakopee in 1908.

The Seidlers lived near the train tracks in Shakopee on November 11, 1913. Dr. Seidler’s daughter, Helene, ran in front of the Omaha #11 Passenger Train, which was speeding to town at 9:45 p.m.

Gustave ran to get her, but he stumbled and fell. The wheels passed over his body and completely severed both legs above the ankles, according to an article in the Scott County Argus, November 21, 1913, called “Shocking Accident Horrifies Community.”

Helene called Coroner Hirscher, and Dr. Gustave Herman Seidler, in pieces, was brought to the office, and eventually to Valley Cemetery in Shakopee, where he was buried.

He was survived by his second wife, Minnie Finsch Seidler and his two children, Bertha Ida (1897-1994) and Helene (1898-1948). Gustave’s second wife died in 1931 and is buried at Valley Cemetery near her husband.

As for Mudcura Sanitarium, it closed in 1951. The sanitarium was sold to the Black Franciscans, Order of Friars Minor Conventual, from Louisville, Kentucky. They named it Assumption Seminary. It remained in operation until 1970.

After 1970, the property changed hands many times but remained abandoned. On November 8, 1997, a fire destroyed the building, a sad ending for Mudcura Sanitarium, a landmark that was known internationally for good health.

Bibliography

“Instantly Killed.” Shakopee Tribune, 21 Nov. 1913.

“Shocking Accident Horrifies Community.” Scott County Argus, 21 Nov. 1913.

Douglas James had been working in Chinese restaurants since 1965, when he was 16 years old, and began dreaming of owning his own restaurant, according to the Shakopee Valley News on March 19, 1986. In January 1986, Douglas opened the House of Yim at 576 Marschall Road in Shakopee, said staff writer Beth Forkner-Moe.

Douglas and his family worked in Chinese restaurants. His great-uncle, Walter James, came to America in the 1890s, and opened the Nankin Cafe in Minneapolis in 1919.

Nankin Cafe was a Chinese restaurant, considered “a downtown Minneapolis landmark for eighty years,” according to Rick Nelson, in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, February 25, 1999. Founded by Walter at 15 S. Seventh Street, now the site of the Park and Shop ramp (formerly the Dayton-Radisson ramp), it was sold in 1949 to the Golden and Chalfen families.

“Walter James was born in 1892 in Olympia, Washington into a family of modest means.

“As a child he and a friend played hooky from school often until they were finally caught. At the tender age of nine he went to China with a family friend and stayed in his father’s home village of Taishan for two and a half years. When he returned, he rejoined his family and spent his teenage years around Tacoma, Seattle, and Yakima. He did odd jobs here and there, including managing a Chinese restaurant and working as an interpreter for the US Immigration Service. In the latter role he visited many Chinese steamboats that came into the Tacoma harbor. He got to know many of the Chinese sailors on board and soon was trading with them, buying silk handkerchiefs and other merchandise from them and reselling them. His budding entrepreneurship took a step forward when he was offered a position by a restaurateur from Chicago. He moved there in 1913 but did not like the city.”

He soon moved to Minneapolis and opened his first Chinese restaurant, Canton, there. In 1919 he opened his second one, Nankin Café, in downtown Minneapolis.

Nankin was a grand operation that featured antique Chinese furniture as well as a western orchestra. James created his signature dish, Nankin Chow Mein, early and it became very popular, well known far beyond Minnesota. The restaurant was highly successful, becoming a magnet for the local Chinese community, as well as a landmark for the city of Minneapolis, noted by the Chinese Heritage Foundation.

Through his Walter C. James Foundation, he gave generously to many charitable organizations in Minnesota, Chicago, and Hong Kong. In founding the Chinese American Civic Council, he hoped “to promote better citizenship, to strive for freedom and equality of all persons, to work for the civic and economic development of Chinese communities, and to foster the well-being of citizens and residents of Chinese extraction.”

In the Minneapolis Star, in August 1981, Karen Winegar noted, “The cheerful, hardcore and silent bus help are part of a crew of some two hundred workers, said to be the largest restaurant staff in town … They zoom in and out the swinging doors, zip up and down the carpeted stairs. The public never sees the thirty Nankin chefs, twenty of whom can only speak Chinese. Together, they crack out some three thousand meals daily. That’s almost a million a year. And in a town which seems to slam its shutters around 9 p.m., the Nankin could be relied upon to serve food until late at night.” The Nankin closed on February 24, 1999.

Douglas James worked at the Nankin from 1965 until 1984, and then he worked at other Chinese restaurants in the area, learning more about his trade. “I learned as much as I could.” By January 1986, Douglas opened the House of Yim at 576 Marschall Road in Shakopee.

Douglas was drafted into the Army one week after high school graduation. He spent two years in the service, including one year in Vietnam. After being discharged, Douglas used the G.I. Bill to go to Duluth Business College where he learned bookkeeping and accounting, according to the Shakopee Valley News in 1986.

The House of Yim employed ten people, including Douglas’s wife, Doris, Chan, a cook, two people who worked in the kitchen, including Lien Tam, and John Ploof, a work-study student from Shakopee Senior High School; his brother-in-law, Barton Leung, who was also learning how to run the restaurant. Five part-time wait staff included Sheryl Gulbrandson, Lona Brown, Nicky Uber, Heidi Boyd, and Stacy Anderson.

The House of Yim served food in the Cantonese style, with several selections including several kinds of chow min, sweet and sour pork, egg rolls, egg foo young, and other traditional Chinese dishes.

Douglas’s philosophy about business was, “I stress being honest. You also need to have quality food and services and a good atmosphere, so people like being there.”

The location is now the New Dragon Cafe.

Bibliography

Chinese Heritage Foundation. https://chineseheritagefoundation.org/09-walter-james/.

Forkner-Moe, Beth. Shakopee Valley News, 19 March 1986.

Nelson, Rick. Minneapolis Star Tribune, 25 Feb. 1999.

Winegar, Karen. Minneapolis Star, Aug. 1981.

In the depth of the Depression, there was little work for young people, and no money to pursue an education.

Many people worried that long-term unemployment and borderline poverty would undermine young Americans’ faith in democracy. Eleanor Rosevelt felt that “I live in real terror when I think we may be losing this generation. We have got to bring these young people into the active life of the community and make them feel that they are necessary,” according to The New York Times, May 7, 1934.

Eleanor, working closely with educators and relief officials, pushed President Franklin D. Roosevelt to address this problem. Although at first he did not want to develop programs for young people, this lobbying effort changed his mind. In June 1935, President Roosevelt signed an executive order establishing the National Youth Administration (NYA), a New Deal program designed specifically to address the problem of unemployment among Depression-era youth, according to Eleanor Roosevelt in This I Remember, 1949, p. 162-163. While some were paid to remain in school, others were allowed to live in NYA camps where they were taught a trade.

In June 1935 the six transient work camps located in the area included one in the eastern part of Shakopee, next to Highway 101, where The Landing is located now. They operated from 1935 to 1939.

The Minnesota Highway Department purchased four farms comprising 520 acres of farmland adjacent to Shakopee in the Minnesota River Valley for $46 thousand.

One of these farms was the Donovan farm east of Shakopee where the old Murphy house on the site was under renovation. This site – known as Camp #5 – was to be the headquarters, the largest, and best equipped. Eight buildings were built at the Murphy site, sufficient in size to house 200 to 250 men. Construction of the permanent camp at Shakopee was reported to be well under way, as 65 transient men were union carpenters, according to The Shakopee Argus, June 7, 1934.

The camps had medical and dental wards under the supervision of a doctor and two dentists. Every man was assigned to some camp duty such as messenger, first aid, gardening, landscaping, carpentry, kitchen, or many other occupations, said Betty Dols in the February/March 2009 Scott County SCENE article, “Scott County’s Depression Era Camps.” They raised their own vegetables and canned some for the winter. The transients also constructed a rather elaborate warming house at the ice-skating rink in Shakopee north of First Avenue in October 1935.

In March 1938, a new federal project for a work-study program like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) continued in Shakopee, but with a non-military structure. Enrollees earned $10 per month, plus room and board. They could study agriculture, cooking, auto mechanics, carpentry, forestry, welding, and other activities related to a campsite of 2,700 acres of wooded land.

Many young men learned a trade there. In 1939, the federal government added ground mechanics for the aviation industry to the curriculum. In 1940, construction of sea plane bases was added. In 1941 and 1942, young men were taught welding, machine shop, and radio to prepare them for work in defense plants, according to Betty Dols.

The NYA Center officially closed on July 3, 1943, according to the Shakopee Argus-Tribune, July 1, 1943. On January 6, 1944, the Shakopee Independent School District was given all the machinery, tools, and educational equipment, said the Shakopee Argus Tribune, January 6, 1944.

In 1947, the City of Shakopee paid the State of Minnesota $7,500 for the buildings and part of the acreage, which would become Shakopee’s Memorial Park and The Landing, noted Betty Dols in the February/March 2009 issue of the Scott County SCENE.

According to Donna Miles Lane, “With the end of WWII in 1945, some of the buildings with shop equipment were leased to private industry. To help ease the housing shortage, some of the barracks were rented to war veterans and their families. And this is what happened to my family.” Donna shared her story in the Shakopee Heritage Society Newsletter, Winter 2020.

“When my family returned to Shakopee in 1946, we had to live with my mother’s parents until we found a place at the NYA camp. I was about five or six years old, so though some of my details might be fuzzy, I wanted to tell my story.

“Most of the buildings were single-family units, but there was one large building in the middle shaped like a T. This was the unit that my family moved into. Bob and Betty Mertz were on the other end, and Cy and Millie Sames had the middle unit. There was a large, unheated room where the three homes came together. We used it for storage, and it is where my pet gopher hibernated in the winter,” said Donna.

“These homes were bare bones, a large rectangle that was divided into four rooms, with a small bathroom in the corner of the kitchen. It had a sink and a stool, only! There was no hot water. In fact, this led to a bad accident when I was about nine years old. My mom boiled water to wash dishes. I had to carry the water to the sink. As I changed the position of my hands in order to dump it into the sink, I dropped it, and the boiling water came back on me. I was severely burned from my chest to my legs. I spent many weeks lying on the couch. I couldn’t go to school. The only good thing was that I got many beautiful dolls from my friends!

“This was a great place for a tom-girl to grow up. The buildings were not tall, so we played endless games of ‘Red Rover Come Over.’ The Minnesota River was just down the hill, and I spent many days down there fishing, finding turtle eggs (and bringing them up to a spot near a massive wall to watch them hatch), building forts, catching gophers, and playing in the woods.

“My dad, Don Miles, was the local deputy sheriff. Each Fourth of July, he would get fireworks and put on a show for the whole neighborhood. We also had the first TV set, and every Saturday night the house would be filled with neighbors to watch wrestling!

“Just up the road was the empty Murphy’s house and landing. It always intrigued me, but I never explored it on my own. I wish I had! On the other side of camp was the old Pond Grist Mill ruins. I did venture there and explore it, but I had no idea how historic it was.”

Donna is the secretary of the Shakopee Heritage Society, and so Donna continues to learn more about Shakopee.

“With many young families living here, there were many children. So I started babysitting starting when I was nine years old,” said Donna. “They paid me 25 cents an hour, which seemed like a fortune to me!

“Finally, sometime in the 1950s, the buildings were sold and removed from the site. The camp was eventually closed, and we were able to buy a house on west Sixth Avenue in Shakopee in the mid-fifties.

“I had many happy memories of growing up at the NYA Camp!”

Donna Miles graduated from Shakopee High School, and on August 6, 1960, she married Donald Lane at St. Mark’s Catholic Church in Shakopee.

Bibliography

Dols, Betty. “Scott County’s Depression Era Camps.” Scott County SCENE, February/March 2009.

The New York Times, 7 May 7 1934.

Roosevelt, Eleanor. This I Remember, 1949, pp. 162-163.

Shakopee Argus, 7 June 1934.

Shakopee Argus-Tribune, 1 July 1943.

Shakopee Argus Tribune, 6 Jan. 1944.

Shakopee Heritage Society Newsletter, Winter 2020.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

The Fuller family, three brothers and three sisters, arrived in St. Paul in 1850. Alpheus, David, and George were merchants. They owned a store in St. Paul, trading posts in the territory, and real estate business. Lizzie, Sarah, and Abby lived with their brothers and ran the household with the help of a servant and a gardener.

David Fuller arrived in Shakopee for a short time in the summer of 1851, and the next spring came back and secured from Thomas A. Holmes a half interest in the township, which they platted as the town of Shakopee City. He also purchased Shaska Township (Chaska) from Holmes in 1852.

Fuller Street in Shakopee is named after David L. Fuller.

David was born September 2, 1826, in Windham, Connecticut. His parents were David Luce Fuller and Hadassah Gay. David had ten siblings, including Abert C., Jane Gay, Alpheus G., George R., Sarah Comins Abbe, Elizabeth, Abby Ann Abbe, Jared, William, Franklin Aaron, and Issac L. Fuller.

David and Thomas donated block 56 as the site for county buildings, which is now known as the Court House Block in Shakopee. (A few years later, Thomas tried to get the block back, but the court stopped him from getting the block or the money).

In 1856, the Fuller family built a hotel in St. Paul. David was owner of the Fuller House in St. Paul. It was later named the International Hotel. The hotel was operated by Alpheus G. Fuller and stood on the northeast corner of Jackson and Seventh Streets. The land was given to the brothers and $12 thousand was raised as a bonus. The hotel was a five-story brick building and cost $110 thousand. It opened September 25, 1856.

Slaveholders and other southerners spent vacation at the hotel. The hotel owners (Fullers) accumulated wealth by giving slaveholders lodging (about $6,000 a month). So even though the Fullers were not from the south, but from Connecticut, they still supported slavery by benefiting from the money collected by southern slave owners, according to Dr. Christopher P. Lehman in a book in 2011 called Slavery in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1787-1865: A History of Human Bondage in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Southerners were able to travel with their slaves to Minnesota because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision which declared that, as property, slaves weren’t citizens and couldn’t sue to win their freedom – even in non-slaveholding states. “So that led to a big rush of people who would vacation here in the north and bring their slaves from the south, and just dare people to do anything about it. So even though you had the Northwest Ordinances, you had the Missouri Compromise, none of these laws amounted to a hill of beans because they weren’t being enforced,” said Dr. Cristopher P. Lehman.

In 1857, an economic crash caused the population of St. Paul to drop from 10,000 to 5,000. But before that, the city withstood an attempt to move the territorial capital from St. Paul to St. Peter.

The bill to move the capital had passed the territorial legislature when Joe Rolette, the legislator from Pembina, intervened. Rolette was French Canadian Métis, known for wearing Native American clothing and adornment. “To attend this session of 1857 he walked the whole distance, about 400 miles, as the snow was too light to permit riding in his dog sled,” said an article in the Wahpeton and Breckenridge Daily News, September 10, 2010.

“Rolette’s arrival in St. Paul in his gaily decorated dog sled in the winter was one event that marked the opening of the legislative session. On occasion, he made the journey on snowshoes, all 385 miles.” More importantly for the city, he was the chairman of the enrollment committee of the legislature, and a partisan of St. Paul’s claim to the capital.

Rolette put the bill in his pocket after passage and secretly secured it at Truman and Smith’s Bank. He then sequestered himself at the Fuller House, playing cards and lying low, while others reported that he was on his way back to Pembina by dog sled. When the time limit for the capital relocation bill had expired, he reappeared and produced the bill. Since it had never been enrolled, it did not become law, and the capital remained in St. Paul, said Neoma Laken in an article, “‘Jolly Joe’ Rolette Jr. a Character, Merry-Maker,” in the Wahpeton and Breckenridge Daily News, September 10, 2010.

On October 13, 1857, a state constitution was ratified. On May 11, 1858, Minnesota was admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state. The capital stayed in St. Paul, according to Collections of the Minnesota History Society, Volume 1, Part 2, Volume 10, St. Paul, Minnesota MHS, February 1905.

The Fuller/International Hotel was destroyed by fire on February 3, 1869.

David was a large and lymphatic man. He returned to Connecticut, where he died December 1, 1856.

David was buried at Fuller Cemetery, in Scotland, Connecticut.

Bibliography

Collections of the Minnesota History Society, Volume 1, Part 2, Volume 10. Feb. 1905.

Laken, Neoma. “‘Jolly Joe’ Rolette Jr. a Character, Merry-Maker.” Wahpeton and Breckenridge Daily News, 10 Sept. 2010.

Lehman, Dr. Christopher P. Slavery in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1787-1865: A History of Human Bondage in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, 2011.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

“I waded out and tried to grab David, but I couldn’t hold him,” said Mike Stephens, age 12. “I went back to shore, took off my pants, and then tried again, but he slipped away and started downstream.”

With those words, Mike tearfully described the fatal moment when his pal, David J. Strehlow, drowned in the Minnesota River Monday afternoon, July 13, 1959, according to an article, “David Strehlow, 13, Drowns In River After Rescue Attempt Fails,” in the July 16, 1959 Shakopee Valley News.

David and Mike had spent the afternoon picking berries and shooting carp with bows and arrows in the Minnesota River near Rahr Malting Company, according to “Minnesota River Claims Life of 13-Year Old Near City Bridge,” in the July 16, 1959 Shakopee Argus-Tribune. Before supper they headed home, stopping at the Holmes Street Bridge so that David could wash mud off his shoes. David waded into the seemingly shallow water there.

“He was just wading and went out … he went under … and it was terrible,” Mike muttered to Police Chief Pat Thielen while attempts were made to discover David’s disappearing body about twenty minutes later. “When I looked up again, he was under … bubbles were coming up. I couldn’t see him anymore and I went for help.”

According to the Shakopee Argus Tribune, a sobbing Mike went to a service station nearby to summon help. Police and fire department rescue workers were called to the scene. A crowd was beginning to form on the bridge and along the bank.

“Shakopee firemen launched a boat and were dragging the area with hooks. Lazy bubbles scattered over the river appearing to indicate the likely spot. Yet, no one knew exactly where to dive in a desperate effort to save the boy … Firemen made sweeps in the immediate area and within minutes contacted the boy’s body some twenty feet from the south bank.” Though twenty minutes had elapsed, the firemen and volunteers at the scene worked feverishly applying artificial respiration, attempting to keep life going or restore it.

“David was taken through the thick riverbank brush to the edge of Joe Kurver’s garden where a respirator was employed. Father Martin Flemming arrived to pray over the youth shortly before Dr. B.F. Pearson pulled the blanket over the boy’s head.”

Funeral services for David J. Strehlow, 13 years old, were held at St. John’s Lutheran Church, with Rev. F.A. Meske officiating, according to “Last Rites Today for Strehlow Boy,” Shakopee Valley News, July 16, 1959.

David was born November 7, 1945, son of Harold Strehlow (1911-1989) and Edna Anna Plackner Strehlow (1915-1973). David’s grandparents were August Otto Strehlow, Jr. (1882-1952) and Augusta Gussie Ruehling Strehlow (1888-1990).

David, who attended Shakopee public schools, was survived by his parents and two sisters, Barbara and Nancy. The pallbearers were James Nolting, Stanley Stier, James Perry, Lance Raduenz, Mike Melchior, and James Zoschke.

David was buried at Valley Cemetery in Shakopee.

Bibliography

“David Strehlow, 13, Drowns In River After Rescue Attempt Fails.” Shakopee Valley News, 16 July 1959.

“Last Rites Today for Strehlow Boy.” Shakopee Valley News, July 16, 1959

“Minnesota River Claims Life of 13-Year Old Near City Bridge.” Shakopee Argus-Tribune, 16 July 1959.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

David-Frederic Faribault, Sr. was born in 1816 at Prairie du Chien. He was the fourth of eight children of Jean-Baptiste Faribault and Elizabeth Pelagie Kinzie Haines.

David-Frederic lived with his mother at Prairie du Chien, on the island called Wita Tanka (Big Island), and at Mendota. David-Frederic and Oliver were sent to a Protestant boarding school at Michilimackinac in the 1820s. David-Frederic also lived at Inyan Ceyaka Otunwe, a summer planting village of the Mdewakanton Dakota. Pelagie likely reinforced the importance of Dakota ways with David-Frederic, her husband, and other children. She provided the family with social connections that paved the way for trade opportunities with her Dakota relatives. She was known to be kind and generous and provided hospitality for friends and neighbors in their social networks. Her own Dakota relatives sometimes visited nearby for extended periods.

David-Frederic married Wowaka Wa-Pa-Let Winona Nancy McClure at Fort Snelling. It was a gala occasion. Governor Ramsey, the officials from Washington who had come to negotiate the Indian treaty of 1851, the army officers, and their wives, the head leaders, and the principal men of the great Dakota nation were all present. The bride, dressed in white, was married to David by Alexis Bailey, who was justice of peace during the Traverse des Sioux Treaty on July 11, 1851. Nancy was 16 years old. Nancy noted “often wondering how so much champagne got so far out of the frontier.” “The affair even got into the papers,” Nancy wrote later.

Frank Mayer described David-Frederic Faribault as a young man when he wrote about Faribault’s marriage to Nancy McClure. David-Frederic was 19 years older than Nancy, had been married twice before (including Suzanne Wasukoyakewiŋ Weston, who had died in 1851) and had several children, including David, Jr., when he and Nancy wed.

David-Frederic moved to Tínṫa Otuŋwe after his brother, Oliver, died after contracting quinsy. David-Frederic had been manager of Henry Sibley’s store at Mendota, but when he married Nancy, they moved to Prairieville (Shakopee), where David-Frederic continued to trade with the Indians. Nancy later wrote that they lived in a house below Oliver’s and stayed in the area for about two years.

During this time, David-Frederic tried creating a settlement along the Faribault Springs that would rival the newly established town of Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory. The attempt was described in The History of the Minnesota Valley:

“About the time of Mr. Holmes’s arrival David Faribault, a brother of Oliver, arrived, and when the excitement of town building began, he attempted a rival town, trying to divert the settlement to his location, which was the Indian village … Though he succeeded in gathering a little colony of French half breeds about him, he was finally obliged to abandon his scheme as useless.”

The small settlement disappeared, the Indian village of Tínṫa Otuŋwe was forced to move to a western reservation, and new settler-colonists claimed the land. Very little remains of the settlement along Faribault Springs.

David-Frederic and Nancy resided in Shakopee until their business failed. They then moved to LeSueur for a year and then to Faribault, where they remained for four years. Their daughter, Mary Jane, was born in Faribault on August 16, 1855. They lived in various places in Minnesota where David-Frederic carried on his fur trading business. By 1862, David, Nancy, and Mary Jane had moved to a new home about two miles from the Lower Sioux Agency on the east side of the river at Redwood. David and Nancy arrived at the site of the new Fort Ransom in June 1867. They then opened a “house of entertainment” about thirty miles away from Fort Ransom to provide room and board for travelers. Finally, they moved to Flandreau, South Dakota.

It looks like David-Frederic separated from Nancy, though it seems they never divorced (they both were Catholic). Nancy was living with Charles Huggans in 1871.

David-Frederic Faribault died November 18, 1887.

While David, Sr. didn’t die until 1887, the 1880 Federal Census lists Nancy as aged 36, when she was really 44 and was identified as Nancy Huggans. She was living with Charles Huggans, aged thirty, in Flandreau.

The so-called romantic relations between Nancy and Charles did not last. In 1902, an Indian School Service report on Indians living at Flandreau records the following in Nancy’s entry: “62 years old, receives rations. She has a worthless white husband. She has no land and lives with John Eastman [her son-in-law].”

Bibliography

Neill, Edward Duffield. The History of the Minnesota Valley, 1882.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Daniel Milton Storer was born in Carthage, Maine July 11, 1828, son of John Storer (1791-1829) and Elizabeth Ingraham Bradbury (1791-1889). He lived with his three brothers, Harrison, Nathan, and Gilman, and his sister, Diantha.

At the age of 19, Daniel decided to move west. First, he lived in Illinois for two years, and then, in 1849 he moved to Stillwater, and by 1853 he came to Sha K’ Pay, Minnesota Territory. (Sha K’ Pay was the name of the town from 1853-1855. It then became Shakapee City, Minnesota Territory from 1855-1857, and then Shakopee, Minnesota.)

Daniel was a carpenter, and during the first ten years, he helped build many of the old buildings in Shakopee.

On July 13, 1855, he married Omittee Fletcher in Shakapee City. Omittee (1835-1909), daughter of Daniel Fletcher (1799-1883) and Mary Stetson (1798-1851) arrived in the city from Maine. They were married by Rev. Samuel W. Pond.

Five children were born by Daniel and Omittee, but four of them died in infancy, including Clara, Maggie, George, and Eliza. One child, Charles Carroll (1860-1938) lived and ended up engaged with his father in the grocery business.

Daniel moved to St. Paul in 1884, but two years later he returned to Shakopee and continued in the grocery business until his death.

Daniel was a great lover of music, and in pioneer times he was often the one violinist in the region, playing for dances, parties, and socials in Shakopee and the area. “As age crept on, his hearing became greatly impaired, and he became physically unable to call from its strings the sounds he loved so well, which was indeed pathetic. Adults and children loved recall(ing) the familiar sight of Uncle Dan sitting with the violin upon his knees and drawing out merry tunes upon his reversed violin. He was obliged to play. It, as a cello is played, on a count of an injured forefinger. He was a skillful fighter and in years gone. But no Decoration Day was complete without its drum corps led by Daniel Storer and his merry fife.”

During his life, Daniel kept a diary from 1849 until 1905, including his time in Shakopee from August 1853 until January 1905. His recollections became a book that is now available through the Shakopee Heritage Society.

Here are a few entries when he first arrived in Shakopee:

August 11, 1853

This is a most beautiful little place. There are but few houses here finished off but a good many are in course of construction, in all, over twenty. A year ago there was not a frame house here, so I am told. There is a quite large Indian village just below here.

August 13, 1853

Went out into the timber three miles from town to look at a claim today. The country is good and is settling very fast.

August 14, 1853

Went to church in Holmes Hall. They are a good-looking people here.

In the diary, Daniel talks about many of the men of the time who were around at the founding of the town of Shakopee (though, of course, the area was already Tínṫa Otuŋwe, a Dakota village). People like Samuel W. Pond, Henry Hinds, Julius Anthony Coller, and Theodore Weiland, as well as many other prominent people, were often talked about in the diary. Daniel’s diary also mentions other people, including those who were less prominent, but still important in the founding of the town.

Daniel and Omittee were upper middle class. For ten years, Daniel built houses. He hired people to help. After ten years, he started in the merchandise business.

For 52 years, the Storers lived and worked in Shakopee. They also interacted with other people in Shakopee who were mostly upper middle class or rich.

During those last 52 years, the family had domestic servants. Six of them are mentioned in his diary: Christina, Louise, Lizzie, Tillie, Maggie, and Ms. Jaspers. They were the girls, the live-in help, or the maids who lived and worked in Shakopee at Daniel and Omittee’s home.

On Friday afternoon, January 13, 1905, at twenty minutes past five o’clock, Daniel Milton Storer closed his eyes for the last time. For the last two years, he had been confined to his home with an attack of cancer of the stomach and liver and suffered great pain. The last entry in his journal was on January 1, 1905, where he wrote, “Sunday. I do not get….” But the last sentence was not readable, though it might say “I do not get much better or stronger.” Daniel died 12 days later, according to the diary.

The funeral happened under Masonic honors at the St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Then they walked to Valley Cemetery where his body was consigned to a grave on a beautiful spot overlooking the valley which he had loved so well during the half-century of life.

Daniel’s wife, Omittee Fletcher Storer, died four years later, after a four-month illness. On the Sabbath preceding death, she suffered a stroke of paralysis, and she failed rapidly. Her interment was at Valley Cemetery in Shakopee, according to the Shakopee Argus, January 29, 1909.

Bibliography

Shakopee Argus, 29 Jan. 1909.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

The usually quiet town of Shakopee was aroused from its lethargy on a Monday evening in January 1886 by the clatter of voices, ringing of sleigh bells, and neighing of horses, according to an article in the Shakopee Courier, January 20, 1886.

Some thought it was a rumbling earthquake, less timid called it a cyclone; but come to find out it was only a party of Shakopee’s women who supported women’s rights! As one of the women remarked it was to show the boys that “We can have a sleigh ride of our own without their assistance if we take a notion!” said the article.

One of the women’s rights members was Daisy Maria Cogswell. Daisy was born in Eden Prairie on February 21, 1871. Her mother was Euphonia Isora Phy Apgar Cogswell (1849-1922) and her grandparents were Capt. Samuel R. Apgar (1801) and Melinda Perry Apgar (1806-1970), who arrived in Shakopee when this area was called Holmes Landing in 1851. Daisy’s father was Adoniram Addison Judson Cogswell (1844-1920), son of Wilson Cogswell (1810-1871) and Abby Kenyon Cogswell (1819-1893). They arrived in Shakopee by 1860. Euphonia and Adoniram ended up moving to Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, where they both were buried at the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery in Devil’s Lake.

As for Daisy and her women friends? They had fun. They were independent. And they were a bit of risk takers.

According to the women, the young ladies gathered and charted an excursion team for the purpose of taking a sleigh ride to Chaska in 1886. Those who were there included Minnie Busse, Rosie and Dena Kohler, Mary and Anna Ries, Nellie Jackman, Katie Theis, Mary Poetz, Flora Thorn, Mary Reis, and Lizzie Marx, along with Daisy Cogswell.

The ladies went to enjoy themselves and had no intention of offending anyone. But some of the young male scamps, not gentlemen, for the ladies did not consider them such, tried to cast slurs upon the young ladies, according to an article in the Shakopee Courier, on January 27, 1886.

The ladies responded, advising the young men to find better employment, and know that the ladies will defend their honor.

And as for the boys? They will be left behind!

A few years later, Daisy, still a bit of a rebel, finally married Robert Emmett Orr (1858-1937) in 1889, though she still supported women’s rights.

Daisy and Robert had three children: John Judson (1890-1966), Emmett Adelbert (1896-1956) and Daisy L. (1904-1982).

Eventually, the family moved to Covington, Kentucky. Robert became the United Deputy Marshal in Kentucky, according to the Lexington Heraldon August 14, 1904.

Daisy died August 9, 1904, of septic fever. Robert died in 1937. Both were buried at the Ghent Consolidated Cemetery, in Ghent, Kentucky.

Why was the cemetery consolidated? It turns out that starting in 1857, there were two cemeteries, both close together. One was for white people, and the other was for African Americans. Eventually, they combined the two cemeteries, the Ghent Scott Cemetery (for white people) and the Colored Oddfellows Cemetery, adjacent and south of the Ghent Cemetery (for African Americans). And in that combined cemetery, Daisy Maria Cogswell Orr and Robert Emmett Orr were buried.

Bibliography

Shakopee Courier, January 20, 1886

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

In 1968, Dagney Nöste Johannsen, known as Dag, retired after half a century of fixing hair. Thirty of those years were at the Modern Beauty Shop in downtown Shakopee.

In the late 1920s and 1930s Shakopee was introduced to professional hairdressers. “One of the early hairdressers of Scott County was Rosella Dressen Ries…” said Ione Theis, in an article in As I Remember Scott County in 1980. Rosie was well-known in Shakopee as she was chosen “Miss Minnesota” in 1929. Rosella opened the first professional hairdressing business at the Modern Beauty Shop, which was located at 117 First Avenue East starting in 1928.

Ione remembered working there in the late 1930s. “As a recent graduate of the Brady and Rogers School of Beauty, I arrived at the Modern Beauty Shop in the late 1930s and trained in the methods of the time. Marcelling the hair was giving way to the more popular spiral wave. The hair was wound on long slender rods, then with a lotion saturated pad was baked on an electrical machine that could be described as a torture device! Somewhat later, and even more popular, was the invention of the Frenchman, Monsieur Crogonle. It gave a tighter curl to the ends of the hair but still used the heating machine that resulted in many scalp casualties. Later, Mr. Willette invented the cold wave, the forerunner of the permanent wave we enjoy today.”

Rosella and Ione sold the Modern Beauty Shop to Dagney Nöste Johannsen and her husband, Ben Johannsen in 1948.

Dagney Nöste was born December 14, 1905, one of six children of Iver Christian Pederson Nöste (1866-1947) and Anna Ellen Eikrem (1873-1958). Dag married Benhart Peter Johannsen, who was born October 15, 1905, in Sweet Township, Pipestone, Minnesota. Ben’s parents were Jacob Gustav Johannsen (1874-1960) and Margaretha Dorothea Tanck (1875-1955). Dag and Ben married on May 31, 1936.

Dagney attended beautician school, according to an interview in the Shakopee Valley News in 1968. She remembered the marcel style was popular at that time. Dag started her beautician career in 1928 in Pipestone, and then worked in Renville and Mankato, followed by 15 years in Alexandria.

In 1948, when Dag and Ben moved to Shakopee to operate the Modern Beauty Shop, styles continued to change. First, it was the cold wave, and then rollers were the thing. “There was an era when women curled their hair close to the head, and another time when the curling was done on the end of the hair,” said Jerry Barney in the article, “Dag Johannsen Retires After Half a Century of Fixing Hair.” Now the crimp style is in, according to Dag. She described one style as leaving the hair looking as if it had been “combed with an eggbeater.” Dag particularly liked the finger waves and the natural curl look.

Ben fixed men’s hair. He was also an avid sportsman and loved baseball and golf. Ben died in 1976.

In April 1967, Dag was hit by a car in downtown Shakopee, which left her with a broken hip. After two operations, she slowly recovered, and so she decided it was time to retire.

Modern Beauty Shop was sold to Betty Markgraf, and after some remodeling was re-opened as the “Klip and Kurl.” Dag believed that Betty would be a good operator for the shop. “She’s well trained and she loves people.”

Dagney continued to live in Shakopee. “It’s a tremendous town with beautiful people!” noted Dag in an article in the Shakopee Valley News.

On March 13, 1985, Dagney Nöste Johannsen died surrounded by the women who remembered the beauty shop in downtown Shakopee, and the beautician career that spanned fifty years, thirty years here in Shakopee.

Bibliography

As I Remember Scott County, 1980.

“Dag Johannsen Retires After Half a Century of Fixing Hair.” Shakopee Valley News, 1968.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Rosalie Mazasnawin Rattling Iron Woman Frenier was born in 1824 in Red River, Minnesota Territory. Her father was François Šake Frenier (1792-1862). Her mother was Marie-Hélène Wiyaŋtoičewiŋ Blue Moon WomanFrenier (1792-1888).

Rosalie married Pierre Peter Noel Peloquin Felix on March 7, 1851, in Mendota, Minnesota. They had nine children in 15 years. Rosalie died as a young mother on March 14, 1853, in Mendota, at the age of 29.

On August 25, 1844, a baby boy was born in Mendota by Pierre and Rosalie. Pierre was a fur trader, and was employed by Henry Sibley, then a 33-year-old member of a fur company headquartered at Mendota. The baby boy was Dennis Dana Peloquin Felix. He married Elizabeth Nancy Coursolle in 1873. They had 12 children in twenty years. He died March 31, 1928, in Eagle Creek, Minnesota, at the age of 83, and was buried in Credit River, Minnesota.

Pierre remembered growing up in Mendota in the 1840s, according to an interview, “Recollections of a Pioneer Citizen” in a Shakopee Heritage Society book, Recollections of Early Pioneers 1925. “I can remember when father was working for Sibley and we lived in the little frame house. Mother (Rosalie) died when I was five years old and left six of us children; but father (Pierre) managed to take care of us and continued to work for the fur company for about a year after mother’s death.” Dana remembered the stone building erected by Sibley which was a store, and he recalled the settler-colonists and Indians “…opening their packs of furs with which they paid for their supplies.”

When Dana was six years old, his father settled on a claim of 160 acres one mile south of Mendota. It was given, maybe, by Ruyapa, or Eagle Head. The area was still the property of the Dakota. Dana worked on the farm for several years, cradling grain and performing other farm tasks. Dana remembered that Minnesota became a state when he was 13 years old. And seven days before his 18^th birthday, he enlisted in the Sixth Minnesota Infantry Regiment. It was an infantry regiment that fought in the Union army during the Civil War. The Sixth Minnesota Infantry spent much of the war in the Northwest fighting Dakota rather than participating in the battles with the Confederacy.

When Dana returned to Minnesota from the war, he married Elizabeth. Elizabeth was 16 years old. Her parents were Joseph Kabupi Coursolle, Sr. (1829-1887) and Jane Genevieve Killkool (1833-1915). Elizabeth was born October 18, 1857, in Traverse des Sioux.

During the U.S.-Dakota War, Elizabeth, at age eight, was captured at the Lower Agency, along with Philomena Minnie Coursolle, age four. She was surrendered at Camp Release on Friday, September 26, 1862.

In 1881, Pierre and Elizabeth moved to the Niobrara, Santee Reservation in Nebraska and were there for 12 years. Several children were born, including Clement “Clem” Felix, Sr., who was born November 23, 1891. Twelve years later, Pierre, Elizabeth, and the family moved to Eagle Creek (now Shakopee), about one and a half miles west of Prior Lake. Clem, who was just a boy, remembered using a horse-drawn wagon to move to their new place.

Clem attended the Pipestone Indian School.

On September 1, 1934, Clement married Florence Genevieve Spooner in Minneapolis. Florence was born June 6, 1912, in Minneapolis, and died February 5, 2001, in Shakopee. Clem and Florence had 12 children. They were farmers in Eagle Creek and raised a large family. Clem loved to connect with the distant plains, the far mountains, and the imagined wild west.

Clem was a hiker and teller of tales. His ancestors were the Santee and the French-Canadian trappers, and he loved to tell people about the people from the past.

While he was a farmer, Clem became disabled, ironically, by a horse. He retired. He was an eminently friendly and modest man. Clem loved exploring the lower Minnesota River Valley and its tributaries.

Clement “Clem” Felix, Sr., died December 3, 1973, in Shakopee. He was buried at the National Cemetery at Fort Snelling.

Bibliography

“Recollections of a Pioneer Citizen.” Recollections of Early Pioneers 1925, edited by Betty A. Dols. Shakopee Heritage Society, 2000.