Skeletons, corn whiskey, Indian mounds and rumors of gold are colorful images of the past for a hamlet with a curious name. More recently known for a popular supper club, the village of Yucatan is on Highway 4 between Houston and Spring Grove in the picturesque Yucatan Valley below wooded bluffs and hills in Yucatan Township of western Houston County. Today in 2020, there … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past: Big Spring, Black Maria, Great Depression led to valley becoming state park
In the 1890s, Farmer Oseth made a daily trek from his homeplace down into the valley with a yoke and pails of milk and cream to the what became known as the Big Spring, where his wooden tank was used as a cooling system. Others, who came by horse-drawn vehicles down a rocky road, began using the tank to cool their butter, melons and beverages. The water of Big Spring maintains … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past: One small town, three bank heists, two criminal cases solved
Wearing masks in a bank may be common, even required, during a pandemic. Bank tellers may not be alarmed by mask-wearers on Halloween, but on October 31, 1986, at Eitzen State Bank, a rubber mask and a sawed-off shotgun had nothing to do with a holiday. Bank robbers have three times targeted that site. There was limited success during a 1964 burglary, but swift justice … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past: Houston County bank robbery merits stay in state penitentiary
It was 1903, just two years after construction of the new bank building. While walking to work on the morning of October 17, Olaf Narveson noticed something amiss at the bank in Spring Grove. He summoned bank president Nels Onsgard, who discovered the vault had been blown open with nitroglycerin. An overcoat had been used to muffle the sound of the explosion. High overnight … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past: Postwar pilots progress from farm fields to airport pavement
The first chartered flying club in Minnesota, the Royal Flyers, used a grass runway on a farm just outside of Spring Grove. Twenty-three years later, an airport was completed at Caledonia, the first and still only airport in Houston County. The Houston County Airport was approved in 1966 with construction in 1968 and dedication on September 21, 1969. The only other airports in … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past: Rise and fall of Riceford – stagecoach start, railroad rejection
Following an Indian trail, fur trader Henry Mower Rice forded a creek while surveying what would become a settlement that (along with the creek) would be named for him – the town of Riceford, located in Spring Grove Township along Riceford Creek in southwest Houston County on the Fillmore County line. Rice, later one of Minnesota’s first two senators, would be one of only two … [Read more...]
Grinde is Lion Most Valuable Player; Hagen, Holland also voted honors
Junior Caden Grinde was voted Most Valuable Player by his 2020 Spring Grove basketball teammates and also received the Hustle Award, determined by statistics. Senior Kyle Hagen was voted the Lion Award while freshman Hunter Holland was the team’s choice for Most Improved. Awards were finally announced online in June after the pandemic forced cancellation of the annual potluck … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past From hymns to math lessons to museum — three centuries, three sites
Early schools and churches often began meeting in the homes of pioneer settlers. Simple one-room schoolhouses would often host church worship services before formal church buildings were constructed. It was different for Daley School, east of Caledonia, where a church building became a schoolhouse. Education began in the home of Timothy Hackett in January of 1856 before a … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past: Independence Day celebrated in Eitzen during three different centuries
As in many communities all over the United States, in the bicentennial year of 1976, there was a Fourth of July celebration in Eitzen, Minn. Most likely unbeknown to those gathering along the state line that day, it was more than a century after the first Independence Day celebration in the Eitzen area, and the 1976 commemoration would soon inspire a popular, annual, bistate … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past: Trespassing spelling pranks, late-night hijinks high above Houston
There was a morning when residents of Houston, Minn., looked up to see the word “HOKAH” in huge white letters on the hillside above town. Another morning, the letters spelled “TOOLBOX,” the nickname of a Houston schoolteacher. The lettering originally spelled “HOUSTON,” and most mornings it did. The 24-foot-high, 14-foot-wide letters were originally arranged with local surface … [Read more...]