Peering at the Past A Missing Horse, Wolves, Robberies and a Big Dog

Part two of a series

Had it been stolen? A live animal was of tremendous value to the early pioneers in Minnesota. Soon after building a log cabin near Eitzen in Houston County, Henry Christian Bunge, Sr.  (1821-1899) was missing his valuable horse he had with him when moving into Winnebago Township from Illinois in 1862. Had it strayed or been stolen? Frontier areas had their share of unsavory characters, including horse thieves. Bunge left home in search of his horse, trudging through hills and valleys for at least two days and nights on that crucial mission. Meanwhile, his wife Marie and small children remained at home. Having already retired during the second night, they were awakened and frightened by loud, deafening unfamiliar noises. Not knowing what to do, they did nothing except await their fate. The commotion continued for some time but finally died back into a relieving silence. They returned to bed and did not investigate until daylight. Moving cautiously, she discovered she had not closed the folding door over the steps leading into the basement. Evidently, a pack of timber wolves had descended into the basement where she had left milk to cool in low pans. Fighting and howling while feasting on the milk had been the source of the unrestrained uproar. That door would be closed every night thereafter. That afternoon, Bunge came home without having found his horse.

If thievery had been involved in that loss, there would be a different robbery result years later involving his son Christian Bunge, Jr. (1846-1902), a successful store owner in Eitzen since 1866. At one time, the store had experienced a series of nighttime break-ins when an intruder helped himself to the contents of the cash till. Since these robberies were carried out with the same technique at various times, Bunge concluded the perpetrator was likely a resident of the area. He laid several traps but could not halt the thefts.

Finally, he and his bother Henry devised a plan that succeeded. They put a kerosene lantern into an empty barrel, and the inside of the store remained dark. Henry would sit quietly beside the barrel and await any unauthorized overnight arrival. He kept this vigil for several nights without incident. But one night, an intruder entered the building without Henry hearing any noise until the thief got to the cash till in the counter. Henry threw off the blanket, jerked the lantern out of the barrel and held it up to the unmasked face of the robber. He was surprised to see a young man from an area family.

The young man said, “Well, I guess you have got me.” Bunge, Jr. did not take any legal action, but the intruder knew he would no longer be welcome in the community, and he soon left the area, not known to have ever returned.

There were three doors in different areas of this 1890 store building and an outside entrance to the cellar. This might entice other thieves, so the owner obtained a good watchdog. At night, a large mastiff named King was stationed inside the darkened store. “If anyone would come late to the store and take hold of the door handle to see if the store was open, King would leap to that door, bark, snarl and snap, giving notice that no one would pass him at that point. It is reported that one night some robbers must have tried one or possibly several doors, for when the owner opened the door the next morning, he was faced with a condition that testified to the protective activities during the night. Apparently, King had jumped from one end of the store to the other, from one door to another, paying no attention to what stood in his way, not even to egg cases filled with fragile eggs. It looked as if a cyclone had gone through the store. King was still in a state of excitement, but the doors were still locked… no robbers had dared enter the store.”

This 1890 stone building, the Christian Bunge, Jr. Store, is on the National Registry of Historic Places and is a museum operated by the Houston County Historical Society. It was built by hand two stories high with rock quarried in the Eitzen area. It replaced another store building, which also housed the first post office in Eitzen and was also owned by Christian Bunge, Jr.  When he was appointed postmaster in 1869, the new post office had to be named.  He and his father decided on “Eitzen,” named after their old home, Eitzen II in Germany. There is no other town in the nation with the same name.

Transportation of goods to the store was a staggering undertaking. It is not known the source of goods when the business was first established in 1866.  But after the railroad was built on the west side of the Mississippi River, the closest source for merchandise was 10 miles away in New Albin, Iowa. Bunge horses and wagons made one and at times, several trips a week to and from New Albin over primitive and often neglected roads. In many places, the route was a path through the woods scarcely wide enough for a wagon to pass. That terrain has always been challenging, up and down until a sudden drop down Poole’s Hill with a long, steep grade into the valley and on to New Albin. Three or four 50-gallon containers of kerosene had to be hauled up Poole’s Hill and then over clay roads to Eitzen. During the spring thaw, teams of four or six horses would labor to keep wagons from “sinking out of sight” during the 20-mile round trip.

This labor-intensive transportation lasted for about 70 years until better roads and trucks removed “much of the drudgery… It was in the interest of the railroad that roads in general be neglected.” There was no public road program in this area until the era of automobile in the early 1900s.

Source: “The Bunge Story,” by Rev. Walter M. Bunge (1958), expanded by Anne Griffith (1981), updated by Ida M. Bunge (2000)