Horses needed rest after about 10 miles of pulling a stagecoach. In Houston County, the Lorette House was either the first or the last stop for a stream of stagecoaches traveling between La Crosse and St. Paul, following what later became County Highway 25. When white settlers arrived in the mid-1900s, a stagecoach was the only public transportation and safer than traveling alone.
Lorette House was just under 10 miles west of the Mississippi River (about eight miles west of La Crescent) and eight or more miles from a stop at Cooper’s Tavern in what became known as Ridgeway. The Lorette House Inn was also a bluff-top home on South Ridge, making it a perfect location for a stagecoach stop. In the 1850s and 1860s, when settlers moved into what had previously been Indian land in southeastern Minnesota, stagecoach lines were concerned about ambushes. Therefore, stagecoaches preferred roads on ridges where Indian attacks would be less likely than in valleys.
However, the Indians in Mound Prairie and surrounding townships were friendly and did not bother stage. Area historian Anita Lee Palmquist wrote, “My great-grandfather Hartman reported the Indians at Hokah were friendly and more honest than many of the whites. They came to beg for bacon and ham, which they loved, but they never molested the Hartman’s pigs which ran in the woods.”
Photo courtesy of the Houston County Historical Society
The old Territorial Road from La Crosse to St. Paul crossed Houston County through the towns of La Crescent and Mound Prairie. At one time, as many as three stage lines, based in La Crosse, were operating on this route. The mail-carrying coaches almost always carried passengers, too. As early as 1860, J. J. Belden was providing tri-weekly mail service between Caledonia and La Crosse.
According to the 1919 “History of Houston County,” it was a busy place when large coaches arrived, often to unload passengers at meal time. Teams of four or six horses were changed “while the loud-voiced drivers gave noisy orders, gossiped with the loungers and quarreled among themselves.”
The inn was built in Mound Prairie Township by Seth Lore, a New Jersey native, sometime in the 1850s before a post office was established at the house in 1856. Written in the old register were the names of General Sibley, Governor Ramsey, Lord Cavendish, Sir William Ashley and prominent Indian chiefs, such as Hole-in-the-Day.
It was a two-story log house, 18×20 feet, with three rooms on the ground floor, a sleeping chamber above and a cook room extension behind. The house was known for its huge fireplace which spanned one-half of the building. In 1859, a two-story, 20×30-feet addition was built. It was not unusual for 70 people and sometimes even 100 to be served dinner. The complex also included a blacksmith shop, livery barn and other buildings.
Photo courtesy of the Houston County Historical Society
The hostelry was always operated by the Lore family. Seth was the proprietor until 1861 when his daughter Anna (three married names: Price, Houghton, Carpenter) became the hostess. Seth’s son E. H. Lore was the postmaster until the following spring, when his sister Anna was appointed deputy and would manage the post office, except for one year, until it was discontinued in 1869.
The most colorful and enduring story occurred during the Civil War. Seth Lore, having helped found the town of Ironton, Ala., and his family were southern sympathizers. During the Civil War, some Union soldiers were recalled back to Minnesota during the Sioux Uprising of 1862. On their return trip back south, they stopped at the Lorette House.
Palmquist wrote, “My great grandmother, Maria Louise Corlett, was a waitress at the Lorette House and was in the kitchen when Anna Price, not wishing to face the Union soldiers herself, coached her seven-year-old son to confront the soldiers and say, “Uncle Ed is a Confederate, Grandma is a Secess (secessionist), and I’m a Copperhead.”
At that point, “one of the young soldiers jumped up, grabbed his bayonet, pinned that boy against the wall and said, “Say you’re a Yankee or I’ll run this bayonet right through you!” The boy in a tiny frightened voice said, “I’m a Yankee.” In spite of the fact his mother had not been willing to face the soldiers herself; she lambasted her son in the kitchen following the incident and called him a coward.”
A school was established on one-half acre of land donated by Anna on September 7, 1876. The Loretta Cemetery was located not far and south of the inn on land donated by the Lorette House. A Norway spruce tree has long dominated the cemetery, said to be planted there to mark the first burial, that of infant Florence Carpenter, who died during the 1876 journey of a pioneer family. It was a common way for grieving parents to mark the spot before continuing on.
The cemetery is where some of the Lore family were interred, including Anna and her brother Ed. Palmquist, after researching cemetery records, believed it to be the only cemetery in Houston County whose deed specified that there could be no burials of Negroes.
Stagecoaches thrived in Minnesota for about three decades (1849-1879) before being replaced by railroads. An 1871 letter from Anna back to New Jersey included, “A few years ago, before railroads were in vogue, we kept a western tavern and farm combined. Since the improvements of railroads, our travel has died away and I am obliged to depend more on farming than on traveling… My means are all in my farm… I have become so completely satisfied or attached to my western home. I believe nothing would induce me to settle South or East.”
At some point, the spelling “Lorette” became “Loretta.” Possibly, the pronunciation changed as well. Currently displayed at the Houston County Historical Society Museum, the sign that hung above the entrance door, reads “Lorette House” and is the only part of the inn known to survive. A farm sits on the site of the inn, just north of the cemetery (at a T-intersection).
Sources: 1882 “History of Houston County,” 1919 “History of Houston County,” published writings of Anita Lee Palmquist and 2005 Houston County News articles “Log home a stop on territorial road” by Donna Huegel and “A long day to reach South Ridge” by Tom van der Linden.