Part one of a two-part series
Tourists arrived for a day or for a vacation from not only nearby towns and Winona but also from Austin and even Chicago. They came first by horse and buggy and later on passenger excursion railroad cars as well as on steamboats and ferries from La Crosse. The destination was the tourist town of Hokah, Houston County, Minnesota. The turn-of-the-century (c1900) attraction was beautiful, mile-long Lake Como, which was described in 1883 as being a “lovely sheet of water of irregular outline, which hugged the southern edge of the village.”
It became a popular recreation destination in the 1890s after Prosper Steves, a La Crosse man, moved into a lakeside cottage and developed the resort. He built several rustic cottages as well as a pavilion on a peninsula into the lake, established a swimming beach, provided fishing tackle and passenger boats. There were rowboats, canoes and a flat boat with wide side wheels which could be turned by hand. There was boating, fishing, tennis and picnicking. A bath house was constructed near the dam with ladies swimming free in the morning and gentlemen in the afternoon. The pavilion was the site of dancing, roller skating and other entertainment.
Roads were poor, sometimes impassable, but trains were reliable. The local newspaper told of a thousand people on the village streets on Sunday afternoons.
Hokah became a stop on the revival circuit with many well-known “greats of religion-for-the masses” setting up shop around the lake. More than a thousand camped out when evangelist Sam Jones conducted revival meetings.
Ice skating was the winter attraction, and many businesses had their own ice houses where ice was cut for use the following summer. There were tragedies. While hauling ice, teams of horses could be lost when ice broke beneath them.
There were numerous drownings. In August 1893, the Hokah Sun reported the capsizing of a rowboat, resulting in a drowning. Young residents of Winona were headed homeward following a three-week campout on Pendergast’s picnic grounds. One of two little boys tired while rowing and while changing seats, stepped on the side of the craft, sending all four passengers into the water. One non-swimmer, driving his wagon across the nearby bridge, and a young boater were able to rescue two victims, one unconscious. Another boy made it to shore on his own. Three volunteer divers were unable to reach bottom in the cold water, but grapples retrieved the body of Miss Minnie McCarl.
The lake was created a half-century before its heyday. Niagara Falls, Canada native, 23-year-old, Edward Thompson selected a mill site in 1851 and built his dam, in 1852, near the mouth of his namesake creek, Thompson Creek. The dam created a waterfall 36 feet high, later reduced to 26 feet.
A half-century later, about age 75, in a 1902 edition of the Hokah Chief, Thompson reminisced, “I had a great deal of trouble with my dam, it going out once before I got my mill started, and once after, when I sold it to my brother Clark W. Thompson, who put up the old flour mill.” After a spring flood, Clark built a new dam in 1858. As early as 1859, a bath house was built near the falls.
In 1872, heavy spring rains threatened the dam, but it was saved by residents and railroad workers, who awakened at 4 a.m., labored with pails for hours, carrying dirt from the hillside to keep the bank of the dam above water. Surviving that scare, the 1858 dam would endure 51 years – until the fateful early Saturday morning of August 14, 1909.
As described by the Hokah Chief, “Shortly before four o’clock, our people were aroused by the cry that the lake was in danger. The Misses Nelly and Margie Kelly ran up the street spreading the alarm. A crowd of men were soon on the spot and work was commenced on the west side of the falls, where a high bank was placed. Nothing could be done on the east side of the falls, and here the break occurred. The water rushed over with such a terrible force, carrying everything before it.”
At age 89, Gertrude Kellogg told a reporter about that morning when at age 19, she was awakened by the Hokah fire alarm. She was certainly startled but not completely surprised by the blaring of the fire alarm. City residents were all aware that beautiful Lake Como was in danger after three days of heavy rain. It continued throughout that Friday night.
Awakened by the alarm, Gertrude recalled running to the lake in her nightgown, “When they rang the fire bell, I got out of bed and ran to the lake. I was standing on top of a hill when I saw the dam go out. It took half of the front of the Weber house and the whole barn with the horses still standing in it.” Onlooking citizens cheered when the horses swam to a safe location.
Officially in La Crosse, 3.85 inches of rain poured down, but using a large bucket, Hokah resident Charles Bladl measured over six inches of rain. Before the alarm sounded, water pouring in from the valleys to the west and south had raised the level of Lake Como six and one-half feet.
When the damn broke, the water swept away everything, including large trees from the side of Mount Tom as well as an old shed and warehouse below the mill. Bridges were either washed away or sustained severe damage. The Thompson Creek bridge fell. The upper lake bridge was washed down to ram into the south end of the lower lake bridge. Railroad boxcars fell when hundreds of feet of railroad bed were washed out west of the highway. In a matter of minutes, the flats below Hokah were inundated with rushing flood water. The water level in the lake had dropped 18 feet, six inches, reported Steves.
Would the dam and the lake be replaced? to be continued …
Sources: Newspapers clippings on file at the Houston County Historical Society
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