The Norseland Lutheran Church Cemetery. "In 1870 Christian Monson Ostad donated a plot of ground for a cemetery which is still in use by the congregation...Since that time those who have laid down their labors have been laid to rest there, and their graves are for the most part marked with fitting monuments. Some land has been added to the cemetery since. Here lie buried Rev. and Mrs. Thomas Johnson and Rev. O. M. Gullerud, and many of the patriarchs whose memories live on in the deeds they accomplished." 100th Anniversary, Norseland Lutheran Church, p. 8, 23

The Wind-Mill in Lake Prairie Township Burns. "In January, 1870...[the wind-mill in Lake Prairie township] was burned under singular circumstances. The wind was very high and the miller in charge found it necessary to apply a brake with considerable force to slacken the speed of the machinery, and the friction thus generated caused the fire which destroyed the entire milling plant. A rope which was attached to the lower part of the machinery was soon burned off, when there was no means of retarding the motion of the mill and the mill was soon in flames. Over fifteen hundred bushels of grain was in the mill at the time and all was consumed. The property was insured for four thousand dollars." History of Nicollet and Le Sueur Counties, Their People, Industries and Institutions, Vol. I, pp. 164-65

1,092 Miles of Minnesota Railroads. "In 1862 Minnesota had ten miles of railroad. By 1870 there were 1,092 miles constructed." Railroads in Minnesota, Roots, Winter 1975-76, p. 10

"To one looking back... on the events of the six-year period beginning with 1870, none are more conspicuous than the rapid extension of railroads in the first three years and the economic and social consequences, direct and indirect thereof." A History of Minnesota, Vol. III, p. 60

Northern Pacific Railroad Completes Road Between Duluth and St. Paul. "By the end of 1870 track had been laid between Duluth and St. Paul. According to one traveler, The railroad right of was was cleared 50 feet wide. It was a straight hole through the woods., which seemed too narrow for a train to come through in the distance. The trip now took a single day instead of a bone-crunching week by stagecoach. At the same time the track of the Northern Pacific was stretching westward from Duluth." The Story of Minnesota's Past, p. 137

"The completion of the road from St. Paul to Duluth in 1870 brought the former city almost as near to the Atlantic seaboard as Chicago and gave to Minnesota grain and timber and to eastern coal and merchandise a continuous waterway between The Head of the Lake and New York City." A History of Minnesota, Vol. III, p. 60

James J. Hill Visits the Red River Valley. "Early in [1870]...a quieter and far more important invasion of the Red River country had taken place. It was conducted alone by a young St. Paul forwarding agent and commission merchant named James J. Hill. After Kittson had returned to the Red River Valley in the mid-1860s to enter the steamboat busines with the Hudson's Bay Company, Hill had become his St. Paul agent in the shipping of goods and furs. Along with Kittson's business, the Canadian-born Hill also acquired the accounts of numerous other independent traders in the Red River Settlement, and by 1870 he was handling furs worth upward of $100,000 annually.

"The trip Hill made to the Red River Valley in March, 1870, was undertaken partly as a service to the Canadian government and partly to satisfy his own curiosity about the country. He traveled by stages as far as Georgetown and the rest of the way by dogsled, following the Red River and crossing it several times. In spite of the hardships he suffered from wintry weather and a faithless guide, he became convinced that the valley had a great future. Along the trail, moreover, he encountered Donald A. Smith, who held the position formerly filled by Simpson as head of the Hudson's Bay Company operations in North America. The two men talked at length, strengthening a casual acquaintance they had slready made in St. Paul.

"That summer Hill built flatboats to take goods down the Red River and organized a company to carry on a merchandising and transportation businesses." The Red River Trails, p. 25-25

1871

Clara Larsdatter Gives Birth to Anna Christina. The Tenth U. S. Census indicates that Clara Larsdatter Renne gave birth in 1871, to her second child -- Anna Christina -- her first daughter, in Lake Prairie Township, Nicollet County, Minnesota. Clara turned 24 on August 12, that year.

First Division Company. "... with all the land grant railroads the congressional and state land grants were the grand prizes and... the favored corporations were willing to pay or promise any rate of interest on borrowed capital to gain early possession of them. Railroad building was a secondary interest. To secure the advantage of the continuing power of the First Division Company to borrow, the primary corporation executed on April 1, 1871, a lease for ninety-nine years to the First Division of all its properties, actual and prospective. This party of the second part undertook to raise a loan of fifteen million dollars and with the proceeds to build and equip the remaining portions of the system. In anticipation of this scheme the passage of an act of Congress had been secured authorizing a change in the location of the principal line. In place of the original route up the Mississippi to Crow Wing and thence northwestward to St. Vincent at the crossing of the Canadian boundary and the Red River of the North, the new line departed from the river at St. Cloud and ran west and northwest by the way of Alexandria, Fergus Falls, and Crookston to the same destination. Provision was made that there should be no material change in the aggregate land grant. The First Division Company accordingly undertook (1) to build and equip this line, about three hundred miles long, and (2) to complete an unfinished line from St. Cloud to Brainard a few miles beyond Crow Wing, some sixty miles in length. These lines were called the St. Vincent and the Brainard extensions, respectively, in the abundant literature of the time." A History of Minnesota, Vol III, pp. 443-444

Northern Pacific Railroad Reaches the Red River. "In 1871..[the Northern Pacific] reached the Red River." The Story of Minnesota's Past, p. 137

"All across western Minnesota, towns like Hawley, started by railroads, had grown into busy communities. Other, planned in the same way, never made it. Some villages faded away when the iron rails bypassed them. The settlement of Crow Wing was an example. In the 1860s it was a busy trading center on the Mississippi at the mouth of the Crow Wing River. It had houses, hotels, and stores. White settlers and Indian people came there to buy and sell goods. Long line of Red River carts passed through each summer. A stagecoach carried passengers and mail to and from St. Paul. Then in 1870 the Northern Pacific Railroad built its track across the Mississippi about ten miles above Crow Wing. Ther the company founded Brainard. Buildings and businesses were moved to the new place. Within a few years Crow Wing was a ghost town." The Story of Minnesota's Past, p. 135

St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Pushes to Breckenridge. "In the year 1871 the main line of the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, now the Great Northern, was pushed to Breckenridge on the Red River of the North. and the River Division of the Milwaukee and St. Paul, following the west bank of the Mississippi except between St. Paul and Hastings, was built to Winona, whence a prolongation financed by the same company and completed in 1872 extended further down the river to La Crescent. At Hastings the first iron railroad bridge in Minnesota, completed in 1871, carried the track across the Mississippi. In the same year the Northern Pacific, which had been surveyed the previous summer, was built from Duluth to Moorhead on the Red River of the North." A History of Minnesota, Vol. III, p. 61

"When the main line from St. Anthony to Breckenridge, 207 miles, was completed in 1871, four batches of mortgage bonds aggregating $13,500,000, over $65,00 to the mile, had been marketed for the construction and equipment of that line." A History of Minnesota, Vol III, p. 442

Hill and Griggs Construct a Steamboat for Red River Service. "During the winter of 1870-71 the new firm of Hill and Griggs constructed a steamboat for service on the Red River, and Hill succeeded in persuading the United State Treasury Department that his was the only bona fide American company legally qualified to carry goods in bond across the border. The new steamer, christened the Selkirk, made its first trip in April, 1871. By June the Hudson's Bay Company had hastily withdrawn from the steamboat business, turning the International over to Kittson." The Red River Trails, p. 26

Settlement of the Future Polk County Area Begins. "The year of 1871 was the beginning of permanent settlement. In that year came from southeastern Minnesota some Norwegian families who settled along the Red River and near it, in what are now the towns of Hubbard, Vineland, Tynsid and Bygland. Farther north at and near the place where the Red Lake river joins the Red and along the Marais, at this time also came a considerable number of Scotch and Canadian people, who had been attracted by accounts of the lower part of the valley in the Dominion of Canada, but finding the desirable lands there already taken or reserved returned to this place , one of the garden spots of the Northwest, to make homes for themselves and their families. A line of boats had been established by Norman Kitson plying the waters of the river between Moorehead and Winnipeg and upon them most of these settlers reached their new homes." History of Red River Valley, p. 863

1872

A Pipe Organ for the Norseland Lutheran Church. "It was in 1872, that an event of importance took place when a gifted immigrant from Norway by the name of Anvers Baachen (Molstad) built by hand at the Ole Rindahl farm where he was staying and with the latter's assistance, a real pipe organ for the church. After many months of diligent work the instrument was ready for the church, and in 1872 a balcony was built to house the instrument, Ole Rindahl doing the building. The committee in charge included Torger Knudsen, Ole Haugen and Ole Rindahl. This was undoubtedly one of the first pipe organs in Minnesota and it was a splendid instrument, the pride of the congregation. It was the first instrument used to play the accompaniments for the church music, with its builder at the keys for a period of about two years, and it marked a new epoch in the development of church music." 100th Anniversary, Norseland Lutheran Church, p. 8

The Southern Minnesota and the Winona and St. Peter Railroads. "...the Southern Minnesota was extended to the Blue Earth, at Winnebago, and the Winona and St. Peter was prolonged to the Minnesota River and, the following year on to the Dakota line. At the close of the season of 1872 Minnesota had 1,906 miles of completed railroads, of which seventy per cent had been built in four years."

The First Division Company. "The First Division Company had already arranged for the negotiation of the extension bonds with the firm of Lippmann, Rosenthal, and Company of Amsterdam, which was ready to furnish the money upon delivery of the documents duly executed... the First Division Company delayed such delivery from April to October and by that time market conditions had so changed that only 10,700 bonds were sold, at a discount of over twenty-five per cent. The proceeeds amounted to about eight million dollars and the Amsterdam firm advanced nine hundred thousand dollars on the 4,270 bonds left on its hands." A History of Minnesota, Vol III, p. 444

"With this cash on hand the First Division directorate made contracts with William G. Moorhead of the firm Jay Cooke and Company, who sublet to De Graff and Company, experienced railroad builders, for the construction of the tracks of both extension lines. Iron was bought and ties, bridge material, spikes, and other supplies were contracted for, to be delivered along the right of way. The summer of 1872 was one of great activity. Cheering reports came in of work begun and progressing and all Minnesota looked for the completion of the line to St. Vincent before snowfall. The contractors' monthly estimates were paid until the end of June but there was no cash on hand to meet the July payment; encouraged by promises, the contractors kept at work, however, until October, when notice was give them to suspend work. They then discharged their crews and housed their tools and implements. Not the least humiliating fact was that the company owed the contractors more than half a million dollars.

"All Minnesota was, of course, curious to learn what there might be to show for the nine millions of money which had come and gone. A tardy inventory showed 143-1/2 miles of rails laid on completed track: 4-1/2 miles on the Brainard extension, and on the St. Vincent extension 139 miles in two detached portions -- 35 ìmiles from St. Cloud to Melrose in Stearns County and 104 miles from a point 12 miles south to Glyndon in Clay County, where the village of Barnesville later grew up, to another point 92 miles north of Glyndon. Three-fourths of the remaining mileage had been graded and made ready for ties. The detached fractions of road built were useless, because they were unimproved with rolling stock. There was general disappointment and disgust. As Governor Austin stated in one of his messages, the proceeds of the fifteen-million-dollar loan, some nine million dollars, if honestly and judiciously applied should have completed and equipped both extensions." A History of Minnesota, Vol. III, p. 444-445

Glyndon to Snake River Railroad Line. "The railroad line survey in 1871 was constructed from Glyndon to Snake River in 1872 and while it was building, Crookston was a collection of busy houses located in the woods along the railroad line, and hope was high that good times were in the near future. But their prosperity was delayed by the financial crisis of 1973." History of Red River Valley, p. 864

Settlers to the Crookston Area. "The next body of settlers came in the spring of 1872, to and around the place where the city of Crookston now stands with the survey and building of the St. Vincent extension of the St. Paul and Pacific Railway from Glyndon on the Northern Pacific Railroad to the Snake river where is now the city of Warren. It was quite evident that a city would arise where the railroad crossed the Red Lake river, and when the line was located at the present crossing the engineers who had the first knowledge where it would be, made pre-emption filings upon most of the lands about it. As they made but slight improvement or residence their claims were for the most part contested and canceled." History of Red River Valley, p. 863

The Crookston Postoffice. "Crookston, so named in honor of Colonel William Crooks, of St. Paul, chief engineer in locating the railway line fromGlyndon to St. Vincent, was first given to the postoffice..." History of Red River Valley, p. 868

"Edmund M. Walsh was postmaster at Crookston from 1872 when the office was established until 1884...He tells this of Crookston's early history: After railroad building ceased in 1872, ocassionally an engine and car were run up. The mode of transportation was by boat, but the railroad company had left two pairs of railroad trucks and the people here built a platform on them and attaching sails used them in making trips down to Glyndon, bringing back supplies. There were about twenty tar shanties in the hamlet from 1872 to 1875. The U. S. Mail was brought from Grand Forks by whoever happened to be there at the time. It came in about once a week but sometimes only once a month, until 1875...In 1872 there were a couple of saloons and Bill Stuart kept a boarding house, E. C. Davis kept a supply store in a tar shanty. Bruns and Finkle who owned a large store at Moorehead came and erected a frame store and put in William M. Ross as manager. Ross and Walsh bought out this store in the spring of 1874. Population in 1872 was about fifty people after the railroad ceased operations. In 1872 Lariviere had an Indian trading store and traded with the Indians but was closed up by the United States officers for selling liquor to them. The majority of the population at that time were French, some Americans and some Scandinavians."History of Red River Valley, pp. 864-66

Red River Transportation Comapny. "After a single season of competition, Kittson and Hill joined forces in organizing the Red River Transportation Company to monopolize steamboat service on the river and charge what the traffic would bear. Their timing was precise, for in that year steel rails crossed the Red River and freight rolled along them to the steamboat landings. With no more fanfare than the whistle of the first locomotive, a way of life for the metis and a chapter in history ended. When the cart trains vanished, so, in large measure, did the Red River trails. In a few places they continued to carry local traffic, but for the most part they became choked with weeds or were swallowed by plowed fields." The Red River Trails, p. 26

"...from the year 1872 when the steamers Selkerk [sic] and International the largest vessels that have ever navigated the Red River came up to Crookston and discharged their cargoes there...the boats of the Kittson line steamed up to the Crookston landing on the right bank of Red Lake river close to where now stands the passenger depot of the Great Northern Railroad Company." History of Red River Valley, p. 864

Limited Number of Chippewa Reach the White Earth Indian Reservation. "A limited number [of Chippewa] reached White Earth the year after the treaty was made and additional numbers dribbled in from time to time. In 1872 Agent Edward P. Smith reported the average population at 550. In that year an agency was established at White Earth which became the center of government operations." A History of Minnesota, Vol.IV, p. 196

1873

Financial Crisis of 1873. "The year 1873 was marked by certain disastrous visitations and by a turn in the tide of abundant prosperity, which had been enjoyed since the close of the war. On January 7, a snowstorm struck the western border of Minnesota and swept over the southern half of the state in the course of the following night. This was a true blizzard, a word connoting a heavy fall of dry snow minutely granular -- as fine as flour -- driven by a furious wind and fitting the whole atmosphere so completely as to cause absolute darkness. The cold was not excessive, the temperature al St. Paul being but fourteen degrees below the Fahrenheit zero. It was twenty degrees below in Chicago. The weather had been so fine that many people had ventured far from home to trade in the towns, to haul wood, to go to mill, or to pay visits. On their return they were overtaken. In the darkness they wandered from the roads and, ignorant of the devices of protection known to voyagers, many perished in the fierce blasts which swept the prairie. According to early rumors eight hundred so lost their lives, but when the state statistician came to sift the testimony he could not find that more than seventy had perished. Many more of course were frostbitten and maimed. The legislature of 1873 at the Instance of Governor Austin made an appropriation of five thousand dollars for relief of the sufferers. The sum of $3,385 was distributed to ninety four persons in the thirty-four counties, an average of $36 per person. About the middle of June came the first of the grasshopper invasions...and finally, on September 18, 1873, the collapse of the banking house of Jay Cooke and Company. of national reputation and affiliations, precipitated a stricture and panic throughout the whole country. The depression resulting from the panic was less ruinous to the people of Minnesota, busy with opening and gathering harvests, than to those of older states. Still, prices for their produce were low in the sluggish markets and the cost of handling and transportation were high, so that they felt themselves poorer than they really were. Railroad building in the state had ceased and several years passed before it was resumed and industry was revived to its usual proportions."

Railroad Bankruptcies. "On May 1 and June 1, 1873, the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company defaulted on the payments of interest due on four different issues of bonds antedating the lease of 1871 and amounting to thirteen million dollars." A History of Minnesota, Vol. III, p. 446

"The panic and depression of 1873 brought railroad expansion to a sudden halt and forced both the Northern Pacific and the St. Paul and Pacific into bankruptcy." The Red River Trails, p. 26

"A tardy inventory showed 1431/2 miles of rail laid on completed track: 41/2 miles on the Brainard extension and on the St. Vincent extension 139 miles in two detached portions - 35 from St. Cloud to Melrose...and 104 miles from a point 12 miles south of Glyndon...to another point 92 miles north of Glyndon. Three fourths of the remaining milage had been graded and made ready for ties." A History of Minnesota, Vol. III, pp. 444, 445

Glyndon to Snake River Railroad Line. "By the middle of November [1873, Jesse P.] Farley had put 104 miles of the St. Vincent extension in the Red River Valley into such condition that an engine and a train of cars were occasionally run from Glyndon to Crookston." A History of Minnesota, Vol. III, p. 447

Clay County Created. "The first order of business of the Clay County Board of Commissioners after their organization on January 31, 1873, was to authorize the creation of school districts. On February 13, 1873, because of the leadership of L.H. Tenney, the Glyndon school district became number 1 in Clay County, with Moorehead number 2, and Woodlawn (now Parke) number 3. By April of that year the Moorhead school district was functioning and one of its first duties was the floating of a bond issue and the levying of a tax of eight mills to cover the twelve percent interest on the bonds. School opened on June 1, 1873, and ran for five months with Mary Farmer as the first teacher and with five students enrolled. Five additional school districts were organized in Clay County in 1873, but plans were also laid for seventy-four districts to be created as needed." The Challenge of the Prairie, p. 296

Polk County Declared Legally Organized. "By act of the legislature approved March 3rd, 1873, Polk county was declared to be a legally organized county, and some previous unauthorized proceedings were legalized." , p. 866

Clara Larsdatter Renne Gives Birth to Ellen in Lake Prairie. The Tenth U. S. Census indicates that Clara Larsdatter Renne gave birth in 1873, to her third child -- Ellen -- her second daughter, in Lake Prairie Township, Nicollet County, Minnesota. Clara turned 26 on August 12, that year.

1874

Ole Pedersen Renne - Norseland Lutheran Church Synod Representative. "Representatives to the synod meeting in 1874 were Ole P. Ronne [sic] and Ole Knudsen Gjelaker...[and] It was in 1874 that the first choir was organized with Prof. Jens Eilertsen, parochial school teacher, as director. The church has had a fine choir since that time...Among these singers [was] Luella Rindahl" 100th Anniversary, Norseland Lutheran Church, pp 7, 8, 24

Red River Valley River Transportation. "...River transportation was a short-lived business but its impact was great. Moorehead and Fisher's Landing were two important river points. Fisher's Landing on Red Lake River, a rail head for the line reaching north from Glyndon, boomed for about four years in the 1870's." The Challenge of the Prairie, p. 7

Moorehead Booms Because of River Traffic. "Moorehead, situated on the Red River...boomed because of the river traffic. At least seven steamers and twenty barges were based at Moorehead in 1874. The smallest was 75 tons and the largest 175 tons. In that season twelve thousand sacks of flour alone were shipped to Fort Gary and more than ten thousand tons of goods were shipped in total." The Challenge of the Prairie, p. 8

The First School Teacher in Polk County. "The teacher hired to conduct the first school in Polk County in 1874 at Fisher's Landing was paid only $10 a month which was raised by donation, but was given free room and board. Even though the expenses were high and the pay low and most teachers had to walk a long distance to the school, which usually stood alone on the prairie, teachers were not difficult to obtain." The Challenge of the Prairie, p. 299

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