History of Olmsted County, Minnesota, Part 25

Author: Joseph A. Leonard
Publication date: 1910
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 736

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Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

A telephone was established in April, 1895, by the firm of Haines & Melone. It was of the automatic system, and started with seventy-five subscribers. It was quite a question whether it could receive sufficient support in the town to make it pay, but it proved popular, and was enlarged and improved till, in July, 1896, the Rochester Telephone Company was incorporated and changed its plant to the manual system.

It now has fourteen hundred subscribers, with the number con- stantly increasing, and is, in every way, a thorough local system, with long-distance connections.

Fred S. Haines was born in New Hampshire in 1860. He grad- uated at Harvard University in 1885, came to Rochester and en- tered the Rochester National Bank as assistant cashier. Three years later he went to the Second National Bank of Elmira, New York, where he stayed two years, and then started the State Bank of Mantorville, in this State, which he conducted three years, and returned to Rochester.

James Arthur Melone is a native of Ohio, born in 1867. He came to Rochester at the age of seventeen years, graduated at the Rochester High School, became a skilful telegrapher and learned the insurance business in the office of his uncle, David Stevenson, and after his death entered the partnership of Stevenson & Melone with Archie C. Stevenson. He was elected mayor in 1899 and served one term. Mr. Stevenson was also elected mayor in 1903. They are a firm of ex-mayors.

Dr. Wilson A. Allen was elected mayor in 1895, as a Repub- lican, and served one term. He came to Rochester in 1872, from Plainview. He was born in Indiana in 1834 and acquired his medical education and practiced there. He graduated as a home- opathist at the Hahnemann College at Chicago. He conducted the Riverside Hospital in Rochester several years, and has invented an apparatus for handling patients in bed, which has been adopted by a number of hospitals. He has a large practice and is very popu- lar. He was three years a member of the city board of education.

The Church of Peace, Lutheran, was organized March 12, 1905, with Rev. Karl Buck as pastor. In October of the same year he was succeeded by Rev. F. Appermann, who remained till May I, 1906, when Rev. H. J. Abrecht came and remained till October 1, 1906. when he was succeeded by Rev. W. H. Bunge, who is the

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present pastor. The church was incorporated in November, 1906. The services are held on Sunday mornings in German and in the evenings in English. The membership is now thirty-eight.

The church edifice is a very pretty frame structure, on Broadway, in North Rochester. It was dedicated May 12, 1907.

George W. Waldron came to Kalmar with his father, Robert Waldron, one of the early settlers, in 1856. He was born in Michi- gan in 1838. He moved to Rochester about 1885. He was a large real-estate owner in the western part of the county. He was an alderman two terms, from 1896 to 1898. He died in April, 1907.

The Christian church was established in the summer of 1896. Rev. J. A. Erwin, State evangelist for the denomination, held a series of meetings, assisted by his wife as a singer, in a tent on the lot, then vacant, now occupied by the Public Library Building, which lasted six weeks, when he formed a congregation of that faith with about a hundred members, and was their pastor about a month and a half. He is now judge of the United States district court at Porto Rico. The first settled pastor was Rev. F. E. Utter- back, who served one year, and was followed by Rev. C. M. Mc- Curdy, who stayed from January to September, 1898. Rev. Van Dolah preached at times, about a year, and Rev. Charles A. Bur- ridge was pastor from February to August, 1900. Rev. W. W. Devine came in June, 1902, and left in August, 1903. Rev. G. W. Wise stayed from September, 1903, to June, 1905; Rev. Rochester Irwin, from 1905 to 1907, and Rev. T. B. Ausmus, from March to December, 1907. Rev. C. A. Martz, who is now the pastor, came in April, 1908. The membership of the church is over four hundred.

The church edifice, a handsome and commodious brick structure, was finished and dedicated February 28, 1897.

A woolen mill was conducted several years in Chatfield by C. T. Booth, but was burned down, and, failing to obtain assistance there in rebuilding, he moved to Rochester, and a company was organ- ized here in 1897; a mill was established on the North Rochester water power, and apparently successfully conducted. At one time a hundred blankets a day were made. It was discontinued. Mr. Booth went to Georgia, and a company was formed in 1899 to manufacture clothing, under the management of H. K. Terry, from Connecticut. It also did a good business and made excellent clothing, but it was discontinued in 1903.

A company of the Salvation Army camped in Rochester in the spring of 1897. They pursued their usual tactics in parading Broadway every evening to the music of drums, horns and sing- ing, and holding meetings in their barracks. They aroused a good deal of indignation by their recklessness in scaring teams, and sev- eral serious accidents were barely avoided. Some of the "baser

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sort" of young men and boys mobbed them one evening, but no serious damage was done. They departed after several weeks' sojourn, having done some good and no real harm.

During the later part of the stay of the army, another organiza- tion, similar but different, calling themselves the Volunteers of America, came to town and stayed some weeks after the army had left. They were distinguished from their predecessors by their quiet and orderly methods, and showed equal zeal in a different way.

A company was organized in 1898 for the manufacture of fiber from the stalks of flax, but failed to pay, and was wound up. There would seem to be no better point at which to utilize the large quan- tity of flax fiber that has been allowed to go to waste, but no entirely satisfactory and profitable way of saving it has yet been devised.

Martin Heffron was elected alderman-at-large in 1898, served four years, and in 1905 was elected mayor and served two years. He is a Democrat. He was born in New York City in 1858 and came with his parents to a farm in Kalmar in 1864. He has been engaged in Rochester as a builder and contractor since 1881, and has built some of the most important buildings, among them the new Young Men's Christian Association Building, and is now building an addition to the Academy of Lourdes. He is a brother of C. H. Heffron, who was county auditor for years.

George J. Allen was city attorney two terms from 1898, and again three terms from 1902. He is a son of Samuel Allen, who was an early settler of the county. He was born in New Haven township in 1870, attended Darling's Business College, taught school, and read law in the office of C. C. Willson, where he was assistant five years, and assisted in compiling the Supreme Court Reports. He practiced a year in South Dakota, returning to Roch- ester, where he has been in practice since 1896.

William Graham was elected city justice in 1898, and served acceptably two terms. He was a native of the State of New York, born in 1848, and came to Kalmar township with his parents, Joseph Graham and wife, in 1856. He was reared a farmer and attended Spring's School in Rochester. He was a cheese and butter maker at Olmsted and Byron twelve years from 1873, and was employed by Marvin & Cammack in Rochester and by the Cres- cent Creamery Company in St. Paul as overseer of cheese factories and creameries for fifteen years. He was in the grocery business in Rochester two years, and has been business manager for Mayos, Graham & Co. since 1902.

Julius J. Reiter was elected alderman in 1898 and re-elected in 1900, serving two terms; was elected mayor in 1907, and is now in his first term. He was born in Elgin township, Wabasha county,

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in 1869, and stayed on the farm till he was seventeen years old, when he became a clerk in a store in Plainview, and was there five years. He then came to Rochester and engaged in the grocery business, later forming a partnership with his brother, Ernest H., in the firm of Reiter Brothers.

An ex-tempore Fourth of July celebration was held at Rochester in 1898. The news of the American victory at Santiago was an- nounced by telegrams received that morning, and while a crowd in the office of the Rochester Post was discussing and rejoicing over the news, Rev. Frank Doran suggested that the good news ought to be celebrated, and, though it was not Rochester's year for a Fourth of July celebration, and none had been provided for, the suggestion was taken up, and arrangements at once made for a cele- bration that evening in Central Park. There was a crowd out. There was singing by the Knights of Pythias Quartet, short speeches by J. A. Leonard, Rev. Frank Doran, W. W. Fowler, N. H. Burdick, C. M. McCurdy, F. P. Leach, L. W. Brigham, and Dr. H. H. With- erstine, and closing with a display of fireworks. It was the most unpremeditated and also the most enthusiastic of celebrations.

The first horseless carriage to appear in Rochester was a five- horsepower gasoline motor carriage owned and run by T. O. Kil- burn, of Spring Valley, which brought him and his wife here in September, 1898. It attracted great attention, but so many auto- mobiles are owned here now that they are no longer a novelty on the streets. The first perfect automobile was introduced by Dr. C. H. Mayo in January, 1900. It was a four-horsepower steam machine.

Edward F. Cook was elected city treasurer in 1899 and served eight terms of a year each. He is a native of Rochester, born in 1866. He was assistant cashier in the Rochester National Bank twenty years, resigning in 1905, and was recently city assessor. He moved, in 1908, to Spearfish, South Dakota, where he is cashier of a national bank. He is a son of Martin W. Cook, who was the pioneer dairyman and strawberry raiser of the city.

A real centenarian died in Rochester December 13, 1899. He was Michael Eichinger, born in Germany, January 1, 1799.

Dr. Charles T. Granger was elected alderman for the First ward in 1900, and in 1902 was elected alderman-at-large, and re-elected for a second term, but resigned before its expiration. He is a native of Olmsted county, having been born on the farm of his father, Abner Granger, in Cascade township, in 1870. He was educated in the schools of Rochester and the University of Iowa, and is a graduate of Hahnemann Medical College, Chicago; has been in practice at Rochester since 1892, and does a large business in the city and surrounding country. .

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Ole G. Hanson was alderman three terms, from 1901, and alder- man-at-large one term, from 1905, and is prominent in city affairs. He was born in Norway in 1856 and came to Rock Dell township when eighteen years old. He spent two years farming and then came to Rochester and attended Niles' School. He was employed thirteen years in A. T. Stebbins & Co.'s hardware establishment, and in 1878 formed a partnership with Ole Baker, in the hardware business, as the firm of Baker & Hanson, in which he is still engaged.

Mike Kitzman, Jr., was alderman two terms, from 1902. He is a son of Mike Kitzman. an early settler of Farmington township and was born there in 1868. He spent his boyhood on the farm and came to Rochester when twenty-one years old, and attended Niles' School. He was employed in the Boston Clothing House, and in 1893 engaged in the clothing business with Michael Wanke, in the firm of Wanke & Kitzman, and afterward with John Frahm, as Kitzman & Frahm. Since 1891 he has been in the business alone, as proprietor of the Model Clothing Store.

Herbert B. Riebe, a son of Robert Riebe, of Rochester, was appointed a cadet in the United States Navy, on the recommenda- tion of Representative James A. Tawney, after a competitive exam- ination, entered the academy at Annapolis in 1902, and was com- missioned an ensign in 1908. He is now on an Asiatic cruise.

Charles M. Johnson was appointed a member of the Board of education in 1904, to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of J. J. Fulkerson, and elected at two succeeding elections, and is now in his second term in that office. He was also elected alderman in 1907, and is in his first term in that office, serving his North Roch- ester constituents in two offices at the same time. He was born in Indiana in 1850, and located on a farm in Fillmore county, this State, in 1854. He moved to South Dakota in 1881 and in 1884 came to Rochester, where he was employed successively in the grain- buying establishments of Anderson Whiting, Samuel Whitten and Granville Woodworth, and after thirteen years of service with Mr. Woodworth, succeeded him on his retirement from business, and is now the manager of the Western Elevator Company, dealing in coal and grain.

The Conley Camera Company was organized in 1899, at Spring Valley, in this State, and operated there in a small way till June, 1904, when it was moved to Rochester. Kerry E. Conley is presi- dent and treasurer, and Fred V. Conley secretary. One hundred and thirty-five people were employed during the year 1907, with a pay roll of $49,500. During that year 28,000 cameras and 80,000 plate-holders were manufactured. besides other photographic ap- paratus. An Employes' Protective Association is maintained ir connection with the factory

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PRINCIPAL BUSINESS STREET, ROCHESTER

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Kerry Conley was born in Fillmore county in 1866, attended Darling's Business College in Rochester, and graduated from the Chicago Ophthalmic College; engaged in the jewelry and optical business in Spring Valley, invented a magazine photographic cam- era, and established his factory. He has recently served a term as alderman-at-large of Rochester.

In January, 1904, J. A. Leonard called the attention of the pub- lic. through the local newspapers, to the fact that the year was the semi-centennial anniversary of the founding of the city, the first settlements having been made in 1854, and suggested the celebra- tion of the event by a joint celebration of it and the Fourth of July. The suggestion was acted on later by the Commercial Club appointing a committee of which W. Logan Brackenridge was chairman, who worked enthusiastically and got up the greatest Fourth of July celebration ever held in the city. The attendance of people from all the surrounding country was immense. It was estimated that there were not less than ten thousand outsiders on the streets.

The celebration opened with a parade, headed by a band of real Indians of the Winnebago tribe, from the neighborhood of the Mississippi River; bucks, squaws and papooses, in aboriginal attire, headed by their chief. It was, in all probability, the best show of indigenous Indians that will ever be seen here. Following them was the Minneapolis Journal Newsboys' Band, then an old Concord coach, a lumbering survival of the pioneer days, drawn by six horses; Frank Lyons, deputy postmaster, on a bronco, with a mail bag. represented the overland mail carrier, followed by those latest mail conveyances-rural delivery wagons. A section of the parade was devoted to the old emigrant wagons, or prairie schooners. Mr. Charles H. Crane, himself one of the earliest pioneers, had got together this feature. The prairie schooners were reproductions, as nearly as might be, of the conveyances that brought the first families to their new homes-covered lumber wagons with varying outfits of household goods. kitchen utensils, chicken coops and other frontier necessities. William W. Williams, one of the earliest pio- neers, had one drawn by a team of horses; Ernest and William Cressy, early settlers, one drawn by a horse team; P. C. L. Reigel, one drawn by horses; J. H. Seewald, one in which he had moved from Missouri, with a mule team; C. Carney had one with a mule team; Frederick A. James, the farmer of the State Hospital, one with an ox team. The effort by Mr. Crane to get a few ox-team schooners furnished an illustration of the changes of fifty years; after diligent search he could only get that one yoke of the nimble animals so common on the streets in the earliest days. Some of the schooners had on their covers such mottoes, familiar to the old-

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timers, as "Paving the Way for Others to Follow," "Bound for the Frontier," "Minnesota or Bust."

The next section of the parade assigned to the pioneers of 1854, '55. '56 and '57 was a failure by reason of the general absence of those relics. There were a few bicycles. The usual Fourth of July features followed: a float with young ladies in white, repre- senting the States; Company F of the State militia, and the State Hospital Fire Department, commanded by General Sweeney. The Daughters of the American Revolution represented by a carriage occupied by Miss Ida Wing, a direct descendant of John Alden and Priscilla, spinning at a wheel which, with the distaff, have been in the family of which Mrs. A. F. Faitoute is a descendant for more than two hundred years.

The semi-centennial meeting was held in the Metropolitan Thea- ter in the afternoon. Mayor A. C. Stevenson presided; Miss Dollie Markham, a junior pioneer, now Mrs. Fred. Joselyn, read the Declaration of Independence; there was singing of patriotic songs by a glee club comprising J. Hamlet Easton, John Magaw, Rev. W. B. Gantz, C. F. Massey, William C. Richardson and Charles N. Ainslie. An address was delivered by J. A. Leonard, compre- hending a review of the early settlement and progress of the city. A letter from Hon. Thomas Simpson, of Winona, was read, in which he recounted his experience as a surveyor in making the gov- ernment survey of the neighborhood of Rochester, in 1854. There were on the platform Rev. William C. Rice and Rev. Ezra R. Lathrop, both Olmsted county pioneers, and both former pastors of the Methodist church of Rochester.

The committee on sports, James Kelly, Paul Hargesheimer, George Granger. Ed. H. Kalb, John W. Peck, Ellis Whiting, Thomas Armstrong and Charles H. Armstrong, had set aside the business portions of Broadway for sports and provided a full after- noon and evening programme for the amusement of the crowd and the street was a mass of ever-moving humanity. Foot races of all kinds, acrobatic performances at every corner and a deafening confusion of all sorts of Fourth of July noises made up the pro- gramme. It was certainly the noisiest celebration that ever has been or probably ever will be in the city.

The fun, or nuisance, as one chooses to consider it, of confetti throwing was indulged in for the first time here, and Broadway the next day was liberally littered with the paper pellets.

A ball game was played in the afternoon and at night Broadway was grandly illuminated by electric lights, and there was a fine display of fireworks at Swampoodle. The streets were crowded till midnight, about which time the celebration adjourned itself for fifty years.

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Richard L. Tollefson was elected an alderman in 1905 and re-elected and is now serving his second term. He was born in Wisconsin in 1861 and came with his parents to Dodge county in 1868. His father was a cabinetmaker and he learned that trade. He came to Rochester in'1882 and entered the furniture establish- ment of Peter F. Johnson, with whom he afterward went into part- nership, and in 1907 became the sole proprietor.

An extraordinary religious revival was carried on, commencing the second week in January, 1906, and continuing a month. It was conducted by Rev. William A. (better known as Billy) Sunday, a one-time Chicago baseball player, who became a Presbyterian min- ister and had a wonderful career as an evangelist, securing thou- sands of converts in the small cities in the West. The revival was planned, financed and carried on in the most systematic manner. The pastors of six churches-Revs. Curtis, Congregational; Whit- ney. Baptist; Taylor, Methodist; Wharton, Presbyterian; Ofte- dal, Lutheran, and Irwin, Christian-co-operated in all the arrange- ments and suspended the Sunday services in their churches while the revival was in progress. The money was pledged beforehand and a tabernacle, the shell of a frame building, seating two thou- sand people, was erected. Sunday came with a staff of assistants comprising his wife, F. G. Fisher, chorister, and wife: Rev. T. E. Honeywell, assistant evangelist; Miss Frances E. Miller, Bible teacher, and Fred R. Seibert, general utility man. The expenses of all were guaranteed beforehand. The meetings were held every night and most afternoons, and were immensely attended. The tabernacle was crowded and hundreds were unable to get in, at nearly every meeting. Toward the last, excursion trains were run from Plainview and Eyota. His sermons have been described by an admirer, writing a magazine sketch of him, as "shirt-sleeve ora- tory and melodramatic impersonation, the translation of the Testa- ment into drummer's slang and stump-speech harangue." His most striking originality was probably his assumed familiarity with Jesus in his prayers, talking to Him as he would to a chum. He enthused the church members, and the whole community was inter- ested, and for the month Sunday had possession of the town. Mr. Fisher organized an immense chorus from all the choirs of the town, and unusually lively singing added much to the effect.

For the first two weeks collections were taken and the cost of the tabernacle and the running expenses were paid; then there was no further demand for money till the last two days, when contribu- tions were made for Sunday, and he was given $2,200. The num- ber of converts was stated as 1,296, and the revival was followed by numerous accessions to the various churches. Sunday's depar- ture was a great ovation. A procession said to count fifteen hun-

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dred of all sorts of people, including a large contingent of school- boys, escorted him to the railroad train, singing and shouting and bidding him a hearty farewell. It is understood that he has engage- ments for such revivals at such towns as Rochester throughout the middle Western States for three years to come.

The Sunday revival was followed by a revival of interest in the Young Men's Christian Association. Such an association had been organized in 1867, with J. D. Blake as president, but had not shown much vitality. There had been some effort made, from time to time, to arouse interest sufficient to erect a building, but without success, till a few days before the close of the Sunday meetings, when a more successful effort was made. At a meeting held Feb- ruary 29, 1906, $16,000 was pledged for a building. The contri- butions ranged from $500 to $25. The $500 contributors were : Dr. Charles H. Mayo, Dr. William J. Mayo, John R. Cook. Burt W. Eaton, Frank E. Gooding, William W. Ireland, Elliot A. Knowlton and William H. Knapp. This fund was increased to $20,000, and the erection of a building, to cost $30,000, located on Zumbro street, was commenced. It is a large building of brick, with stone finishing. and the handsomest front in the city; and of three stories, including the high basement.

Congress, in 1906, voted an appropriation of $8,000 for the pur- chase of a site in Rochester for the postoffice. After the delay usual in all government business, the purchase was made from William H. Dodge and Mrs. Margaret Brackenridge of a quarter of a block well located in the business part of the city, and another appropriation of $50,000 has been made for the erection of a handsome building.

It is a fact. unusual in small cities, that the location was made without arousing opposition between different proposed locations.

Patrick J. Scanlan was appointed city attorney in 1906, has been twice reappointed, and is now holding the office. He was born in Ireland in 1869, and in 1876 came to Haverhill township, where his father, Thomas Scanlan was a farmer. He was educated in the Rochester schools, graduated in law in the Minnesota University, and was admitted to the bar in 1898. He was deputy county audi- tor six years, and has been court commissioner since 1900.

Theodore A. Schacht was elected city attorney in 1906 and re- elected in 1908 and is now serving his second term. He is a native of Olmsted county, the son of Claus Schacht, a farmer in Haver- hill township, and was born in 1876. He graduated at the Elgin High School and from the literary and law departments of Minne- sota University, and commenced the practice of law in Rochester in 1903.

The population of the city by the State census of 1905 was 7,233 and it is now (1909) believed by competent judges to be

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History of Olmsted County, Minnesota, Part 25

Author: Joseph A. Leonard Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Number of Pages: 736

Author: Joseph A. Leonard
Publication date: 1910
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 736