History of Otter Tail County, Minnesota: Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I, Part 47

Author: John W. Mason
Publication date: 1916
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 765

USA > Minnesota > Otter Tail County > History of Otter Tail County, Minnesota: Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 47

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).

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whose founders believed he was best educated who had the largest stock of facts at command. Today the majority of school patrons think of school as the place to acquire facts from books. It is hoped the children will be able to apply some of those facts, if not now, at least in their future. Many cannot see the immediate relation between the school and the every- day home life.

The other reason is the one so often given by unthinking people : "What was good enough for me is good enough for my children." This argument is usually offered by those who have accepted and made use of all modern machinery in their farming. That fact is answer enough in itself, but this attitude, so Chinese, is preventing our rural schools from taking their proper places as factors in the present-day advancement.

Since about 1907 the work has consciously been directed toward mod- ernizing the schools and making them a distinct help in the vocational life of the patrons. We hope we are keeping the essential things that the past has given us and at the same time directing the school so it will deal with the essential things of the present. There is no excuse for the rural schools lagging behind in the progress of a people.

How shall the schools be vitalized? None of us know yet. We only know that the schools have not given us all we need in the life of today; we believe they are capable of greater usefulness. So we are trying, experi- menting, studying. It is a great transition period and much that we try now will doubtlessly be found insufficient and have to be modified or discarded by the next generation. But out of it all we believe a school will arise that will teach the essential things of rural life not taught generally in the home. as well as the essentials of arithmetic, grammar, geography and other subjects of the curriculum.

What are the essential things of rural life? They are home knowledge and farm knowledge. One-half of our people are home-makers; about one- fourth are farmers. Along these lines our rural schools must strive if they meet modern conditions. This work has been begun along the following lines: Teaching of sewing, teaching use of tools, teaching of agriculture, teaching of thrift through a county-wide savings system, parent-teachers' associations, boys' and girls' clubs, industrial contest work through local and county fairs, hot lunches for the rural schools, seed testing and seed selections, and consolidation of schools.

The success of this work is due entirely to those teachers who have seen the vision of what a country school may be and have entered heart and soul upon the work of making the vision a reality. I honor those above all other people and gladly pay them this tribute of respect for the noble work they are doing.

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SCHOOL HOUSE, DISTRICT NO. 214.

SCHOOL HOUSE, DISTRICT NO. 96.

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The county must acknowledge a debt of gratitude to the public high schools and graded schools and to the parochial schools that have given our young people advanced training.

Otter Tail county now has three high schools, six graded schools, two consolidated schools (one high school, one graded school), two hundred and sixty-seven rural schools, twelve thousand eight children attending public schools, four hundred and seventeen public school teachers and two hundred and eighty public school libraries. It paid out for its public schools in 1914-15 the sum of $349,115.42. Of this amount $171,671.1I was for teachers' salaries, $2,708.27 for library books, $6,453.61 for text books and $100.20 for transportation of pupils. The average daily attendance for each pupil was 114.45 days. The average monthly wages of men was $78.58; for women, $53.15. The average monthly wages in rural schools only : Men, $60.79; women, $50.56. The amount received from apportion- ment was $65,066.40. The special state aid ( 1913-1914) amounted to $43,133.90.

COUNTY SUPERINTENDENTS.

William M. Corliss, March 20, 1869, to November 18, 1871, died; Eben E. Corliss. November 18, 1871, to January 24, 1872; Newton H. Chittenden, January 24, 1872, to January 6, 1874, resigned; Lorenzo H. Preston, January 6, 1874. to April 6, 1876; George F. Cowing, April 6, 1876, to January 7, 1889; H. A. Bickford, January 7, 1889, to January 5, 1891; Caroline S. Nygren, January 5, 1891, to August 31, 1895, resigned; Otto M. Haugan, August 31, 1895, to June 1, 1898, resigned; Elma C. Hixson, June 1, 1898. to November 17, 1898; Andrew E. Fritz, November 17, 1898. to January 7, 1901 ; Christine C. Goetzinger, January 7, 1901. to January 7, 1907; Charlotte M. Knudson, January 7, 1907, to September 1, 1912, resigned; Signe Svendsgaard, September 1, 1912. to January 6, 1913; Lafayette R. Adley, January 6, 1913.

ASSISTANT COUNTY SUPERINTENDENTS.

H. A. Bickford, spring, 1885, to January 7, 1889; P. A. Williams, January 7, 1889, to January 5, 1891; J. F. Record, January 5, 1891, to August 1, 1892, resigned; H. B. Pardee, August 1, 1892, to August 1, 1893; W. B. Stewart, August 1, 1893, to September 1. 1896, resigned; George F. Cowing, September 1, 1896, to December 31, 1896; Andrew E. Fritz, Jan- uary 10, 1897, to July 1, 1898; B. C. Mahoney, July 1, 1898, to January I, 1899; U. S. G. Henry, January 1. 1899, to January 1, 1901 ; G. E. Parkhill, January 7, 1901, to October 1, 1903; W. R. Parkhill, October 1, 1902, to August 1, 1904; G. E. Parkhill, August 1, 1904, to June, 1906, resigned; J. L. Henn, June, 1906, to January 7. 1907; L. R. Adley, January 7, 1907, (28)

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to September 1, 1912, resigned; D. G. Kelly, September 1, 1907, to January 6, 1913; Antoinette Henderson, January 6, 1913.

SECOND ASSISTANTS.

Mildred Surratt, January 1, 1912, to May 22, 1914, resigned; Hulda Swanson, May 23, 1914.

SCHOOLS OF FERGUS FALLS.

The first definite appearance of Fergus Falls as a separate school dis- trict was in 1872, at which time it was voted to make it a separate district for school purposes. The village had been incorporated in February of that year and the school district followed the corporation lines as defined in the acts of the Legislature. On May 24, 1872, an election was held to select school officers, and John W. Mason was elected clerk of the district, the twenty-first district to be organized in the county. The first school house in the village stood on west Lincoln avenue. As near as can be ascertained the first teacher was the Rev. E. Grussendorf, who came to the site of the village in 1869 with Ernest Buse, his brother-in-law. The attendance of the schools of the city have grown from the paltry dozen in 1871 to 1,501 in 1915. The schools have grown from year to year and shown the same progress along all lines that has marked the growth of the city along other lines. The citizens have been ready to furnish the school board with the needed funds to increase the equipment necessary for taking care of the increased enrollment.

The pride of the city now lies in its high school. In 1908 a manual training department was added to the high school and upper grades. This department is now equipped with electric motors and with all the necessary tools and appliances for doing high-grade work. While it is true that the manual training department is for the use of the boys, there are a few girls who are taking the work. But the school board has added a department of domestic science for the girls and this has become one of the most valuable features of the high school course. Cooking and sewing and various other domestic subjects are taught ,and if the girls of Fergus Falls in the future do not know how to bake a biscuit or cut out an apron it will not be the fault of the public schools. In 1910 a department of agriculture was added to the curriculum and this has proved to be a valuable adjunct. Cow testing is taught in the department, seed testing is given practical demonstration and many other phases of farm life are taught the boys by scientifically trained teachers. A fourth department which has been added in addition to the regular course. is the normal department. Students who take this in addition to the regular high school course. are entitled to a second-grade

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certificate as a teacher. This certificate may be exchanged for a first-grade certificate after three months of actual teaching.

The present high school building dates from 1905. In 1914 an addi- tion was added which practically doubled the size of the building. The total cost of the building is one hundred and ten thousand dollars. The city has four ward buildings.

There are now twenty-two teachers in the high school and twenty-four in the grades. The enrollment in both high school and grades for the cur- rent year is just about fifteen hundred. A large number from the surround- ing territory are students in the high school. The state gives special funds to certain high schools, and Fergus Falls is a recipient this year (1915-16) of the regular one thousand eight hundred dollars granted to the accredited high schools, as well as a fun of one thousand two hundred dollars for the normal department. The regular state apportionment for the current year is nine thousand dollars.

PARK REGION LUTHER COLLEGE.

Park Region Luther College was established as a corporate body in the spring of 1892. In the fall of the same year it commenced its mission as an academy, and continued as such until in 1909, when a full college course was added.

Like a number of other schools of this kind it owes its origin to an urgent demand on the part of the Norwegian church people for educational advantages conforming to their peculiar needs and educational ideals. The purpose of those who lent their efforts and contributed of their means towards the establishment and maintenance of this institution was to secure for their own children and insure to posterity such educational opportunities as they considered most desirable. They recognized the development of Christian character as the fundamental aim in education and accepted the further truth that only under the guidance and in the light of the word of God may we hope to realize this. In accordance with these ideals entertained by the founders of the school, Park Region Luther College has sought to extend its influence and to enlarge its sphere of usefulness.

While this school has always been accepted as one of the institutions of the synod, it has maintained a separate corporate organization and it did not until in 1909 receive any financial aid from the treasury of the general church body. At a delegate meeting of the Minnesota district of the synod held that year at Glenwood it was decided that two thousand five hundred dollars annually be appropriated towards maintaining a collegiate depart- ment. The corporation accepted this arrangement and proceeded at once to carry it into effect, and at the opening of the following school year college classes were organized. Since then the courses of instruction have been

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considerably extended, the faculty enlarged, and the number of students attending the school greatly increased. The general synod at its triennial meeting last year took over the obligation formerly assumed by the Minne- sota district, at the same time increasing the annual allowance to six thou- sand dollars.

While these appropriations and the school's income otherwise have by no means kept pace with its actual growth during these years, the school has, nevertheless, faithfully endeavored to carry out its mission as a real college, the need of which in this great Northwest has become more and more apparent.

The school maintains besides a regular college department and an academy, a teachers' training department, a school of music and a business department. The library contains two thousand five hundred well-selected volumes, and it is being constantly added to all the time. About four hun- dred volumes on Greek and Latin have recently been acquired. Several daily papers and about forty magazines of various kinds are found on the shelves. In this connection it might be mentioned that the college issues a paper of its own, The Scout, a monthly publication issued during the school year by a staff of twelve students under the censorship of the professors of English and Norwegian.

The college grounds contain about fifteen acres and are located in the southwestern part of the city. The main building, a four-story structure of red brick trimmed with white sand stone, stands on an elevation com- manding a fine view of the city and river. The basement of the building, which is high and well lighted, furnishes the necessary space for dining hall, kitchen and heating plant. Offices, library and recitation rooms occupy the first floor. The three upper floors provide dormitory accommodations for about two hundred students. The rooms are commodious and high, with large windows supplying ample natural light. The entire building is steam-heated and lighted by electricity.

The recently erected gymnasium, which has a floor space forty by seventy-five feet, with galleries on three sides, furnishes accommodation for basket ball, baseball and indoor athletics and has the necessary apparatus for varied training. This room serves also as an assembly hall for large gatherings. The stage is sufficiently roomy to accommodate the band and large choruses.

The enrollment in the college for 1914-15 was forty; in the academy, one hundred fifty-eight ; in the commercial department, fifty-four; in steno- graphy, twenty; in the musical department, fifteen; total students, two hun- dred eighty-seven. Of this number, one hundred ninety-seven were boys and ninety girls.

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NORTHWESTERN COLLEGE. FERGU'S FALLS.

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PARK REGION LUTHER COLLEGE. FERGUS FALLS.

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NORTHWESTERN COLLEGE.

This institution of learning was founded by the Swedish Lutherans of the Northwest in the year 1900. There had been a long and deeply-felt want among the members of this church for an educational institution, located within easy reach of the numerous and steadily growing settlements of Northwestern Minnesota and the Dakotas, at which the Swedish Luth- eran young people might be able to secure a liberal education along the lines of the Swedish national culture and based on Christian principles. In order to meet this want a number of pastors and laymen of that church formed the Northwestern College Corporation in 1900 and founded the school of that name. The first officers of the corporation were: Rev. James Moody, president; Rev. S. J. Kronberg, vice-president; Rev. Louis Johnson, secre- tary; Mr. Aug. Nygren, treasurer. Prof. A. C. Youngdahl was the first president of the school.

The institution was located at Fergus Falls, where a tract of land, containing seven and one-half acres, had been secured. The first building, of solid brick construction, was erected the same year. The work of the school was begun in January, 1901. Two years later a second building was erected. The two buildings contain class rooms for two hundred students, dormitories for one hundred and twenty and a dining room, where one hundred and fifty students can be accommodated.

The institution has five distinct departments: I. The academy, which offers a standard high school course of four years. 2. The normal depart- ment, which is recognized by the state and offers a four-year course above the eighth grade in the public schools. Graduates from this department are granted first-grade certificates to teach in rural and semigraded schools of the state. 3. The school of commerce, which offers standard courses in the usual subjects taught at business colleges. 4. The school of music, where instruction is given in piano, pipe organ, voices, etc. The course in this department covers three years work. 5. The preparatory department, designed especially for boys and girls, who have not had an opportunity to complete all the grades in the public schools, and for "new comers," who wish to learn English and get acquainted with history, laws and customs of their adopted country.

The institution has a faculty of eight members. Rev. Carl Solomon- son, B. D., is president. The average number of students during the past fifteen years has been about one hundred and fifty. The school is partly supported by the Red River conference of the Lutheran Augustano synod.

During the past few years the school has been hampered in its work by a crushing debt, but during the latter part of 1915 enough money was

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raised to pay the entire indebtedness, so the institution is now on a good financial footing, looking forward to an era of development and prosperity.

Northwestern College has been granted the privilege of giving the state high school board examinations and its graduates are admitted to the State University as well as to the colleges of this and neighboring states. Although Northwestern College is controlled and supported by the Swedish Lutheran church, students of other creeds and nationalities are admitted. No person will, however, be admitted or retained as a student who cannot present evidence of good moral character. During the past fifteen years nearly one thousand five hundred individuals have been enrolled as students at Northwestern College. Its alumni numbers over three hundred. These are pursuing their callings in different walks of life, happy and thankful that they have had the opportunity of securing a liberal education based on Christian principles.

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CHAPTER XXV.

THE TELEPHONE IN OTTER TAIL COUNTY.

One of the most civilizing influences of modern civilization is the tele- phone, and yet forty years ago it was unknown. It was in 1876 that Alex- ander Graham Bell sent his first telephonic communication over a wire, and during the two score of years which have elapsed since then the telephone has practically girdled the world. Just this last year President Wilson sat in his office in Washington and talked directly to San Francisco. Poor, indeed, is the community in 1916 which does not have connection with the outside world by means of the telephone.

Otter Tail county was not slow in adopting the new invention, and within six years after the invention was perfected, enterprising men of Fergus Falls were installing a telephone system. From that day Otter Tail county has gradually bound itself together with copper wire and today more than forty incorporated companies, as well as a number of smaller unincorporated companies, are found in the county. Every village can talk to the county seat, to the state capitol, to Chicago, New York, St. Louis or San Francisco. The farmer in the remotest township in the county may call up the stock market at St. Paul during any hour of the day and find the price of pork. Certainly the telephone has been a great thing for the farmers of Otter Tail county.

The history of the telephone in Otter Tail county dates from the organization of the Fergus Falls Telephone Exchange Company on March 20, 1882. The capital stock of this first company was limited to ten thou- sand dollars, which was divided into two hundred shares of fifty dollars each. The promoters of this original company were Charles D. Wright, W. C. Bedford and John D. Boyd, all residents of Fergus Falls. Of this company W. C. Bedford was president; John D. Boyd, secretary, and Charles D. Wright, treasurer. The system installed by this company was very crude in comparison to the one in use in the city today, but neverthe- less it was an indication of the progressive spirit of the city. The first exchange was located at the corner of Cascade and Lincoln in a room in the First National Bank. It remained here until the system was taken out in 1892. An effort was made by the company to have telephones installed in the new court house. but the commissioners did not feel that it was neces- sary. Finally, however, the officials in the court house combined their private resources and installed one "hello box," as they called it, in the auditor's office. L. A. Levorsen, then a clerk in the auditor's office, was

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delegated with the duty of calling to the telephone any officer who was wanted at the telephone. In return for this accommodation the official was to pay the sum of five cents to Levorsen. The young clerk kept the list of his five cent patrons until it grew to be several feet in length and although he made desperate efforts to collect, it seems that he was unable to do so. Mr. Levorsen is now a clerk in the United States district court in Fergus Falls and says he still has the sheet of the long delinquent patrons of his "five-cent" telephone system. Later in the eighties the commissioners agreed to pay for the telephone in the court house and the bill for the services is entered regularly in the records as "hello box" rent.

Within a year from the time the Fergus Falls Telephone Exchange Company was established its owners disposed of it to the Northwestern Telephone Exchange Company for $5,000. In speaking of this sale the Fergus Falls Journal of April 3, 1883, says: "This company promises to give better facilities than ever before. Under their system conversations can be carried on a distance of forty miles." Under the new management the service was somewhat improved, but from sporadic outbursts in the local papers it is plain that it was not entirely satisfactory. A residence telephone cost four dollars and a half a month, and this may account for the difficulty the company had maintaining good service. This company continued in charge in Fergus Falls until 1892, when a succession of events which it is not necessary to recount in this connection, led to the withdrawal of the company from the city. For a period of six years, 1892-98, Fergus Falls was without a telephone, although the Northwestern maintained a toll station at N. J. Mortenson's drug store during this time. There were tele- phones left in both the railroad stations and Grand Hotel, but other than these four telephones all disappeared from the city. It seems a little queer to the modern generation that the city would have struggled along for that long a period without a telephone system, but it did. Facts are facts and uncontrovertible.

The second attempt to provide a telephone system for Fergus Falls was made in the summer of 1898. On June 4th of that year F. G. Bar- rows, Robert Hannah, E. A. Jewett and W. L. Parsons, of Fergus Falls, and W. H. Davy, of Moorhead. filed articles of incorporation for the Fer- gus Telephone Company. The original capital stock of the company was limited to fifteen thousand dollars, divided into one hundred fifty shares of one hundred dollars each. The company organized by electing the follow- ing officers : F. G. Barrows, president: W. H. Davy, vice-president ; Robert Hannah, secretary-treasurer. The company installed the first exchange over the room now occupied by the Otter Tail Power Company's store on south Mill street. Within the next two years the exchange was removed to a

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building erected by Vernon Wright, which stood across from the postoffice. The barber shop of Puckett & Wick now occupies the room in which the exchange was formerly located. The company started out in 1898 with one hundred subscribers, the rate being one dollar per month for residences and two dollars for business houses. The system was not very satisfactory to a reticent loving public because the so-called "party line" system was used. The company continued to prosper from the beginning and within four years from the time it was established it was found necessary to increase the capital stock. On November 4, 1902, an amendment to the original articles of incorporation raised the amount of capital stcok to one hundred thou- sand dollars, seventy thousand of which was preferred and twenty-five thou- sand was common stcok. With this additional capital the company began to extend its business into the rural districts, but it soon found out that rural lines required an investment out of all proportion to the returns on the amount of capital required to install the lines.

In the spring of 1906 the company entered into negotiations with the Northwestern Telephone Exchange Company with the view of disposing of all of their telephone system in the county. At that time the local com- pany had a fairly extensive system established in Fergus Falls, with several branch lines throughout the county. There were three main diverging lines from the city: (1) The Pelican Rapids line, via Elizabeth and Erhard, with a branch running from Elizabeth via Carlisle to Rothsay; (2) the Aastad line, running south, with a branch line to Roberts and westward through Western township to within three miles of Campbell, in Wilkin county, with smaller branches running off from the main line to Aastad; (3) the Wadena line to the east, with a line branching at Battle Lake north and west through Everts, Amour and Maine townships to Phelps. The Wadena branch also had two diverging lines at Henning, one northwest to the village of Otter Tail and the other southeast to the village of Parkers Prairie. For this system the Northwestern Telephone Exchange Company paid about forty thousand dollars.

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History of Otter Tail County, Minnesota: Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I, Part 47

Author: John W. Mason Publication date: 1916 Publisher: Number of Pages: 765

Author: John W. Mason
Publication date: 1916
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 765