It’s that time of year: next week the Scott County Fair will be on us again. We will be out there in the speak easy collecting stories from all those who stop by. If you have a story about the fair, come on by and preserve it with us, and have a quick chat. Having said that, this seemed a great time to look back at some great photos of the fair to get everyone in the mood for the festivities to come!
This summer the Scott County Historical Society turns 50 years old. To commemorate our golden anniversary, we are having a summer full of events, festivals, and grand picnic (August 25th), and we have launched the Great Summer History Scavenger Hunt!
Visit 10 historic locations (or as many as you can) in Scott County before our 50th anniversary picnic! Take a picture at each one and email it to us (info@scottcountyhistory.org). Complete the quest and you will win…
A prize at our 50th anniversary picnic
The chance to have your photos featured in an upcoming exhibit
everlasting fame and glory.
The great hunt has already spawned stories. A woman and her father have been visiting a new town’s locations each day and are trying new restaurants. A family has been making a summer scrapbook with their photos. To augment those tales, here are some of the stories behind the 10 Scott County locations you will visit as you complete your summer adventure:
The Stans House was built in 1908 by Hubert Stans. It is constructed in the Dutch Colonial Style, popular at the time. One of our long-serving volunteers recounted visiting the house while she was girl, but sad she never got past the kitchen because Mrs. Stans didn’t want young folks mussing up the rest of her house. Luckily, today you can visit the whole lower floor. It has been restored giving visitors peek at what life was like for a middle class family in Scott County near the turn of the 20th century. Inside you can wind a Victrola, learn how an icebox works, and recline on a fainting couch. If you are interested in touring the house, be sure to call us and make an appointment in advance- 952.445.0378.
Next door to the Stans House is the Scott County Historical Society. Inside the building is used for a wide variety of purposes. We have rotating exhibit galleries: currently you can learn about Scott County in WW1, toursim in Scott County, American Indians of the area, and the history of the Stans Family. Coming soon are exhibits on sports in the county, and the use of tools to build Scott County. The building is also home to a research library featuring the lineup of newspapers throughout county history, subject folders, historic maps, county books, and a card catalog to help you track down your family’s history. The museum and library are open:
Tuesday , Wednesday and Friday- 9am to 4pm
Thursday- 9am to 8pm
Saturday- 10am to 3pm
Come pay us a visit!
Located off of highway 101, Memorial Park is Shakopee’s largest. The 147 acre park features picnic shelters, friendly mill-pond ducks, multiple playgrounds and shady walking paths. Centrally located is an AH-1F Cobra helicopter. The design was prominently used during the Vietnam war, and now serves as a sculptural tribute to Shakopee’s veterans.
Mudbaden was a health spa founded by Ose Rosendahl in 1906. Around 1900, a peddlers cart and horse got stuck in the mud while trying to pass through Rosendahl’s property. As they worked together to free the cart. As they labored in the mud, the murky ground began to release sulfurous fumes. Rather than be offput by the smell, the men realized that Rosendahl had a business opportunity on his hands. The smelly mud was believed to have health benefits, and mud spas were making money throught Europe at the time. Rosendahl began cooking up mud treatments in his kitchen, and soon “Rosendahl Sulpher Springs” was born.
By 1910 a new building was built to house up to 70 people who had come to visit the restorative mud. The sight was renamed Mudbaden, and it began to become a serious tourist attraction. By 1912, ten plus trains were stopping at the site each day.
In 1914 the modern brick building was built with a capacity of 200 visitors. Mudbaden was a true resort, with dancing, music, parties, movies and banquets complimenting mud treatments. The facility continued to grow, acquiring the rival Jordan Sulpher Springs site in 1925. It continued to host a steady clientele until the 1940s when medical advances made mud treatments seem out of vogue. Mudbaden finally closed it’s doors for good in 1952, but the beautiful structure created for the mud baths still stands. Now known as the SCALE regional training facility, Mudbaden is located at 17706 Valley View Dr and is a pleasant bike ride from Jordan.
One of the oldest European American homes still standing in Scott County. It was being used as a storage shed, but was purchased, restored and moved to its present location by Clement Nachbar in memory of his parents, Mathias Nachbar and Wilhelmina Mertens Nachbar, who settled near Jordan in 1855. The cabin is now open as a museum on Memorial Day and for special events. The cabin is found at the intersection of Water st and Varner st, near downtown Jordan
The Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, an Episcopal church building in Belle Plaine, is a Carpenter Gothic style building with wooden buttresses. Sometimes referred to as a “prairie Gothic” church, it was built in 1868 for English-speaking parishioners, but most of the rural residents at the time were German and Irish immigrants who brought their own languages and religious practices with them. The result was a church building that struggled to attract worshipers for 80 years before the beautiful church was abandoned. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Memories, details and stories about the church can be found in the book “What Happened Here: A History of the Episcopal Church of the Transfigoraton” by Lee Howard Smith, available at the Scott County Historical Society. Here is a taste, recalled by Hinrietta Hillstrom Smith:
I have many memories of this church. I remember the early services at 7am with the early morning sun streaming through the east window above the alter with its beautiful colored glass. I remember the 5pm services during the winter months when the church had to be heated. The fires were started during the morning and kept going most of the day in order to get it warm enough to spend an hour at service. Later to save time and heat services were held in the Vestry. I had a round oak stove which wasn’t being used that I loaned to the church, some benches were moved in, a small table with white linen was used as an alter. It provided warmth and since there were so few people there was a closeness, and a closeness to God.
The Episcopal Church of the Transformation is at 201 N Walnut St in Belle Plaine
The Hooper–Bowler–Hillstrom House was built in 1871 in Belle Plaine, Minnesota, United States, by Sandford A. Hooper, a local businessman and promoter of the town. By 1886 it was sold to Samuel Bowler, a founder of the State Bank of Belle Plaine and lumber-yard owner. Bowler added a new kitchen, buttery, and , most famously, a five-hole, two-story outhouse that is connected to the house via a skyway. He also added a copper-lined bathtub. When the Bowlers moved to Denver, Colorado in 1901, the clapboard frame house was sold to Alfred Hillstrom whose family lived in the house until it was purchased in 1975 by the Belle Plaine Historical Society. The house is now furnished in a variety of periods that reflect its long life. It is open for tours from 1-4pm on Sundays between Memorial day and Labor day. Find the Hooper-Bowler-Hilstrom house along with its famous toilet at Court Square Park in Belle Plaine
The Elko New Market Hotel and Store was built by Joesph Baltes in 1897. The building was originally given the cozy name of Home Hotel, and featured a first floor tavern with sleeping rooms upstairs. The hotel served visitors a business people traveling throughout the region. It also was a local social gathering place, holding suppers during dances at the Village Hall, and as a place to meet with locals and visitors.
The hotel was typical of its time, with no electricity, and the owners living on site in the back of the first floor barroom. Laundry services were also offered for a small fee, and the owner’s wife would start washing sometimes as early as 3 O’clock.
Today the building still looks the same as it did in 1897, though with some different paint around the old windows, and big green sign on the front. . Visitors to the hotel today can walk up the double-wide staircase and peek into original rooms, each with a different theme which constantly changes. The current operators of the hotel maintain six rooms that visitors can see. The first floor is still a shop that is open periodically throughout the year.
Visit the Elko New Market Hotel and Store at 441 Main St, New Market, MN
The group of immigrants who settled New Prague had originally settled around Dubuque, Iowa, but many of them died of cholera. Four men from the community traveled up the Mississippi River to Saint Paul, in search of a healthier climate. They met with Catholics in the area who advised them that Benedictines from Saint John’s Abbey near Saint Cloud, Minnesota, were helping settlers find land. The explorers from the Czech community got lost, though, and ended up following the Minnesota River to Shakopee instead. They found that there was ample land to the south, so the four men purchased land and brought their families north from Iowa.
The parish of St. Wenceslaus was organized in 1856, and a log church was built the following year. The log church was destroyed by fire in 1864, so a more permanent building was erected in 1866, built of brick and stone. As the parish grew, though, more room was needed. Father Francis Tichy (pictured) directed the building of the new church, which was designed by St. Paul architect Hermann Kretz. Archbishop John Ireland dedicated the new building on July 7, 1907.
Brick and Kasota limestone were used for constructing the spacious building. It dominates the skyline of the small city of New Prague, measuring 165 by 67 feet , with two towers that rise 110 feet. The architectural style combines neoclassical and Romanesque architectural styles, and is based on a church in Prague. Czech Republic. The church, rectory, and school were listed together on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
One of the most important developments in the new village occurred in 1877 when the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway (M & St. L) reached New Prague. The arrival of the railroad era expedited agriculture as New Prague’s most important industry. A link with the outside world enabled farmers to send their commodities to markets and created a conduit to bring inventory to the village’s businesses. Just four years after the M & St. L reached New Prague, the first grain elevator and flour mill were completed, marking the beginning of New Prague earning its nickname, the “Flour City.”
The historic New Prague Train Depot is still standing next to the flour mill on 2nd ave in New Prague
For site number 10, choose a place that has historic significance to you or your family. It could be a home that goes back generations, or simply a place that you enjoy today. Take a picture and share your story with us- these stories are what make history come alive.
Please join us in the 2018 summer history hunt- and share your pictures and stores with is at info@scotthistory.org, even if you are unable to make it to every site. Happy hunting!
To commemorate the United States’ mid-summer festivities, I thought it would be fun to look back at how Scott County has celebrated the fourth of July in years past. This history of Independence Day celebrations is interesting due to how little the holiday has changed throughout time. In a July 3rd, 1776 letter from John to Abagail Adams, John expressed his hopes that the occasion should be commemorated “with Pomp and Parade, with Shews [shows], Games, Sports, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” Even in the late 1700s, novelty fireworks were widely available to the public, with one vendor listing his pyrotechnic wares as “rockets, serpents, wheels, table rockets, cherry trees, fountains, and sun flowers.”
A notice in the Belle Plaine Herald from about a hundred years after Adams, June 27th 1894, told of a gathering that would not have been out of place on a fourth of July today. “A Grand Celebration” including a “large platform on which music will be furnished for dancing purposes”. Sports of the day included foot racing, sack racing, horse racing and pony racing. Finally, of course, the event finished off with a “Grand display of fireworks”. In 1988, more then 200 years after John wrote to Abigail, New Prague celebrated the fourth with fireworks and music from the band “East Side Pharaohs”, mirroring celebrations from years past.
Independence day in Scott County has not only been influenced by the United States, but by broader global events. On the sunset of World War 1, July 4th 1919, the Shakopee Argus Tribune published an article entitled “Freedom All Over The Earth: The Due Recognition of Human Rights now the Aim of Mankind”. As a counter to global war, the article expressed worthy sentiments such as “One hundred two score and three years ago the federation of the thirteen colonies into a federal union was a political event of prime import. Today that goal is overshadowed by by that great thing of which Tennyson dreamed: the federation of the world” The article explains that with the age of European monarchs in the past, it was time to forgo nationalism and for every country to work together towards a better global future. The piece ends with this noble ideal:
“On July 4th 1776 the liberty bell rang out in order to proclaim liberty throughout all the land and to unite the inhabitants thereof. Suppose that on another July fourth it were permitted to raise it’s cracked and wheezy voice to do a far nobler thing: proclaim liberty and an end to oppression and suffering all over the world! Where is the man who would not wish to live in this world? Let all the peoples of the world send a representative to meet. Let them create and sign a nobler document that that which our forefathers signed… That document will enable all people to stand against the oppression of autocratic spoilers. It will assert solidarity of all that stand for freedom and love their fellow men. It will set forth a growing sense of human brotherhood”
Unfortunately for the planet, and the writer of this article, by the 1940s the US was once again at war. This was reflected in the independence day celebrations of the time. The 1943 Shakopee Tribune encouraged readers to visit Minneapolis to celebrate the fourth of July. The holiday was a week-long event featuring “Fifty thousand marchers, scores of floats, bands, and drum corps”. The primary aim, according to the promoters, was to “build morale and sell war bonds”. By 1946, Jordan was recognizing the fourth with a “welcome home to WW2 veterans”.
During the Vietnam war, Independence day once again inspired musings on American ideals. On July 3rd, 1978, the Shakopee Valley Tribune published a letter to the editor, that was written as if it were to Richard Cox, who was killed while serving with the ninth Marine Amphibious brigade in Vietnam. The letter is from the mother of one of Richard’s close friends. She writes, ” Has death and war become as ordinary as drinking coffee? Your mother will receive a gold pin, but touching the pin and feeling the insignia are not the same as as touching the features and warmth of your son… Dick, thank you. You are at peace. When will we be?”
Outside of wars, political and social issues of the times are reflected in Independence day newspaper commentary. On June 20th, 1910, the Belle Plaine Herald published an incredibly charming story about Gloria West who, since the age of 5, had been “imbued with a patriotic feeling and reverence for the constitution of this country”. As Gloria grows older, she is harangued by suitors who want her hand. Her sister tells her that she is being too picky, bit Gloria refuses to be swayed. One fourth of July, she invites all of 6 “most ardent” suitors to a reading of the Declaration of Independence. There, she makes them sign her own declaration of independence, declaring that she will be her own woman. Eventually, one of her suitors creates his own document- a constitution recognizing her independence and proposing a “more perfect union” between them. In additional to being adorable, this tale clearly displays a changing attitude towards womens’ roles that was taking place during the early 1900s.
Today, Independence is a chance to get together with family and friends, eat, chat, and enjoy some pyrotechnics. It is also a good time to pause and think about what it means to be an American.
Written by Rose James, SCHS Program Manager
