CROOKSTON AND POLK COUNTY, MINNESOTA – THE FERTILE “VALLEY OF THE RED RIVER”
About the “Queen City of the Northwest,” the County of Which It Is the Commercial Center, and the Conditions Which Combine to Make It Such. Crop Possibilities in the Red River Valley and the Endless Opportunities Offered for Choice Investments.
“Queen City of the Northwest,” and Hub City of that portion of the fertile Red river valley lying east of the river, Crookston, Polk county, Minn., occupies an enviable position among the prosperous and growing cities of the bread and butter state.
Progressive and up-to-date to a degree, the citizens and merchants of Crookston have combined their energies and centered their work in making their city a beauty spot in that most famous district, “The Break Basket of the World,” lying in the valley of the Red river, “The Nile of America,” and the returns of their labors have more than justified the efforts put forth.
Broad, well-paved streets traverse the business section of the little city (not so “little” either, as it easily boasts of 8,000 population), and the public buildings of the city and county (the city is county seat of Polk county), as well as the business houses of the community are evidences of the material prosperity which has been visited upon the city as the commercial and industrial center of Polk county, itself one of the richest agricultural districts of the Greater Northwest.
The city is beautifully situated on the banks of the Red [Lake] river, which is skirted with a luxuriant growth of handsome trees and shrubbery. This, taken together with the countless number of trees planted by the city and private citizens which line almost all of the streets, gives the city a beautiful appearance, particularly in the summer when all the foliage is in full bloom, and in the fall, too, when nature puts on her more gorgeous and brilliant covering. The contour of the city is not flat, but slightly undulating, so that there is nothing of the monotonous appearance about it. The river meanders leisurely through the city, making the air cooler for its presence during the warm weather and furnishing ice during the winter.
Beyond the city, to the north, the south, the east and west, stretch the great prairies of the Red river valley, known the world over. At the expense of the state and the county those parts of this territory that are not now under cultivation owing to their not being properly drained, are being traversed by a network of canals and ditches, so that the time is not far distant when all the land in this section of the valley will either be producing grain or furnishing fodder for cattle.
The business standing of the city is excellent, there being a long list of substantial improvements to show for the money expended. There is the county court house, a handsome building with all the modern conveniences. It is the property of the county, to be sure, but the city as such, apart from the county taxes paid, turned over to the court house fund a large sum of money claimed to be due the city from the county.
The building, which cost $80,000, was paid for by the county without necessity of a bond issue – something more than unusual – and the county had in its treasury Dec. 10, 1903, the enormous sum, for a county of its size, of $149,859.37. This is certainly a good showing in a county where lands are selling at from $15 to $35 per acre.
The city hall, erected at a cost of $20,000, is a fine building, affording ample room and accommodation for the administration offices of the city.
The city’s school system is one well worthy of Crookston. There are seven school buildings, three of them brick. They are well equipped, and the largest of the buildings contains fourteen rooms.
The postal department has installed a free delivery system.
Among the vital necessities to a growing city are a good sewage system, and an ample supply of good water. In both of these particulars Crookston is far ahead of the average city of its size. A first class sewer system drains the principal part of the town, and the water works system is all that could be desired.
It is from the condition of a city’s banking institutions that the financial world judges of its resources, and the condition of the Crookston banks is excellent.
There are two national banks, one state bank and one private bank, in the city, and the statements made by the first three to the comptroller of the currency – the private bank is not under the jurisdiction of the comptroller – from time to time show that they are on a solid financial basis and doing a large business. It can be said without fear of contradiction that the banks of no other town in the state have better withstood financial crises and panics that have the banks right here. In the great panic of 1893, when mills all over the country closed down, thousands of workmen were thrown out of work and banks were going to the wall, Crookston would hardly have known of the storm had it not been for the reports in the daily papers. In the fall and winter of 1896-1897, when banks in almost every town and city in the land were closing their doors and going out of business, the Crookston banking institutions stood firm and did business all the time. It may be said here, in passing, that at that same time, when money was a scarce article, indeed, in most places in the United States, there was secured by subscription from the citizens of Crookston $30,000 with which to build the Hotel Crookston. It might also be added, by way of showing the solidity and stability of Crookston as a business center, that during the twenty-five years and more of the city’s history there has been but few business failures. This is evidence that there has been no unnatural booming of the town and that the business is conducted with care and along business lines.
The excellent railroad facilities offered by the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroads at Crookston have aided in making it somewhat of a jobbing center for the district. It boasts a wholesale fruit house, a wholesale grocery house, and a house jobbing granite, marble and building stone through the Dakotas and Northwestern Minnesota.
Were Crookston able to boast of being nothing more than a purely agricultural town, she would still grow steadily greater, keeping constant pace with the growth of the thriving cities of the Red river valley. But while Crookston rightly reckons its broad prairies as its most fertile field of profit, it has far other resources. A hundred diverse forms of life and industry, which have here found firm footing, defend its claim to the title of the Queen City of the Red River Valley.
Among the city’s manufacturing industries may be numbered two flouring mills, shipping considerable flour eastward each week; a foundry, machine and boiler works, whose business extends beyond the borders of the state; a windstacker company, employing approximately fifty men, and doing business throughout the entire great Northwest; an extensive wagon factory which turns out everything from the practical farm wagon to the most stylish landau; an awning factory, an extensive brewery; two cigar factories; a candy factory; two bottling works; sash and door factories; a tannery; a brick yard, with an annual capacity of 4,000,000, whose product is shipped through the valley; a pork packing establishment, and the only oatmeal mill in the state. In addition there is the water works, power and light company, which furnishes water, steam and light to the city. These concerns are all doing a good business.
Nature has bestowed other gifts upon Crookston with a lavish hand. The Red Lake river gives it splendid water powers, artesian and surface wells furnish the purest water, building stone is to be had close at hand, its soil furnishes sand for building purposes most abundantly, clay beds of unlimited capacity support the largest brickyard in the Northwest, hard and soft woods are found to the east and south within easy hauling distance, and the Red Lake river floats lumber to its doors.
By no means the least important branch of business at Crookston and one of which has brought to the city large financial interests, is the land business, the lands for sale through Polk county being largely controlled by firms and individuals making the city of Crookston their headquarters.
Displaying a keen insight as to the necessities of the future, and realizing the importance of heralding to the world the natural and commercial advantages of their district if they would grow, they have organized a Real Estate Bureau, the object of which is the promotion of their mutual interests, and the spreading of information throughout the entire country as to the opportunities offered homeseekers and business men in Polk county and Crookston. The advantages of the organization, not only to its individual members but to the city as well, are obvious.
There are some thirty fraternal organizations in Crookston, and almost every denomination of the Christian church in America is represented there.
Nowhere in the famous Red River Valley are there lands which surpass those lying in Polk county, tributary to Crookston. The soil, a rich black loam with a heavy coating over a clay subsoil, makes it suitable for all kinds of diversified farming, and the enumeration of the products possible would be almost endless. Of course wheat, “No. 1 hard,” is the staple, and there are millions of bushels of this cereal which have gone to feed the world, which drew their nutrition from the soil of Polk county.
The reputation of the Red River Valley as a wheat producer is so well known as to scarcely need mention. The wheat grown in the valley is of such quality as to be first at home as well as abroad. It is familiarly known as “No. 1 Hard,” and is a grade unto itself, as it is not grown in the country at large.
Its superiority lies in the fact that it contains the two most important essentials – namely, dryness and richness in albuminoids. This statement is based on the report from the bureau of chemistry of the United States department of agriculture, which, after an analysis of 2,700 specimens of wheat taken from every section of the United States, as well as from foreign countries, came to the above conclusion. It was also demonstrated that a given quantity of flour made from this grade will make a larger amount of bread than the same quantity of flour made from any other wheat. That is to say, a barrel of flour from No. 1 hard produces twenty-five or more loaves of bread more than the same quantity of any other kind of flour.
The analysis further shows that this flour contained the highest per cent of both gluten and nitrogen. To quote the words of the report: “There is no doubt that the Northwest has furnished the country with finer flour than it ever before possessed.”
Wheat and oats are staple crops. We raise both by the train load. But if any one thinks that our ability ends here they should have seen the splendid specimens of corn displayed at the county fair last summer. It is surprising how rapidly and how largely farmers are going into corn raising. The old notion that this is not a corn country has disappeared.
Now here is where many have a misconception. They have been accustomed to consider this merely a wheat raising section. No greater misapprehension of the real resources of this country was conceived. True, it is that grain is a success here. But it will be proved by the rapidly maturing logic of events that this country – these thousands of unimproved acres in the valley, particularly in the eastern part – are peculiarly adapted to stock raising and that the very best thing that the farmer can pay his attention to if he wants to make money, is the dairy. In order to accept this statement as within the bounds of truth and reason one has only to look at the facts in the case. If there are long winters it is equally true that the stock here finds ample and safe protection. There is plenty of timber with which to build barns and sheds, and in the groves the cattle find shelter from the cold and winds. These are not unimportant features. To be able to build stabling at a small cost means a good deal to the new settler. When you couple with this water in abundance, everywhere, and that of as pure and fine quality as can be found anywhere, the chance for keeping cattle comfortably from day to day can readily be seen. Last, but by no means least, is the factor of grasses. In a large section of the country wild grasses grow abundantly, and the last half dozen years have demonstrated beyond question that tame grasses thrive in great excellence here. Add to this the raising of corn fodder – both of which do well – and plenty of food at low cost is obtained. The grasses of this section are especially nutritious, and nowhere do buttermakers produce a finer quality of butter. Few countries are better adapted to sheep raising.
The dry cold winters seems to have a tendency to increase the clip of wool, while the mutton is of the very first quality. Cotswolds and Shropshires are the two breeds that thrive the best in this climate. The raising and feeding of hogs brings the thrifty farmer many a dollar. Berkshire, Poland China and Chester White are the principal breeds and are mostly fatted on barley and peas, which are raised here in abundance. There is always a good market for all kinds of stock.
Dairying is also on the increase, and while the Red River Valley is doing more than any other section of the state in giving Minnesota its reputation for the best wheat, and it is only a question of time when it will do its full share in making the butter to spread on the bread, made from the flour, the like of which is not possible to produce from any except No. 1 hard, in the production of which the Red River Valley is pre-eminent. Tame grasses make a luxuriant growth in this soil. Given these, and the small grains that can be raised so abundantly, there is an opening for this country in the way of diversified farming, stock raising and dairying that no other country possesses. And this is just what impresses the average man who looks over the situation. With half an eye he can see that within the next five or ten years the stock and dairy industry will be developed to such an extent that it will remove the necessity of relying upon the wheat crop alone as the staple of the country.
When all these conditions are considered, it is not to be wondered at that thousands of farmers from the Southwestern and Middle Eastern states have disposed of their high-priced lands in a country where the soil, already partially worked out – so much so that it does not produce anything like the revenue to be derived from the lands in the Red River Valley, and move to that favored land where a farm home can be had for half the price of the lands farther south. Nor is it to be wondered at that the tide of immigration toward the Red River Valley should be growing stronger each year.
There are still thousands of desirable farms left in the district, and the man from “the country of high-priced lands” would do well to dispose of his lands there and move to the district where returns for farm labor are sure and prolific, and where the value of lands to be had now at low prices is constantly increasing – the Red River Valley.
Source:
The Saint Paul Globe
Thursday Morning, May 26, 1904
Volume XXVII, Number 147, Page 12
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Crookston, the county seat of Polk county, is pleasantly situated on the east bank of the Red Lake river, head of navigation, at the crossing of the St. Vincent branch of the St. Paul and Pacific railroad, and seventy-five miles by land from the extensive pineries around Red Lake. Has a population of 500, a large flour and grist, and two saw mills, three heavy mercantile houses, good school, a large freight and passenger depot, lumber and brick yards. It is a live, growing town and the principal point for grain and lumber. Good brick, stone, and lime for building are plenty. Crookston more than doubled her population in 1877 and evinces a spirit of energy, activity, and vim that characterizes all healthy and prosperous western towns. Her people are alert and wide-awake business men with means and enterprise. Surrounded by rich prairies rapidly settling with American farmers, makes it a commercial and lumber centre of extremely promising prospects.
Source:
Pettengill’s Newspaper Directory and Advertiser’s Hand-Book for 1878
S. M. Pettengill & Co. Publishers, New York, NY
Page 151
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“…population of about 3,000.”
Source:
The Saint Paul Globe
Sunday Morning, September 25, 1898
Volume XXI, Number 268, Page 9