A Visit to Main Street, Sauk Centre, Minnesota

I was headed for northern Minnesota, Thursday. I was on my way to "The Lost 40," the last surviving significant stand of White Pine in a three state area that was once covered with pine. It's about a three hundred mile drive from the Twin Cities to our destination and, of course, we'll make a few interesting stops along the way.


Turning off I-94 at Sauk Centre to head north about an hour and a half into the drive, I immediately noticed a Sinclair Lewis Interpretive Center. Now when Sinclair Lewis descibed "Gopher Prairie," a thinly disguised Sauk Centre, in the novel, Main Street, he used some colorful language:

It was not only the uninspiring, unapologetic ugliness and the rigid straightness which overwhelmed her. It was the planlessness, the flimsy temporariness of the buildings. . . . Each man had built with the most valiant disregard of all the others.

Clearly, Sauk Centre has forgiven its famous son.

In fact, Sauk Centre celebrates Lewis with some pride. You will find a Main Steet Cafe, a Main Street Theater and other references to the man and his prize-winning novel. Not the least would include this street sign.


Since it was about time for breakfast, I looked for a parking place in front of the Main Street Cafe. With good fortune, I found none. By the time I rounded the corner, turned around and parked, I was facing the Palmer House. The Palmer House is an imposing three-story hotel and displayed twin Cafe signs. "Worth a closer look," I thought.


As luck would have it, Lewis worked at the Palmer House as a substitute night-clerk and later captured the flavor of the place as Minniemashie House in Gopher Prairie. The covers of the menu in the cafe provide a good historic context for the Palmer House. The lobby has been "remodeled" to an appropriately "old" era.



Breakfast was excellent. Service outstanding. And if you wanted a newspaper, payment is on the honor system.



The town is tidy; shopowners are friendly. The two or three blocks of downtown Sauk Centre are well preserved.


If you are on Interstate 94 traveling beween the Twin Cities and the Dakotas, plan to stop. This could be a half-hour or a full day depending on your interest in literature. This article on Unsual Tourist Sites, originally published in The People's Encyclopedia fills in more details.

Black Beauty and the Mouse

Putting this on our Travel Blog is a bit of a stretch. But here we go!

About seven years ago, I was fortunate to find a Ford F-250 pickup truck available for $50. Mind you, it wasn't perfect. A broken windshield, slipping clutch, broken anti-pollution air pump. O yeah, one of its two gas tanks leaked and was disconnected, and the tires were bald. And a few other problems, too.

But it was love at first sight:


She had to have a name. "Black Beauty," I thought, and so it has been for seven years.

I had the clutch replaced, made a few minor repairs - like pulling out a couple of large dents with a toilet plunger - and she proudly took up residence in a garage stall at the lake. Each spring, she takes the boat down to the landing. In the summer she makes a few runs to the town dump. In the fall, it's back to the boat landing and she gets her tank topped off as a reward.

About the third spring after our initial startup , I noticed the clutch slipping again! This time it was bad. I though I had made a bad investment. For the new clutch to be slipping we could only have a major problem. Maybe a bad rear seal was leaking oil into the clutch assembly? Unwilling to spend major money again, Terry and I took out the clutch for a look. No easy task! Drop the drive shaft, remove the (4-speed manual) tranny and take off the clutch housing:

Hey! What's this fuzzy stuff under the clutch spring? How did that get in there?


OK, pull the pressure plate, slip off the clutch disk and clean out lots more fuzzy stuff. Lay it out and let's have a good look!


Say, is that a mouse? Inside the clutch? Can't be!

But, yes it is!

There is a narrow slot on the bottom of the F-250 clutch housing. It might be 3/8" wide at the most and a couple of inches long. Big enough for a mouse to crawl in and build a nice little nest. Probably very comfortable over the long Wisconsin winter.

A mouse in a clutch? I've asked a lot of professional and amateur mechanics about this over the past few years and no one has ever heard of it happening. But sometimes life is stranger than fiction.


Sadly, after seven happy years together, Black Beauty and I must split up. Congress has passed and the president has signed the "Cash for Clunkers" bill creating the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) This increases Black Beauty's value to $4,500 from July 1 (or whenever the NHTSA figures out how to implement it) until November 1.

A Visit to Hayward, Wisconsin

We spent the Memorial Day weekend up on the St. Croix Flowage near Gordon, Wisconsin. See my post on Pagac's Pines Resort for more information about our summer place.

We arrived on Thursday and spent Friday driving about thirty miles east to Hayward, Wisconsin and touring that area.


Hayward is the "big city" in Northwest Wisconsin. While the population posted on the sign coming into town isn't very large, there are many seasonal visitors and a walk down Main Street makes it feel like a much larger city. A glance around town makes you quickly aware that this isn't Milwaukee or Madison. Your first clue might be when you spot the McDonald's:


If you walk into the Walgreen's pharmacy, you will certainly notice the fishing poles in a barrel by the door. Close by Walgreen's and McDonald's you may see the signs for Pastika's bait shop. Stop in. This is the oldest bait shop in Wisconsin. "Since 1921." You will notice that we don't waste much in this part of the country. Not even our leeches!


This is cabin, lumberjack and fisherman territory!

Now, Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe, roamed the northern part of Minnesota. But, they probably fished right here near Hayward. Just check out the size of this Muskie!


Or the nearby sunfish.


Hayward is the home of the Freshwater fishing Hall of Fame. If you have any interest in old lures, motors or fishing records, this is a must see place for you.


Hayward began as a lumbering and sawmill town like many others in what were once known as "the Pineries." Tall White Pine trees ranging up to six feet in diameter grew in dense forests across Michigan, Wisconsin and Eastern Minnesota up until the second half of the 1800's when they were harvested for the lumber to build Chicago, St. Louis and many other Midwest cities. The story of the local mill is told briefly on this historical marker.


That is the short form. For the longer version, we will go to Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, Volume IX, published in 1901:

The North Wisconsin Lumber Company was organized October 28th,
1881, with a capital of $450,000, in six equal interests, namely:
W. H. Laird, M. G. Norton, and J. L. Norton, of Winona, Minn.;
F. Weyerhaeuser, of St. Paul, Minn.; R. L. McCormack, of Waseca,
Minn.; and A. J. Hayward, of Chippewa Falls, Wis.

The mill began operations June 4th, 1883, and has continued for
sixteen seasons through 1899; total cut, up to 1899, 540,000,000 feet.

In a letter from B. L. McCormack, vice president of the Wisconsin
Historical Society, he says: "If any other data are desired, I will
be at your service; for I fully appreciate the fact that the vast
wealth of the timber country will in a few years live only in the
history you and others may write."

Sadly, McCormack was correct. There is only one place in the Minnesota-Wisconsin area that we can get a glimpse of the magnificent White Pine forests that covered this area. That is at "The Lost Forty." A subject for another post later this summer.

Like the Hayward lumber company, you will find Fred Weyerhaeuser's name on the ownership lists of a large number of Minnesota-Wisconsin mills although not prominently featured on the mill itself.

While most traces of big timber lumbering are now long gone from the Northwoods, Hayward has found a way to continue to make money from the lumbering trade. Each summer, the Lumberjack World Championships are held in Hayward. You may have seen parts of the championships on ABC Wide World of Sports, many years ago. This year's event is the 50th anniversary show. The locals have adapted well to the new environment. Here one is using his chainsaw to help an eagle escape from the interior of a large log.


Hayward has an eclectic group of restaurants. We used to note that it was difficult to find an ethnic restaurant in northern Wisconsin. Here Yanny tries to do it all in one shop!


But here are several places easily overlooked, but worthy of a stop.

The Norske Nook is a well known place to stop for pies along Interstate I-94 in Osseo, Wisconsin. They also have a branch here in Hayward. And yes, that is the Norwegian flag flying just below the Stars and Stripes.


Just a couple of miles north of town, toward Cable, you will find Turk's Inn. Turk's is a classic Wisconsin supper club. Worth the stop just to look it over and remember dining out in the 1950s give or take a couple of decades. They are only open in the evening.


Head east of Hayward on "B" and after about eight miles, you will come to the original Famous Daves. Dave Anderson, founder, now has a chain of 170 Famous Dave's restaurants around the United States. Read his biography and you'll learn a great lesson about not giving up after your concept initially fails. Order the Georgia Pulled Pork!


Are there souvenirs available? Yah, youbetcha! How about a windmill? This famous Hayward landmark (built in 1980) contains about 2,226 square feet of space and is available fo$219,000. How about opening a dutch restaurant?


If that doesn't feel right, then how about a dance hall? The Smith Lake Pavilion is for sale just a bit west of town on Wis. 77 on the road toward Minong. I think I could hear an accordion playing a shadish as we drove by. (All together now: 1-2-3-hop, 1-2-3-hop, 1-hop, 2-hop, 3-hop, 4-hop)

It's for sale, although the Realtor doesn't list his website on the sign. Just go here and take a look at the interior shots. Only $299,999 and this one comes with 86 feet of lake shore too.


Why the Old Style sign might be worth that much some day.


I would also have a link here to Al Capone's Hideout located about fifteen miles southwest of Hayward. Roadside America reports it closed at this time. This place is worth a trip if it should reopen. In the meantime, you will just have to accept the notion that Turk's, referenced above, was one of Capone's favorite spots and visit them for a great steak.

More About Traffic in Egypt

I've written a couple of previous posts about Egyptian traffic. Anyone who has visited Cairo has traffic stories to tell.

The wonderful blog Whazzup Egypt just alerted me to this article by a BBC reporter on the traffic situation. And a recent accident on the Ring Road was so horrendous that friends even called to report on it. Initial reports put the death toll at four but I saw later reports rising much higher.

One should always use caution when traveling within Egypt. This recent report from Luxor confirms thoughts that I have had when considering the balloon rides available there.

Part of the reason that I urge caution in Cairo is because you must always walk in the street:


A good part of the reason for walking in the street is that cars park on the sidewalk:


Be especially cautious at intersections where the traffic may be heavy. You can't wait for the cars to stop!


Sometimes you just have to get out of the way of a vehicle. Yes, this is a picture of a delivery truck making a run down a street that you might think is for pedestrians only:


But if the traffic seems like too much for walking, I suppose you can always just get on a bus. This one seems crowded but the next one might be worse:

Doing a Land Office Business in St. Cloud

My previous post on the Saint Cloud, Minnesota General Land Office records was all about my grandfather's particular claim filed there.

But, as long as I had the records open, I had to satisfy my curiosity. I have heard the phrase "doing a land-office business" many times. This is an American idiom meaning "doing a high volume of business" of any type. So, how much business did a land-office do?

I was a little disappointed. Looking at the serial number for the initial claims at the start of each month during 1895 and over a several year period, we find this level of activity at Saint Cloud:




So about 700 homestead claims a year. Not exactly a land-office business when the local papers are writing about hundreds of new settlers coming into Pine County alone each spring. But remember, each homestead claim probably represents four to six settlers.

And homestead claims weren't the only way to obtain government land. You could also purchase it for $1.25 per acre. Now that is not "dirt cheap" to use another idiom. School teachers were making making about $20 per month and work in the logging camps was paying $26-$30 per month.

Nevertheless, as this January 23rd 1887 article from the New York Times article reports:

For the eight days ending tonight the sales of land (at the Montgomery, Alabama land office) amount to $5,350,365, at Government price of $1.25 per acre, and the homestead entries footed up $615.35.

Figuring about $18 for the average homestead claim and a 160 acre parcel for each purchase, that makes direct purchases to homesteads around 700 to 1 - at least during that 8 day stretch in Montgomery. So maybe there was a land-office business going on, just not in homesteads.

A Visit to the Saint Cloud Land Office - 1895

OK, I'm making the titles up again! Actually this is a visit to the Minnesota Historical Society to look at the records of the General Land Office records of homestead claims from 1895.

Why 1895? Well, that is when my grandparents, Frances and Frank Kolkowsky, first settled in Minnesota in the northern end of Pine County. I know the date from looking at the 1895 Minnesota state census which showed Frank just where I expected to find him - Windemere Township just east of Sturgeon Lake and just south of Moose Lake. That 1895 census was taken in July of 1895 and Frank was reported living in the township for two months. He was living right next door to Thomas Novak just as in the 1900 Federal census.

Finding homestead claim information is now very easy since the Bureau of Land Management placed their General Land Office records on-line. Just key in a state, last and first name. In fact you can even request a copy of the full homestead application file from the National Archives using the form linked at this site.

But one of the items located at the Minnesota Historical Society in Saint Paul are the actual record books used at the land offices to record initial claims. Once you have a the initial claim number and the name of the Minnesota General Land Office where the claim was filed, you can look for the entry in one of these books.

Land Offices opened and closed in Minnesota during the homestead era. There were as many as thirty-four and as few as three. The helpful people in the reference room at the MHS can help you locate the right book.

When you find the proper old ledger book, you will think that you just entered the world of Charles Dickens.



I opened it carefully and began looking through the early 1895 entries. No luck! I turned on my computer and checked my research looking for the initial claim entries. 18060. Those are well past April or May of 1895.



Finally, January of 1896. There it is! 18060.






So my imagined story of grandpa stopping at the land office in Saint Cloud to file a claim and then going on to build a house before grandma arrived is all wrong. And yet, he must have been there when the census taker came by in July. Was it customary to settle on the land first and file a claim later? Did grandpa and the fellow on the line above both come down to the land office together to file claims? That claim is in the nearby section 32 that just touches on section 28. Have we identified a family friend?

This is the trouble with genealogy. Every answer yields two more questions.

Egypt - It Depends on Your Perspective

You can probably tell from reading a few of the posts below that we enjoy Egypt. Even more than Egypt, we enjoy Egyptians. They are certainly the friendliest people we have encountered in our travels. You will encounter a lot of "high pressure" salesmen in the tourist areas, but other than that, your encounters will be fun and likely lead to long-term friendship. Even the "high pressure" salesman encounters can be made into fun.

Afraid to try the local markets because you don't speak the language? Can't learn languages." Just a few words of Arabic will do the job!


Going to the bakery or stopping at a banana cart will be a pleasant experience. Say, "Hello," identifying yourself as an English speaker, point to what you want and say "nus kilo, min fudluk." (You just asked for a half-kilogram, or about a pound, please)


Nine times out of ten the response will be, "Oh, you speak Arabic? Where are you from?" Even the banana seller from Upper Egypt speaks a little English. The shop owner may scramble to find the best English speaker nearby if the conversation continues.

How you react to Egypt depends on your attitude, more than anything else. Things are different. Different doesn't mean "bad." Walk through an area and some Americans will say "Oh, the poverty!" Stay and get acquainted and you might say "Egyptian families are so close! And so generous and sharing!"

We recently stumbled on this internet posting that literally had us laughing out loud.

Muslims began praying right in front of me at one point as the minarets called the masses to prayer while I was waiting. In light of the situation between Muslims and Christians, I was worried that they might get enraged in their prayers and walk over and confront me . . . or worse. I can't say that I have experienced much fear in my life. I'm sheltered from much of that in America. However, I experienced genuine fear in the Cairo train station.

No wonder one of our Cairo neighbors asked Linda, "weren't you afraid of me because I cover?"

The author of that post goes on with this note:

Danger still abounds here in Egypt. On my way here to Egypt, a group of English-speaking Egyptian residents told me about the recent and highly publicized threat by terrorist Osama Bin Laddin.

Apparently, he has threatened to target and murder American tourists in Egypt. What a wonderful news item to hear as you are waiting in the Cairo airport with a 9 day "tour" of Egypt before you. Anyway, security here has been EXTREMELY TIGHT as they anticipate BinLaddin's next move.

The irony, of course, is that this quote was extracted from an e-mail that the person sent home to friends on 6/5/2001. We can only hope that he was not comfortably at home in New York on 9/11.

Incidentally, if you do follow the link referenced and read the whole posting, be sure to read two of my posts. Check out my Koshary for Dinner post and my What's for Lunch post.

And, yes, I will admit to sometimes stopping in an American fast-food outlet in Cairo.

But it is only because I find the McArabia sandwich to be so darn tasty. I'm lovin it!

It's available in either chicken or meat - but that's another whole post, and I'll leave it for another day.