Here’s a look back at some of the things that happened in Litchfield during the month of July:
1834/1900: Litchfield’s first “mayor” (called the Council President then), Jesse Vawter Branham Jr., was born on July 8, 1834, in Jennings County, Indiana. He came to Meeker County with his father in 1857. Col. Jacob Merritt Howard Jr., who built Litchfield’s grand hotel, came to Meeker County 10 years later in 1867. The Civil War veteran had bought a farm in Greenleaf. A native of Detroit, Jacob was born to Michigan state Sen. Jacob Merritt Howard Sr. and Catherine Amelia Shaw on July 16, 1842. (Catherine wasn’t related to me, as far as I know.) Jacob died on July 27, 1900.
1856: The first Fourth of July celebration in Meeker County took place in Forest City in July of 1856. Rudolph Schultz, Charles Johnson and James W. Quick brought a large tree pole out of the woods and raised it in Forest City. A small tin pan was washed and nailed on the top of the pole and the flag was raised up to it. The U.S. flag was made from a white cotton shirt furnished by Thomas Carlos Jewett, some red flannel underwear given by Matthew Miles Standish, and a blue denim overall offered by John W. Huy. What took place at the actual celebration on the Fourth of July was never recorded.
1869: My hometown of Litchfield was originally a portion of a congressional township named Round Lake, but most people called it Ripley after the lake one mile from its center. Prairie schooners or covered wagons brought the first white people to settle in the area in July 1856. They were Ole Halverson of Ness, who changed his name to Ole Ness, Heindrick “Henry” Thoen Halverson Sr., Ole Halverson of Thoen, who changed his name to Ole Thoen, Amos (Amous) Nelson of Fossen, who changed his name to Amos Fossen, Nels Charles G. Hanson, Colberg Olson, Gunder Olson, and all their families. Having previously left their homeland of Norway in 1846, some of them in their late teens, the settlers came here from Orfordville, Wisconsin (south of Madison, almost to Illinois). Sarah Jane Dougherty became the first white child to be born in Meeker County. She was born in her parents’ prairie schooner on July 15, 1856. (She died in 1952 in Litchfield.) More people came in 1857 and still more in 1858, including a man named George Baker Waller Sr. He had so much land, that he deeded one-half interest in 150 acres of his land to the railroad company to plat a town upon, and upon which a part of the original township was laid out in July 1869. The plat was filed July 16, 1869.
1872: Litchfield’s first brewer and, later hotel owner, Erhardt Lenhardt came to the United States from Hildburghausen, Thuringen, Germany on July 4, 1872.
1873: Our local newspapers seemed to be obsessed with the settlers coming to Litchfield in droves. The July 17, 1873, News-Ledger read, “And still they come, emigrants with their household goods in covered wagons and their cattle driven by barefoot maidens, sometimes of uncertain age. Hardly a day passes but several of these pilgrims to the ‘shrine of homestead’ pass through our village. Let ‘em come, the more the merrier.”
1877: In July 1877, George W. Harding and Frank Rawley filled 79 bushels with locusts during Minnesota’s “grasshopper plaque.” There was a bounty on the pests, something like 17 cents a bushel. The locusts were dumped into a pit where the Sibley Antiques building is now, for over a year.
1889: Litchfield’s Brightwood Beach resort on Lake Ripley opened with a gala affair on the Fourth of July in 1889, complete with a hot-air balloon ascension near downtown by the railroad tracks.
1890: On the Fourth of July in 1890, Litchfield citizens switched on their electric lights for the first time in an “Illumination Ceremony.” Not everyone had electricity in their houses yet, but soon it would be a common thing, I’m told on good authority. An article ran in the Willmar Argus newspaper in early July 1890, which confirmed what we Litchfieldites already knew: “Litchfield will have a large delegation from Willmar on the Fourth (of July). The boys of Willmar are kind of stuck on the good-looking girls in Litchfield and the good-looking Willmar girls are way up on the good-looking boys in Litchfield.” (Like the Shaw boys.)
1903: Dr. Henry C. Peters, a veterinarian surgeon, bought the first automobile in Litchfield in July of 1903. I’m not sure who sold it to him. The newspaper reported, “Dr. Peters of Litchfield was in Grove City Tuesday with his automobile. He makes the trip here in about two winks of a goose’s eye.” (Wow, that’s fast!)
1904: The G.A.R. had an Encampment in the park from July 4-6, 1904. The governor and a senator spoke. There was a parade and music in the park.
1910: Van Spence, Litchfield’s famous resident “African-American,” died on Friday, July 29, 1910, from Bright’s disease (inflammation of the kidney) and rheumatism in Minneapolis.
1947: In July 1947, Sandgren Shoe Store advertised that you could buy comfortable shoes at the store, because the store had “X-Ray Fitting.” The fascinating machine Sandgren’s had for a time was a foot X-ray machine called a fluoroscope. An X-ray machine with absolutely no safeguards or lead aprons around little kids? It’s unbelievable that it even got on the market. It was removed in the late 1950s. Greep’s had a fluoroscope once also. The customer would put on a new pair of shoes and stand up on the machine, inserting his feet into a slot. The clerk would then turn the machine on. Looking through a viewer on the top, you could tell how the shoes fit. There were two extra viewers for the customer’s mom or wife and the salesman. Kids and husbands were never allowed to make such a big decision as to what they should put on their own feet.
1952: In July 1952, my mother was told that some doctors at the University of Minnesota were experimenting with heart defect repair operations. This snowballed into her contacting Dr. Lillehei at the U of M Heart Hospital, the inventor of open-heart surgery, and my brother Mike Shaw making medical history later that year.
1967: Phyllis Koenig’s husband, Bob, who worked at the post office, died suddenly on July 8, 1967, leaving Phyllis to raise her little children by herself. She taught an amazing 54 years in our high school while raising her kids alone.
1976: “Wouldn’t it be nice if Litchfield had a community theater?” Bernie Aaker asked his wife, Patty, that question one evening over supper. “What are you cooking up now?” Patty asked back. “Well, Charlie Blesener and I were talking this morning and ... .” And that’s how Litchfield got its fine community theater. It took a long time to get the theater going from that discussion though. Almost two years later, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” debuted on July 7, 1976. One of the actors was Litchfield’s famous high school director and Santa Claus, Floyd Warta. Twenty-five years later, Bernie directed his last play for the community theater. It was “The Music Man.”
