Sherburne History Center Blog

Strawberries and west Sherburne County seemed synonymous for a number of years.   At the highpoint, the Becker Strawberry Days Festival solidified the connection.   The lesser known memoirs of Sherburne County residents remain equally important to connecting the local strawberry crop and the county.   A brief paragraph in the published memories of Walter Gohman bear out this important connection: I remember vividly a strawberry feed.   There was a strawberry patch that went the full length of the garden.   The Gohman farm had some of the most fertile soil in Minnesota and the strawberry patch produced a large crop of luscious berries.   A big strawberry feed was in order.   In the morning when they separated the milk, a large pitcher of cream was saved.   The pitcher or cream was placed on ice in the ice house.   A long table was set up by placing planks on saw horses in from of the long porch.   We were each given a bowl and told to p...

An abundance of stories exist describing the anger and backlash against Germany during World War One.   Numerous stories tell of American cities changing street names to no longer reflect a German influence. Or, restaurants changing menu items, such as the hamburger suddenly became a Liberty sandwich, or sauerkraut became liberty cabbage.   Memoirs in the Sherburne History Center collections serve as reminders that Elk River displayed an animosity towards Germany.   The story of this animosity, however, faded from memory and did not come back to light until the 1990s.   The actions in Elk River expose an interesting character trait for the small city.  In 1917, with the United States preparing for war, patriotic fervor seemed omnipresent.   In the case of Elk River High School students initiated action to force the removal of German language instruction from the curriculum.   Students walked out on strike, refusing to return to the classroom unti...

Electricity in Sherburne County generates a variety of unique stories about living and growing up in the county.   Providing electricity to the entire county stretched, in time, for over forty years.   Electrical power first arrived in Elk River in 1917.   In other areas, isolated farms, in the county, electricity came available in the 1950s.   Stories of electricity and the times before electrical power provide a unique perspective on life in Sherburne County.   The edited oral history of Angela Goenner. of Clear Lake, is one of these unique stories.   Born in Nebraksa, Angela (Eikmeier) Goenner found her way to Minnesota as a child.   Her parents operated a general store in Stearns County before moving to Sherburne County.   Angela married Ernest Goenner in 1933.   She lived on the family farm, in Clear lake, until her death in 2001.   She remembers her family getting electricity in 1948. I can remember a lot about what it wa...

The folklore regarding the settlement of Elk River and Sherburne County carries with it an image of industrious farmers taming the land and creating a home for their families.   Yet, at least one early resident of Sherburne County arrived to invest in community development, sell his investment and leave for more opportunity.   Ard Godfrey was not a farmer, nor a settler in Sherburne County.   He arrived in the area as an investor and quickly left after his investments returned a profit.   An overview of his life might help explain a new interpretation into the settlement or Elk River and Sherburne County. Early in the 1850’s, probably 1851, Ard Godfrey and James Jameson arrived in Sherburne County, at the convergence of the Elk and Mississippi Rivers.   An experienced millwright from Maine, Godfrey recognized the particular course of the Elk River offered a potential mill site. Godfrey set about obtaining the land and building a mill.   His efforts ...

With the lack of a graduation ceremony in 2020, we thought it appropriate to look back at another class of Elk River grads.   Men and women who put their lives on hold as the United states prepared to enter World War Two.   In three years, the world upon the class of 1938 to sacrifice for the war.    And the graduating class from Elk River answered the call.  Look closely on this image you may be able to pick out Jack Bade (second row, fourth from the right) and Charles Nagle (fourth row, second from left), both veterans from Elk River that served during the war (and men we have featured in these blog pages).  Other men and women on this photo collection may also have service records worth noting.

Over the past few years, some blog entries seemed so much fun to research and write.   I wanted to take a moment and share one of these entertaining posts.   This post was originally published July of 2011. Out west, tradition held that stealing a man’s horse was the most despicable and life-threatening action imaginable.   A horse thief was usually hanged without the benefit of a jury trial.   I recently came across the following article in the Sauk Rapids Frontierman on 7 June 1855:   The meanest and most contemptible action we know of, is for a white man to steal a canoe.   It is a common occurrence, for some people who are going to the Falls or St. Paul, and who are either too stingy or mean to pay for a passage down by land or purchase a canoe, to steal the first one they chance to see.   The people residing upon the river have lost a large number during the past two years, and we have lately been made a victim by one of this clas...

Moses Sherburne (1808-1868) A recent search of the index to this blog revealed a significant failure on my part: at no time in the past eight years, since beginning this blog, has an article regarding the county namesake been produced.   So, I will correct that oversight today. Presenting Moses Sherburne:  Through a combination of politics and legal acumen, Moses Sherburne received a unique honor of having a county named in his honor, while still alive.   To quote a biographer of Sherburne, he “was a conspicuous figure in the early days of Minnesota and was largely instrumental in guiding the Territory into statehood.”   His political livelihood, as well as his law practice, shed an interesting light on one of the early settlers of Minnesota and Sherburne County.  Born in 1808, Moses Sherburne spent the first 45 years of his life in Maine.   He studied the law and received admission to the Maine bar in 1831.   While practicing law, his fi...