Remembering Weather in the 1930s

 

The current weather conditions, drought, high heat, and lack or water reminds me of recent research into Sherburne County during the 1930s.  A time of worse weather conditions permeated throughout the county.

Farming in Orrock Township after the difficult
weather of the 1930s.  Notice the thick layer of
sand sitting above the darker soil.

In the years 1933 and 1934, the county suffered a major drought.  Farmers remembered the time as a “dust bowl.”  Some residents of Sherburne County remember this time as an end to farming in some areas of the county.  “The light, worn out soils took to the air and drifted like snow over the roads and onto front porches,” is the way historian Herb Murphy described it.  Some folklore of the times described Orrock Township as the “poison ivy capital of the world.”  Other tall tales suggested that “jack rabbits, when passing through Orrock Township, had to pack a lunch because there was nothing to eat.” 

A variety of conservation efforts restored the area of Orrock Township.  Conservation groups planted trees and slowly brought back the land.  The bulk of the township became the Sherburne Wildlife Refuge and the Sand Dunes State Forest.  All of this resulting from the catastrophic drought conditions in the 1930s.  Worse than the weather of 2021, yet events important to remember.

Another Year For The Sherburne County Fair

 

This week is county fair week.  Give or take a few years, we need to note the 132 years of the annual meeting.  Each year, an opportunity presents itself for county farmers and future farmer to gather and share ideas for improved farming.  This gathering also gives them all an opportunity for bragging rights for their own farming prowess.

An early fair exhibit in
Meadowvale, circa 1900

So, we need to look back at the first meeting of county farmers at the fairs held in Meadowvale.  Starting in 1889, framers would meet for one day in November with the harvest complete and time to explore new ideas and techniques.

Then, starting in 1915, the fair moved into Elk River.  First at a location near the corner of today’s Jackson Street and Highway 10.  Later, the fair site moved to land bordering the Mississippi River.  Finally, in 1957, the fair located to the present site on Joplin Street on the western outskirts of Elk River.  The length of the fair also continues to expand.  From the one-day event of 1889 to the four days in 2021, with so much to see, the fair exhibits demand some time to take it all in.

Post 1916 fairgrounds near the Mississippi River

Although the fair location and duration changed from time to time, the basic goal of sharing information and providing an educational opportunity, remains the same.  The exhibits presented by local farmers and 4-H groups provide an abundance of skill to be appreciated. 

Be sure to enjoy the Sherburne County Fair.  Here is an opportunity to celebrate the farming heritage that is so much a part of the character of Sherburne County.

Labor Shortages in WW II Sherburne County

 

Labor shortages, in World War Two the phrase commonly referred to necessary work in the factories and armament industry.  Often associated with Rosie the Riveter, the phrase suggested a shortage of workers to man the factories and build necessary war machines.  Yet, the phrase carried a tragic and not often considered meaning in Sherburne County.  Although the federal government exempted most farm workers from the draft and created programs to provide more farm workers, the area around Sherburne County witnessed a severe shortage of labor during the war years of 1943 to 1945.  These labor shortages in farming caused more than a few farm failures and forced auctions.

            With the opening months of 1943, a new phase of the war developed.  The conclusion of the North Africa campaign signaled success for allied troops.  Plans for invasion of Italy continued.  And the offensive against japan showed measured success.  All of this demanded more war material.  Rationing and increased production placed greater stress on farming communities like Sherburne County.  Some farmers found it impossible to carry on their work.  In particular, farm workers seemed impossible to hire.

            The federal government created programs to train teen age boys to work on the farms during summer months.  Still later, the government enlisted prisoners of war, from Italy and Germany, to work in the food processing plants and in some of the larger farms.  Yet, the programs fell short for Sherburne county farmers.  The Sherburne County Star News, in April 1943, reported on a program to train young men in the Twin Cities to work on farms throughout the state.  Other reports noted Italian POW’s working in the potato warehouse in Princeton.  Yet very few of the programs and workers made their way into Sherburne County.  The government efforts fell significantly short.  

This inadequate effort led to farm failures and forced auction liquidations around Sherburne County.  Several advertisements for auctions appeared in the newspapers, beginning in 1943 and continuing into 1945.  Many of the ads explained the inability to find workers as the cause for the auctions. 

Labor shortages remains an unusual phrase in exploring World War Two and farm production.  Yet, the newspaper columns during those years reveal a series of unfortunate farm failures as a result of labor shortages and the lack of manpower in the rural counties like Sherburne County.

Typical Tasks for Homesteading Sherburne County

Recent research at the Sherburne History Center disclosed a copy of memoirs, describing the work of early settlement on farmland in the county. Written by Vernon Bailey, it provides interesting insight in the multitude of tasks needed to ready a farmstead for occupation. 

Between other work during the winter, Father and Charles cut and hewed the logs and timber for the new house, hauled them together in the snow.  When spring came, the foundations of the house were laid, the walls were rapidly built up of great logs, fitted tight together and hewed smooth on the inner surface.  The roof was framed of dry tamarack rafters, wide roof boards, and good pine shingles.  A cellar for vegetables was dug under the house after the roof was on but later an outside bank cellar was constructed in the side hill at one corner of the house where milk and meat and vegetables and fruit could be kept cool in the summer and from freezing in winter. 

When the house neared completion,

a clearing was made on the warm slope nearby and garden vegetables, potatoes, turnips, corn, peas, and beans were planted in the rich mellow wood soil and before summer was over an abundant supply of fresh vegetables yielded luxurious fare for the rest of the season and a substantial store to carry the family through the winter.  Our two cows supplied milk and butter and a small flock of hens not only supplied our eggs but increased so that henceforth we had eggs to use and some to sell. 

In all likelihood, the memories of Vernon Bailey described the typical task of settlement in Sherburne County.  The process of building the cabin, building the barn, and establishing a vegetable garden remained the priorities for most settlement farmers.  Only after ensuring the survival of the family, the cash crops and building of the successful farmstead became a major concern. 

Vernon Bailey in his early years of
 his career as a naturalist for the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service.

The construction skills of Hiram Bailey, Vernon’s Father, appeared as a unique feature of the Bailey settlement memoir.  In his youth Hiram Bailey developed master skills as a bricklayer, stonemason, and carpenter.  These skills allowed him to command triple wages for construction work around Sherburne County. Hiram Bailey’s skills allowed him to earn cash money, a guarantee the family never lacked for necessities.  

Although there remained unique features to the Bailey family settlement in Sherburne County, the actual construction of the farmstead illustrates typical behavior of early settlers of the county.

Technology Provides Interesting Improvements to Sherburne Farms

Improving technology significantly impacted Sherburne County in the 1930s.  Increasing access to electricity made life so much easier for local farmers.  The local telephone company promised a telephone in the house could save your life.  Electric refrigerators reduced waste caused by the less functional ice box, the new machines also provided “26 percent more storage space.”  Perhaps the most significant advances in technology allowed farmers more time and greater productivity. 

The advertising for new farm equipment seemed magical in the enhanced production the machines provided.  The Allis-Chalmers Sherburne County Star News advertising Allis-Chalmers tractors in March 1938, promised “work just melts away.”  The ad promised “with an air-tired WC you plow up to 5 miles an hour.”  With this speed it was like adding extra equipment to a “slower outfit.” 

The Allis-Chalmers ad alluded to other technological improvements.  In advertising later in the month, the newspaper praised the virtues of rubber tires over steel wheels.  According to the advertising, rubber tires reduced costs, saved money of repairs, and increased productivity.  Clearly, new air-tired tractors, with greater speeds could only help the farmers of Sherburne County. 

New technology in the household and on the farm made life so much better for Sherburne County residents during this age of new development.

Cater Family Memories

Charcoal Print of Joshua Cater, in the
collections of the Sherburne History Center

The Cater Family served a prominent role in the settlement and development of Sherburne County.  Settling in the area of Haven Township in 1860, Joshua Otis Cater and his descendants contributed significantly to the early history of the county.  Lottie Cater Davis, the granddaughter of Joshua Cater, the daughter of Levi Woodbury Cater, provided an oral history to the Sherburne History Center, remembering some of the early settlement:

My dad farmed in a big way—he had over 1,000 acres of land.  We had an older house in Becker, south of here on Highway 10.  I was born in the old house in 1896.  When I was four, my dad wasn’t working and he built that great big house.  We had that house built in 1900 and moved in there.  I can remember when there we ten buildings on that farm, right in the yard.

They could buy land for five dollars and acre, but to get that $5, I don’t know how the young people today would do it.  They raised hogs—they had to raise the corn by hand.  Cut it by hand and raise the hogs, butcher them and haul them to what was then Pig’s Eye, (St. Paul) and sell them for five cents a pound.  It took a 100 pound hog to buy one acre of land.

My grandmother made butter at first.  Her job was taking care of the milk and cream.  They set flat pans—great big flat pans—in the basement.  She would skim off the cream, churn it and pack it in her crocks with a layer of salt on top.  Then they would haul a whole load to St. Paul.

Up north here, my dad had 160 acres.  They made tons and tons of hay out there and Grandpa sold it—a lot of it went to the place where the stagecoach stopped in St. Cloud—they sold lots of it there.  

Grandpa was quite a poet.  Any little thing that kind of amused him.  He lived with us over here the last part of the time and every once in a while he would come out with a little smile on his face.  My mother and I would know that he had made a poem.  Just any unusual incident and he would make up a poem.

Orlando Bailey and Bailey Station Worthy of Historic Note

Bailey Station Depot circa 1910

A number of early pioneers, or settlers, of Sherburne County deserve recognition. Every few months we  notice one of these individuals.  Orlando Bailey, founder of Bailey Station, warrants recognition as an influential person in the settlement of Sherburne County. 

Born in Chautauqua, New York in 1820, he migrated to Sherburne County with his family in 1852.  He built a small farm five mile west of Elk River and developed a stage station and hotel.  The site later expanded into a railway station and still later a gas station.  Orlando Bailey founded a transportation site encompassing every form of locomotion for 150 years. 

After Orlando Bailey settled the area, he built (for the times) an elaborate hotel.  A 1944  family history written by his nephew Vernon Bailey, remembered Orlando Bailey and his home.  “We stayed for a time with Uncle Orlando in his big house, no longer used as a tavern, but roomy and pleasant with broad piazzas along two sides, a large laundry and woodshed at the rear and ample barns and stables for the stage horses and considerable stock of cattle and farm horses.”  By the time of Vernon Bailey’s stay at the Bailey Station, the railroad companies had bypassed Bailey Station.  Orlando Bailey and his son Albert, devoted their energies to farming.  “Uncle Orlando and his son Albert were both lovers of good horses and kept the best to be had for both heavy work and for fast driving teams,” Vernon remembered. 

In addition to settling and farming outside of Elk River, Orlando Bailey actively supported the community of Sherburne County.  For a time he served as County Sheriff, County Commissioner, Justice of the Peace, and Postmaster.  He also instilled the importance of public service to his children.  Orlando’s son, Albert, served 40 years as Sherburne County Probate Judge. 

Acknowledging some of the early pioneers of Sherburne County remains a goal of the Sherburne History Center.  His work to settle the area and his contributions to public service for the county, Orlando Bailey stands out as an early settler providing significant contributions to the early community of Sherburne County.

The Grasshopper Plague in the 1870s

The sky was black, dark, almost like a coming storm.  But as the clouds moved closer a shrill hum seemed to accompany the storm.  Only when the cloud finally arrived was it apparent: this was no rainfall, no simple burst of water from the sky.  Instead, the heavens dropped an invading horde of grasshoppers, more specifically Rocky Mountain Locusts, upon the farm lands of Minnesota.  Arriving first in 1873, and for the next five years, in a seeming random pattern a plague of locusts returned to devour the crops of farmers throughout the state.

Various descriptions of this five year plague contain consistent themes.  The grasshoppers came, devouring everything in their path.  First chewing and destroying the grain crops, then any green plants that might remain.  In an effort to fight the destruction, some farmers tried covering plants with blankets and other cloth.  The grasshoppers ate the fabric.  Other reports describe the grasshoppers eating leather harnesses of plow horses.  The horde even fed on fence posts and ax handles.  Nothing was safe from the ravenous insects

In the five years of the Minnesota grasshopper plague, the losses were devastating.  An estimated $2,000,000 was lost by farmers.  By 1877, the state was so frustrated by the inability to combat the locusts, Governor John Pillsbury declared a day prayer for April 26, 1877.  In Cold Springs, Stearns County Catholics built the Assumption Chapel as an outward sign of their devotion and prayer so that God might remove this plague.

Reports of the grasshopper plague describe devastation throughout Minnesota.  Anecdotal evidence in Sherburne County reinforces these views.  Jeanette Knapp, living in Orrock Township remembered the locusts destroying the family crop.  “Father noticed how nicely the grain had come up and how strong it looked—that was when he was on his way to church one Sunday morning.  On his return he could see no evidence of his crops.  Even the leaves were eaten off the trees,” she said.  “At times the grasshoppers were so thick you couldn’t see the sun.” 

Sherburne County does not show up in the greater Minnesota literature of the grasshopper plague.  The county avoided significant damage from the locusts until 1876 when the grasshoppers invaded like a marauding horde and did significant damage to the county farms.  In addition, the county was relatively under populated.  The population in mid 1870s was in the neighborhood of 3000 people.   

Yet, the grasshoppers hit Sherburne County and left an indelible mark on the history of the area.

This particular essay may benefit from a list of references.  If you would like to obtain a copy of this essay with the endnotes, fell free to contact me.