Thanks to Herman Ebnet I have aquired photos of the east St. Mary's Church. the first is a architectual drawing. The second I am guessing was soon after the dedication in 1915 .

Halvor Langsleth Letters

Tom and Debrah Betz , kindly sent me the copies of Halvor Langslet's
letters.It took a while to read them. Almost all were in english but
some are in Norwegian so I'll have to find someone to translate.
Actually the letters date from 1908 to 1911. They are a wonderful
collection almost like a diary. Halvor wrote every few days.
Especially when he went on the road selling Deval cream seperators
around Minnesota. He would come back to Holdingford to visit friends
and his wife would sometimes come down from 'Detroit' as they called
Detroit Lakes then. I'll be going into more detail as time goes on.

Letters from the Past

Have you ever seen the tv show ' If Walls Could Talk'
it's about people who buy houses and find things left by previous
owners. I received a phone call the other day. About meeting some
people about a former Holdingford businessman at the turn of the 19th
century. It turns out a gentleman by the name of Thomas Betz and his
wife were in town and they had a wonderful story to tell.
A friend of theirs had bought a house in Detroit Lakes,
Mn. After buying it, they were in the process of reroofing the
house. They came across a compartment apparently not assessable from
the house. A box that had over 200 letters in it.
Mr. Betz was given these letters. Being a person who cares
about preserving the past carefully, opened, flattened them placing
them under archival folders.
Now it gets really interesting. The letters were from a
Halvor Langslet to his fiancee. Written over a period of several
years. from about 1908 to 1912. Halvor had come to town working on
the railroad and opened up a general merchandise store with another
gentleman by the name of Vincent Klisch. I so far have just been
able to do a quick survey of them so far. They tell about the time.
Mr. Betz is graciously going to get us copies of the letters with a
little horsetrading of photos on our part. A real wonderful resource.
I am waiting anxiously to read them all.

New Old Map of Minnesota

We got a new map of old Minnesota. Brought in by one of our residents. It shows the state of Minnesota by township, rail roads and state highways of the time. no date but the company that made the map was in business under that name between 1922-28. Which fits the roads shown on the map.

The cemeterys

There has been a inquiry as to the number of cemeterys and when they
started. As far as I can figure out
1892 Highland Cemetery started, this is actually two plots of land
parallel to each, one belonged to Union Evangelical Church Holding,
the other the Slovak Lutheran Church.
1896 St. Mary's Cemetery started, German Roman Catholic
1947 St. Hedwig's Cemetery started, Polish Roman Catholic
I also understand there was another cemetery called ' Willow Creek'
supposed to be located north of town but I haven't figured out where
yet. As I understand it no longer exists.

The Holdingford Advertiser and Stearns-Morrison Enterprise

One way to find out more about the history of Holdingford is to get the 'Stearns-Morrison Enterprise' newspaper.  A weekly paper published in Albany. There is a column called 'Way Back When' that writes about tidbits about people and items of interest from various time periods. 

A way back when comment of my own. In 1909 the Albany paper wasn't supported enough in Albany and the paper was printed as part of the " Holdingford Advertiser"  now a days the reverse is true.

mike.council@holdingfordmn.us