Friday, December 07, 2007

Minnesota 13 Shirts

Well guess what. For a fund raiser The Historical society has decided to sell t-shirts and sweat shirts, hooded and regular. They can be had in 4 different colors, if ordered or what is available. Colors are light blue, natural, white, and ash. Your choice of these designs. They should be at the Corner pizza next week. So stop in and get one. And another for a Christmas present.

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Friday, November 30, 2007

Mnnesota 13 Best Selling Book

I just found out that Elaine Davis's Minnesota 13 book has been the best selling local book of the year at the Stearns County Museum. Pretty good especially since it didn't come out until the end of July. Haven't got your copy yet? Need a unique Christmas gift ? Stop in at Bev's Corner Pizza and pick up a copy or two and browse through all the antiques she has there.
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Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Christmas Pizza

December 3d 7:00pm Historical Meeting will be a Christmas pizza and cookie party. We are having shirts made as a fundraiser for the historical society. Hopefully they will be done by then. See you there.Tags:

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Minnesota 13 Class

We seem to be stuck on the minnesota 13 theme right now, like
here, here here and here but that is o.k. as it is very interesting. I just found out that Elaine Davis is going to be teaching a community Education class at the Holdingford High School Commons on Monday December 10 th ,7:00-8:30 p.m. the Fee is $5 the registration deadline is December 3d. Here is the other information I received from the Community Ed Dept.
'Stearns County’s Wet Wild Prohibition Days'
Dr. Elaine Davis, Author
Elaine is looking forward to coming to Holdingford to share her new book, Minnesota 13, a historical overview of the years from 1920-1933, when moonshine production dominated Stearns County as the 18th Amendment was in effect. She will present stories from, and sign copies of, Minnesota 13. Elaine will also share with you what she has learned about self publishing. This will be a great opportunity for you to meet a local author and learn from her research and experiences.
I believe it will be a enjoyable evening, as she has many stories that are not in the book.
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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Minnesota 13 Golf

The year was 1931, the 13th of June at 1:00 p.m. was the Grand Opening of the Minnesota 13 (13 holes that is) Miniature Golf Course, in Holdingford. It was built and owned by Al Siebenard. The first round was free that day and people were able to play until dark, lights for evening play were being installed . Miniature golf was gaining much popularity around the country. Who says people didn't have a sense of humor.
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Friday, August 10, 2007

1937 Baseball

I was talking to a friend about how popular baseball has been over the years in Holdingford. It came up that local famous baseball pitcher, Ambrose "Lefty" Ebnet back in 1937 received a baseball contract from the Winnipeg ball club of the Northern League, he disregarded their offer and signed as pitcher for twice the all salaried club in Sorel, Canada
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Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Meeting With Minnesota 13 Author

We had a standing room only crowd at our historical society meeting with Author Elaine Davis (admittedly it's not a real large place).
There were many people there for the first time to listen to her discuss the book and ask questions. It went very well, with Ms. Davis talking about and showing some of her research on the book. A lot of folks were buying more than one copy to give as gifts. So she was busy for quite some time signing books. If you want a signed copy, Bev at the Corner Pizza and Antiques has a few . Get them while you can.

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Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Meet The Author of "Minnesota 13"

Ms. Elaine Davis author of "Minnesota 13"-Wet Wild Prohibition Days, will be at the Holdingford Historical Society meeting on August 6th 7:00 pm, at the Corner Pizza and Antiques to talk about her new book.
Everyone is welcome!
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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Minnesota 13 MoonShine During Prohibition


Elaine Davis has just published her book called "Minnesota 13"-Wet Wild Prohibition Days. I just got a copy yesterday and have just finished reading it I found it a fun read, engaging and hard to put down.
If you want to get a flavor of what this part of Minnesota, Stearns County and the area around Holdingford was like during Prohibition, this is the book for you. It provides a lot of well researched information on the history of 'Minnesota 13' the notorious or famous moonshine whiskey depending on how you look at it. That was created and made in the area.
Written in a easy to read style. Ms. Davis relates a lot information about the unique relationships between law and lawbreakers, the humor and seriousness of life in hard times . You can buy copies in Holdingford at The Corner Pizza & Antiques or go to her web site Wet Wild Prohibition Days to buy it or get more information.
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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

St Hedwigs 1919

Thanks to a generous gentleman by the name of David Grossnickle, the historical society now has a postcard photo of St. Hedwig's Church from Feb 1, 1919. If you look close you can see some differences between then and now. Like the difference in the steps.
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Sunday, July 15, 2007

Historical Society Parade Float




Some pics of our Historical Society float in the city parade. I think the folks who worked on it did one heck of a job. Some people though this was the school house we wanted to move into town. No, it was not. Actually it was originally a smoke house and was converted like this, by Dale Skroch one of our members, just for the parade.
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Sunday, July 01, 2007

One Room School Bell

The Holdingford school District has donated the school bell from One Room School Dist. #114 that at one time let the kids know that it was time to come to school. A big thanks !
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Thursday, May 31, 2007

More On Highland Cemetery

I just finished making a spread sheet of the Highland Cemetery Map. I had to scan it in and manipulate the image to be able to read some of the writing of names. Over the years some had faded, light ink etc. I was able to read most of them. unfortunately other than the date of the map none of the plots are dated, well except for the relatively new ones.
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Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Memorial Day 1922

Memorial Day 1922 was celebrated in Holdingford with a "Parade, public speaking, ball game and other sports. Big Chicken Supper" (chicken suppers still popular today) "at the Scenic Hall. Bazaar, Big Dance, Dreamland Hall." It was noted this was the opening of the ball park at the end of Main Street, also Winkler Bros. were giving a free "Auto Strop Safety Razor" to the first man of the home team to hit a home run.
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Sunday, May 20, 2007

Highland Cemetery News

I got a chance to see the original plat map of Highland Cemetery. I had posted before about the local cemeteries The first thing I noticed was the title "Hichland Cemetary" at Holdingsford the map was made by J.D. Morgan, it was surveyed and platted November 1892, with 92 burial plots.

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Saturday, May 12, 2007

1920 Spring Cleanup


I thought this would be apropriate, since the city is having their Spring Cleanup Day on June 16 this year. The cartoon is from April 15, 1920. It tells a lot. The ladies are talking about the city water tower. The one that was on third Street. A park is mentioned next to it, the land being donated for it. Somehow, the park disappeared and houses were built there. If anyone knows more about this I would like to hear about it. As I understand it, there was a park there as well as the City Hall (which was later moved and made into a house a couple of blocks away) the jail and Fire station were added onto to make another house...

Friday, April 27, 2007

April Fools 1920

There are only a couple more of these but i thought I would post them. A little late for April Fool's Day this year and the world view has changed a lot.
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Sunday, April 22, 2007

March 3,1920 Cartoon


Here's anotther one. I would be willing to bet that is Karl Marx with the red flag in his hand, as the American soldier encourages the communists to leave "for foreign parts".
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Saturday, April 21, 2007

Our Own Cartoonist


The Advertiser for a time had it's own editorial cartoonist. A M. L. Rugloski went to work for the Advertiser in March 1920 and created cartoons for the paper based on local concerns. Unfortunately it didn't last to long. This is the inaugural cartoon from March 18th 1920.
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Saturday, April 14, 2007

School update

More good news, The city Council has passed a Resolution to allow the Historical Society to move the schoolhouse onto city property. Present thinking will place it between the Lake Wobegon Trailhead rest area and the city maintenance building.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

The Warzecha School

Update on the old school. It was Dist. 88 it was closed in 1967 when consolidated with Dist.738. It was called "The Warzecha School". The original placement was on the intersection of County Rd. 17 and County Rd 3.About 2 miles east of Holdingford. We are exploring the possibilities of moving it to Holdingford. Eventually restoring it, opening it to the public.
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Monday, March 19, 2007

One Room School House



This is one of the many one room school houses that covered the landscape in Minnesota and other parts of the country. In the minutes this particular one, refered to as district building 1986, was owned at one time by Dist 738, Holdingford. According to the School Board minutes of April 11, 1973 was sold for $1.00 as it was to be used for a area Historical Society that Mrs. Margaret Huls was President of.
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Monday, March 12, 2007

100th birthday

The Historical Society set the dues at $15 for individual membership. Discounted to $10 for those age 65 and older and free membership for anyone who has reached 100 years old. I just found out a local lady just celebrated her 100th birthday so she will be our first free membership. Happy Birthday Helen !
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Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Naming of History Society

We have made the next step in organizing by officially naming the group the "Holdingford Area Historical Society" and electing officers. Everyone in the group wanted to be inclusive of the area around Holdingford especially with Arban, St. Anna, Opole and South Elmdale. With that said all are welcome to become involved. There are 15 members at this point. For more information on joining, Bev Eichten at the Corner Pizza is the Membership Chair. One of our members is going to the State Historical Society workshop in Becker later this month. I will be meeting with the City's HIP group as they have taken us under their wing as a HIP Task Force group.
Our next meeting is April 2d.
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Tuesday, March 06, 2007

cira 1912 Holdingford Main Street

Not exactly sure when but probably circa 1912 as the water tower was built between 1910-12.
There were 3 saloons in town at the time. Each paid a $500 liquor license fee. [same as it is today] Back then it covered the whole city budget.
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Sunday, February 25, 2007

Holdingford on Ebay

I was bidding on a neat photo of Main Street Holdingford from sometime between 1912-17. I didn't get it. I went for the minumim bid and it went for a lot more. Very limited funds for that kind of thing. Oh well. I hope they take good care of it.
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Sunday, February 18, 2007

Holdingford Baseball

Baseball has a long history in Holdingford, John Ebnet former businessman and owner of Holdingford's "Our Own Hardware' store relates about the Ebnet family's involvement in baseball.:
Baseball team had 15 Ebnet relatives
In 1948, there were eight brothers in the Ebnet family on the Holdingford amateur baseball team. Frank Ebnet, the father of the boys, was the team’s manager. There would have been a ninth brother on the team, but Nick Ebnet died at the age of 32.
Lloyd and Cyril Ebnet were also on the Holdingford team. Lloyd and Cyril were nephews of the brothers on the team.
The team played some exhibition games during the season under the lights in Albany. For two games, Holdingford added LeRoy Ebnet, Mike Ebnet, Vernon Ebnet and Art Ebnet to the roster. Holdingford got beat by Farming and then beat St. Martin.
The Ebnet brothers had a cousin, Linus Ebnet, who played in the Northern League. But Linus died after getting hit in the head during a Northern League game. This was in the days before players wore helmets. Ambrose “Lefty” Ebnet, one of the brothers, pitched for Winnipeg in the Northern League in the 1930s and 1940s.

(front row, left to right) are LeRoy Ebnet, Mike Ebnet, Vernon Ebnet and Art Ebnet; (middle row) George Ebnet, Alfred Ebnet, Cyril Ebnet, Elmer Ebnet, Leo Ebnet and Joe Ebnet; (back row) Ambrose “Lefty” Ebnet, John Ebnet, Frank Ebnet, Roman Ebnet and Lloyd Ebnet. Frank was the father of Ambrose, John, Roman, George, Alfred, Elmer, Leo and Joe. Cyril and Lloyd were Frank’s great-nephews and Mike was Frank’s brother. Vernon, LeRoy and Art were nephews of Frank’s.
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Monday, February 12, 2007

Holdingford Historical Society meeting

The Holdingford Historical Society regular meetings will be the first monday of the month at 7:00 pm at the Corner pizza. The next being march 5th.
I was recently informed that St. Hedwig's Church Cemetery was much older than I had been lead to believe. On checking with the Church records the earlist burual date was Dec. 10, 1912. The Church was built starting October 1910.
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Monday, February 05, 2007

February 5th Historical Society Meeting


Mr. Tim Glines, Manager of Outreach Services, for The Minnesota Historical Society braved the horribly cold weather and made it up from St. Paul for our Historical Society meeting. He provided a lot of very good and interesting information on directions a society can take. We are all excited about the next step in organizing our group. Our next meeting will be Monday March 5th at 7:oopm.We appreciate his help and encouragement.
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Thursday, January 18, 2007

Bielejeski Family Public Service

The Bielejeski family has been quite involved in public life in Holdingford's early years.
As well as providing a place to "wet the whistle"
Hubert Bielejeski was on the City Council 1947,48,49 and Mayor in 1960-61.
Stanley M. Bielejeski was on the Council 1930-31
Vincent Bielejeski mayor 1918
D.F. Bielejeski council 1914-15
I'm not sure how long the Saloon was in operation but the photo is from 1908. That's Stanley Bielejeski on the left side of the picture of the Bielejeski Bros. Saloon 1908-14

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Sunday, January 14, 2007

Car Dealerships and Gas

Kroska Motors from the early 1960's. At one time Holdingford had a Ford,G.M and Chevy dealerships in town. In the 60's there were 3 gas stations.
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Friday, January 05, 2007

Monday 5th of Feburary Meeting

Monday 5th of Feburary,7:00pm. Historical Society meeting is scheduled to be at the Corner pizza, we are going to continue to move through the procedures of getting a proper structure. Tim Glines, Manager of Outreach Services, for The Minnesota Historical Society will be our guest. Everyone is welcome so put it on your schedule.
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Thursday, January 04, 2007

Where Meetings Are Held

I forgot to say this building is where the 'Holdingford Historical Society' has been holding it's meetings. We had a meeting on the second of January. Which went well. With Dan Hovland, President of the Upsala Historical Society. He gave us some good ideas as how to proceed with organizing.
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Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Progress of a Building

On the north end of Main Street is a building that started out as the Farmers State Bank, which went bankrupt in the twenties and has been a beer bar and restaurant under various owners since..
From 1929-69 this was 'Kornies Korner Kitchen', now days it is the 'Corner Pizza and Antiques' where they make a great homemade pizza, and you can sit amongst antiques while you eat.

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