Sunday, September 26th 1 -5:30 P M

$15 per person (Includes Tour & Sites Guide!)

The McLeod County Historical Society has identified 30 Lost Towns that existed at one time throughout the fourteen townships in the county-so many towns that the Museum has created a Northern and a Southern Lost Town Sites guide.  Each guide gives directions to each lost town, photos, maps, and historical background on the town featured in the tour. 

To kick off the completion of our “Southern Lost Town Sites Guide”, the Museum is offering a tour of nine Southern lost towns for $15 per person, which includes the Southern guide Booklet.  The tour will begin and end at the new Henry Hill Community Center parking lot  in Glencoe.  We will start at 1 P M and end at      5:30 P M.  The following is a list of the lost towns we will visit and learn the history of on our tour: 

Franklin, Karns City, Lake Addie, Sumter, Collins, Sundown, Old Hamburg, Penn Cheese Factory, and Fernando

The Collins Creamery

Collins Township Lost Towns:

The Lost Town of Collins…

Founded: 1873?

Location: Ten miles Southwest of Hutchinson.

Collins was a settlement like the rest of the settlements in McLeod County, established to serve the needs of the early settlers in Collin Township. Collins had a store, creamery, and a school. The store served as a community center from the early times until it closed in the 1950s.  Not much is known of the early years in Collins but it is known that Frank Lhotka was operating the store when purchased by Dennis Joseph Provo and his wife Emma Lhotka Provo in 1911. Emma Provo was the sister of Frank Lhotka. Dennis and Emma Lhotka Provo operated the store for forty years. It is believed that Abner Jarrett started the store in 1873 and the history of Collins is tied into the history of Stewart and Heatwole. 

The Collins Store was located between Stewart to the south, Lakeside to the northwest and Heatwole to the northeast. Living quarters for the family were in the store. The Provos were parents of Evelyn Provo McGraw Burich and the grandfather of Ronald McGraw of Hutchinson.  Evelyn tells of the feeling that the home was like one continual happy open house.  Evelyn recalls helping to set up an ice cream booth outside the store in the summer.  Sunday afternoons neighbors would gather at the store to enjoy ball games, trapshooting and horseshoes behind the store. Hunters would stop by the store for a lunch of crackers, cheese, sardines and candy bars. Collins Store had gaslights and a coal furnace until the REA Service was available. Ice, cut in the winter at Eagle Lake, was packed in sawdust and used in the summer.  She recalled that at times the creamery operator and the school teacher roomed and boarded at the home. Many winter evenings were spent playing cards and checkers on the store’s counter.  Supplies for the store arrived at Collins by team and wagon from the train depot in Stewart.  When the motor vehicles became reliable, groceries were delivered by trucks. With the popularity of the motor vehicle gas pumps were installed in front of the store.  The Collins Creamery was built in 1903 by C. Madsen. The creamery was a branch of the Hutchinson Produce Company and later it affiliated with the Heatwole Creamery and operated as a weigh station until the predominance of the bulk tanks and bulk truck tankers caused the closing of the Collins Creamery. In the fifties the store was closed and the buildings were demolished and a home stands on the property.  ]]> http://www.mcleodhistory.org/the-lost-town-of-collins%e2%80%a6/feed/ 0 http://www.mcleodhistory.org/the-lost-town-of-brush-prairie%e2%80%a6/ http://www.mcleodhistory.org/the-lost-town-of-brush-prairie%e2%80%a6/#comments Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:26:36 +0000 Lori http://www.mcleodhistory.org/?p=251

Lost Town of Brush Prairie

Bergen Township Lost Towns: The Lost Town of Brush  Prairie…

Founded:  1856

Location:  Three miles south of  Lester Prairie.      

         One of the early settlements in what is now Bergen Township, McLeod County, was the settlement of Brush Prairie. Brush Prairie was started by Swedish and Norwegian settlers Gundar Halvorson and Jonas Burtman who came to the township in 1856.  Gundar Halverson was the first to arrive. He was born in Norway in 1799.  He came to the new world by way of Canada. In 1854 Gundar traveled to Carver where he was a farm laborer for two years. In 1856, in the company of three others, he bought a McCormick wagon, a team of oxen and other equipment and came to Glencoe where a few settlers were living. After hearing of an area called Brush Prairie, he traveled to the area and built a small shack and a dugout.  Homestead rights were secured by filing a claim. One deed was signed by Abraham Lincoln and the second deed was signed by Ulysses S. Grant. Later Gundar’s parents, Halvor and Dorothea, and his brothers and sister joined Gundar at Brush Prairie. Halverson’s still live on the farmland homesteaded by Gundar Halvorson.  Jonas Burtman was born in Smaalland, Sweden in 1837. In 1853 at the age of 16, Jonas immigrated to America on a three-mast sailboat, a trip that took 35 days. He worked on the railroad in Illinois for a year but hearing of a Scandinavian Community in Carver, somehow he found his way to Brush Prairie, another Scandinavian community.   He survived by digging ginseng, drying slippery elm, and trading the ginseng and elm for necessities at Carver and Chaska. His brother, John Burtman joined him at Brush Prairie.   John Burtman helped start the Swedish Lutheran Church in Brush Prairie, in 1870. The church was built on land donated by John Burtman in 1873 and had 22 charter members.  For some reason many Swedes left the area and by 1906 there were not enough Swedes in the area to keep the church afloat and the congregation was dissolved. 

In the 1850s and 1860s many Norwegians came to Brush Prairie area and settled. Feeling a need for a church, the settlers first met in homes and by 1859 the settlers formed a religious corporation and started a church, Bergen Norsk Evangelical Lutheran Church. In 1875 the church bought an additional 10 acres and a parsonage was built. In 1887 a church school was built as well as a barn and a granary. In 1896 a fire burned the church. A new church was built at a different location down the road and a new cemetery was started. Now we see why there are two cemeteries located so close together.  The same church buried their members at two different locations.  Brush Prairie Settlement consisted of a general store, where the first Post Office in  Bergen Township was located, a blacksmith shop, a school, churches, a town hall and a baseball field.  ]]> http://www.mcleodhistory.org/the-lost-town-of-brush-prairie%e2%80%a6/feed/ 0 http://www.mcleodhistory.org/spotlight-on-the-collection%e2%80%a6-harvesting-tools/ http://www.mcleodhistory.org/spotlight-on-the-collection%e2%80%a6-harvesting-tools/#comments Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:07:22 +0000 Lori http://www.mcleodhistory.org/?p=246

August 1897 Corn Harvest Photo

Spotlight on the Collection…

“Harvesting Tools”

  Sunday, September 19th 2-3 P M-Museum Meeting Room

As we enter into the busy season of harvesting, the Museum decided it would be a great time to shine our spotlight on the vast number of harvesting tools within our collection.  Not only do we have hand harvesting tools for corn and wheat, which most of us think about this time of year, but we also have hand tools for harvesting ice, logs, honey, syrup, and many other riches found  here in McLeod County.  Another important tool that we tend to forget about for harvesting, are oxen and later horses, used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  The use of these animals lessened the load of human labor and with their use came inventive tools to control them.  All the tools that made working with these beasts of burden possible are also present in the Museum’s collection and we will have them on display as well.  These harvesting tools, although now antiquated and extremely labor intensive, were once revolutionary inventions that changed the way farming was done.  The Museum will present our collection of harvesting tools, along with a time line of harvesting technologies that changed the way farmers harvested their crops. These innovations ultimately lead to the highly mechanized way we harvest today.

"Unto a Good Land" One of the Books in our series!

McLeod County Libraries  & McLeod County Historical Museum:

Bringing Books to Life Program

~The Pioneer Trunk~

Funded by the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Library Legacy Fund

The Bringing Books to Life Program -The Pioneer Trunk,  is a partnership program between the McLeod County Public Libraries and the McLeod County Historical Society and Museum.  This unique program focuses on the pioneer experience, through the use of the iconic pioneer trunk.  Three books , each targeted to a different reading level, but all telling a similar story, will be read/or excerpts read, by a costumed interpreter.   Museum artifacts that would have been like those read about in the book will be used, adding another level to the readers experience, helping to bring the books to life!                         

Summer Public Programs:

Brownton Library Location:

    Book- “Going West”-Ages 3 years-3rd Gr.- Wednesday, August 25th-2 PM

    Book- “Meet Kirsten” -Ages 4th-6th Gr.-Wednesday, August 25th– 3 PM

    Book- “Unto a Good Land” -Teen –Adult-Monday, August 30th-7 PM

 Hutchinson Library Location:

    Book- “Going West”-Ages 3 years-3rd Gr.-Thursday, July 29th-10 AM

    Book- “Meet Kirsten” -Ages 4th-6th Gr.-Wednesday, August 11th-10 AM

    Book- “Unto a Good Land” -Teen-Adult-Tuesday, August 31st-7 PM

Glencoe Library Location:

    Book- “Going West”-Ages 3 years-3rd Gr.-Wednesday, August 25th-10 AM

    Book- “Meet Kirsten” -Ages 4th-6th Gr.-Wednesday, August 25th-11 AM

    Book- “Unto a Good Land” -Teen-Adult-Tuesday, August 24th-7 PM

Winsted Library Location:

    Book- “Going West”-Ages 3 years-3rd Gr.-Monday, August 23rd-10 AM

    Book- “Meet Kirsten” -Ages 4th-6th Gr.-Monday, August 23rd-11 AM

    Book- “Unto a Good Land” -Teen-Adult-Monday, August 23rd-7 PM

Silver Lake American Legion Club

241 Main Street West– Silver Lake, MN

Sunday, March 21st  1-3 P M 

Dust off your family treasures and flea market finds, its time for our Annual McLeod County Historical Society Antique Appraisal Fundraiser.  Our appraisal program has become such a big success over the past few years that the Museum hopes to attract more McLeod County residents to the program by moving the program around the county.  It’s our own version of Antiques Road Show. 

Over the past three years we have held the program in Hutchinson, Glencoe, Winsted, Biscay, and now this year we will be in Silver Lake, MN at the Silver Lake American Legion Club. 

The appraisal program is narrated by Silver Lake business woman and auctioneer Kathy Krone.  Kathy not only aids in appraising items, but picks out key items of value and/or  interest and explains what makes the item valuable, rare, or just really neat.  Kathy has many years of experience and has seen just about everything walk through her auction house doors.  Kathy will be joined by

appraisers Lynn Buck and Guste Blad.  Lynn lives in Hutchinson, MN and

specializes in quilts, textiles, china, glass, and flatware.  Guste, who resides in Hector, MN, focuses on antique toys, metal signs, agricultural tools and manufacturing

implements.  Although our appraisers deal in antiques, auctions, and collectables, not all items can always be evaluated the day of the auction, as they are not experts in all areas.  If your items do not fit into one of the categories listed above, just give us a call or send us an e-mail and we will let you know if your item or items can be

appraised at the event.

 An appraisal costs just $7, per item, to be evaluated.  You can choose to have the item shown as a part of the program, or evaluated privately.  If you have more than one item that you would like to have appraised, you can save some money with three items costing just $15. 

Even if you don’t have an item, this program is a fun and

educational way to learn more about area antiques, local history, and even have the chance to bid on the item you just learned more about.  Admission is just $2 for adults; children

under the age of 12 are free.  Admission is free if you pay

for an item or items to be appraised.