Text is from the Tri-County Messenger from 1937. The newspaper was loaned to the Kimball Area Historical Society by Ruth Brower. In spite of all the hardships, the early settlers found ways to play. They had quilting bees and dancing. The only means of lighting for dances was homemade tallow candles. They were molded by the women and put in holders and lanterns. Some of the candles consisted of tallow, some of beeswax, and they also had a lamp that held fish oil. A string was inserted in the oil and lit, this being a means of illumination. One form of amusement was called a yankee picnic: everyone paid ten cents for refreshments and dancing. A tale how one young boy and his brother spent the Fourth of July is very interesting. Their father promised them they could come to St. Cloud if they worked hard. The boys arose at three a.m. and after completing the chores started a twelve-mile walk to St. Cloud. They had ten cents for spending money which their father had given them. They spent the dime on a cigar and a glass of beer. They split the cigar in two and each took half, then sipped the beer with the sandwiches their mother had given them. They returned to the farm, walking the twelve miles, and reported a wonderful Fourth of July. The pioneer youth received his education in schools of log construction and sometimes even in the kitchen of a farm home. School generally lasted three to six months a year, depending on the weather and how badly the child was needed at home to help with the work. When the youth could read and cipher, he or she was considered a graduate and didn’t have to return to school. Many of the children had insufficient clothing, and many of them tell of attending school in cold weather wearing wooden shoes or just boards strapped over their homespun stockings. The teacher also had much to contend with. The pupils spoke a foreign tongue, and school wasn’t considered a real necessity. In the summer the children had to work ten to twelve hours a day in the fields. They never wore any shoes in the summer and after work had to gather wood for the fires. The brush and stones pricked their feet, and when the wolves howled they would scurry home, regardless of the pain to their feet. Wages were very low. The pioneers who came here without funds and worked as laborers received between forty and fifty cents per day. The hours were long, usually between ten and twelve hours per day, and the work was hard. The farm labor wages were lowest. The early business firms usually paid their employees between twenty-five and thirty dollars per month. One young man who wished to learn the trade of baker paid the baker fifty dollars to teach him the trade. He was to receive his board and room for his services. He remarked, “The hours were long, from six a.m. to seven p.m., and I was kept busy doing odd jobs about the bakery. Sometimes I received a thrashing for not doing right, but at the end of four years I was a full-fledged baker ready to battle the world. Bakers in those days had no machinery to mix the dough; it was all hand work and also hard work.” A pioneer baker stated that he did a good business with the Indians. He used to bake hardtack for them, and they would come in and trade fur pelts for the hardtack. An early hotel keeper says that business was very good when the first harvesting implements were introduced here. “A salesman for the McCormick Harvester Machine co. went out to the farms and sold implements. Due to lack of daily freight transportation, this machinery would all arrive in one day’s shipment. This salesman would always notify us ahead of time that the machinery would arrive so we could prepare for the large numbers of farmers that would come and stay at the hotel until they could claim their respective machinery. We find many such cases showing the struggle of the pioneer youth had to enter the business or agricultural world and establish himself. The stonecutters and carpenters also worked for small wages, theirs averaging about fifteen cents an hour. The farm laborers received the lowest wages, working an entire season for one hundred and fifty dollars. Many of them cut wood in winter for twenty-five to thirty-five cents a cord. With these wages one had to be very saving and a persistent workman, considering most of the early settlers erected homes for themselves and raised large families. Those of our pioneers who had sufficient funds and were so inclined, established business firms, many of which are still in existence today. The early business firm also had much hard work and excellent management. Money was scarce and, in order to do business with the farmers, the merchant had to barter very closely to keep his money within his doors. That accounted for the farmers receiving only a fixed price in trade or other goods for their butter and eggs. “Due to the lack of stable space, there would be teams of horses three or four lanes wide from the Great Northern tracks to St. Germain Street along Sixth Avenue North. When these days were over, I was usually so tired I could hardly move my arms. The farmers believed in eating and liquid refreshments.” Lumbering was also a prosperous business in the early history of our county. We have heard many tales of the log drivers and lumberjacks. Several pioneers living tell us of walking across the Mississippi River in St. Cloud on the tops of the logs that jammed the river. One can just imagine the number of logs required to make it safe to cross the river in just that manner. The foregoing excerpts from a few biographies that have been collected, for merely a beginning to the enormous possibilities of many, many pages of valuable and interesting history which is now being completed by the Stearns County Museum Project, under the sponsorship of the Stearns County Historical Society. Thank you for your new and continued membership. One of the most valuable assets the Kimball Area Historical Society has are its many loyal members. Our Feb. 25 antique telephone tour proved to be a very special event of fascinating history for our members attending. The Kimball Area Historical Society meets in Kimball’s Historic City Hall on the fourth Tuesday of February, April, June and October, in addition to occasional field trips and an extensive history exhibit during the Kimball Days festival in August. Watch for updated details in this column. For more information, call Mary Johnson or Carol Newman at (320) 398-5250 or 398-5742, or toll-free at (800) 252-2521.
