Author: Derek Dahlsad

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4H in Downtown Moorhead, Minnesota, 1961

This photo was taken, looking west, down Center Avenue in Moorhead Minnesota, in 1961. These floats, all from 4Hers around Clay County, were on their way to the 4H Roundup in town. Much of what’s seen here is still around, despite the flurry of Urban Renewal a few years later (most of that happened just off to the right of the photo) — in the distance, that tall sign is the FM Hotel, now an office building; the sign now has the US Bank logo. That building in the foreground, with the Anderson Pontiac sign, and the building next to it, are still around, but I’m not sure what’s occupying them now.

see also: older Washington 4H parades * Cali 4H in the 20s * Moorhead Center Mall history

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Armour Stockyards, West Fargo ND, 1938

More of the Scenic Red River Valley of the North — about the same time period as yesterday’s photo, but from one of the tallest structures for quite some distance, the water tower at the Armour Processing Plant in West Fargo, North Dakota. This view is of the stockyards — each of those tiny dots in the distance is a hereford. See anything else between here and the horizon? I didn’t think so. Snow and nothingness as far as the eye can see. It’s the desert and the ocean all rolled into one, but it doesn’t have nearly as many poems written about it.

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Farm Funeral, 1930s

I don’t know who passed away, but they were important to this family. Note the lack of scenery; this graveyard is probably at the bottom of glacial Lake Agassiz, now a nearly-flat, low plain along the border of North Dakota and Minnesota. For centuries this area was grasslands, save some hardwood trees along the creeks and rivers. Farmers arrived in the 19th century, but erosion wasn’t a big concern until the Dust Bowl. The land was smooth and featureless; even today, you can still see where the curve of the horizon disappears, if you look in the right direction.

See also * funeral museum * funeral history * vintage hearses * UK hearses * prairie graveyard * greenwood cemetery

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Nixon at the Tournament of Roses Parade

Who’s that cheery guy waving from the back of a convertible Cadillac? Why, it’s the nation’s most beloved politician, Richard Nixon! Presiding over the 1960 Tournament of Roses parade, Nixon’s car was overcome by beautiful women wishing to lavish kisses upon the vice-president…oh, um, sorry, this IS Nixon we’re talking about, and from what I’ve read he was always a bit creepy. Notice the number of people in the crowd looking away as he drove by. I actually uploaded these to Collector’s Quest, in conjunction with an article I wrote.

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The Troublemakers

These are the Troublemakers — I only call them that because they look like those reckless teens that were only out to start trouble. You know, the ones that listened to jazz and watched boxing and didn’t give a horse’s patootie about what their fathers had to deal with, what with fighting the Kaiser overseas and living through flu epidemics. These reckless children of the 1920s couldn’t have been all that bad, though; these are from the set of Minnesota farm life negatives that I’ve been scanning over the past year. These kids grow up, move to exotic places like Revere, Minnesota, and have troublesome kids of their own.

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4Hers Take Over Moorhead, Minnesota: 1961

In the summer of 1961, 4H-ers from all over Clay County, Minnesota, converged on Moorhead for a parade and a Round-Up. Not exactly the County Fair (that’s held in Barnesville), it was a chance for local farm kids to head into the big city and show off their skills. These photos were taken along Center Avenue, standing in front of what’s now a vacant car dealership just east of 9th Avenue. The photos focus on the floats — sadly, very backlit — but there’s a few photos from the Round-Up. I do not know the photographer; the focus given to the Oak Mount float would lead me to believe that the family is from Kragnes, a few miles up the road from Moorhead (although in the past 50 years Moorhead has encroached close to Kragnes’ borders; if I were a mall developer, that’s where I’d buy land). My dad was in 4H a few years later. At 6 years old he was still a bit young for this parade; these kids would be in their 60s today.

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Charles Baxter, in his vestments

Unfortunately for Mr. Baxter, he’s got too common a name for me to reliably track him down. Most photos are from the Winona, Minnesota area, so I’m fairly certain Charles hails from there. This photo of Charles, in his vestments, was taken in 1916 (as was one of him out of vestments), so my guess is he was born in the 1890s — he’s probably not around anymore, sadly. The back of the photo indicates he’s wearing his “vestments”, consisting of an unadorned white chasuble over a black alb or cassock, with a light-colored fringed stole with the Cross Pattée embroidered at the ends. Having the stole draped to the side would indicate that Charles hasn’t completed his ordination yet — it’s worn symmetrically by ordained priests & ministers usually. His book is rather thin, and is probably a prayer-book. Vestments are similar between the various Christian lines, so I can’t decisively identify his church. Still, I hope he continued his education, and got his stole moved to the center.

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The Simmons

Oh, dear, no…no, no, no. The guys aren’t so bad — pumpkin wide-collars shirts should be coming back into vogue any time now (although I wonder if Chuck Klosterman in the back ever lived this down). When it comes to the ladies’ outfits, however, using the tablecloth to make dresses, that’s too much. The pattern is so hideous, so camouflaging, that it’s possible there’s only one three-headed woman there, I can’t quite tell.

The Simmons, near as I can find out, was a Christian singing-family group from Winnipeg, Canada. Of course, there’s nothing online about them, which is all the more reason I better put something online to document this lovely group. Sadly, all I have is this album’s dustjacket — there’s no vinyl to be found. While we now know what The Simmons looks like, their sound is temporarily lost to antiquity.

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18 Miles To Norfolk

We’re going to Norfolk! My guess is that these sailors were on the way to Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia, ready to work on the steel-clad steamships that dominated the US Navy in the earliest parts of the 20th century. Given the style of car and the uniforms, Norfolk was probably a short stop: World War I was probably the ultimate destination for these lads.

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Took The Roof Off

The idea that a tornado could take the roof clean off sounds like an exaggeration — but there’s ample evidence that’s exactly what happened here. These photos were from the 1950s at the latest — 1920s at the earliest — all of which are on the early side when it comes to rural infrastructure in this part of the world. Put yourself in this farm family’s shoes: It’s raining like hell, you’ve got no TV, no telephone, no radio (and even if you did, there was no ’emergency broadcast system’, no NOAA weather radio, and even a little rain interferes with them all), you’re huddled around a candle in your dirt cellar, and you hear the rumbling — like a train, but the nearest tracks are 10 miles away. You’ve got nothing you can do but wait it out, and hope it doesn’t come too close of the house. They’re lucky it was just the top of the barn — as you can see in the last photo, they were able to put things back together, hopefully without too much loss.