Happy 150th to the great state of Minnesota
[2008-5-16]
Tag: Woolen Jacket
“Minnesota 150,” which looks into 150 of Minnesota’s greatest people/places/things. That will be on sale as one part of the big celebration on the State Capitol front lawn Sunday afternoon. A week from today the U.S. Postal Service will put the Minnesota Sesquicentennial stamp on sale.
(That Minnesota stamp — it was long in planning. Unhappily for Minnesota this year, the stamp features a bridge over the Mississippi River. We Minnesotans really don’t brag a lot about our bridges.)
Someone asked, “Well, Nobles County — Nobles County is 150, too?” No. Nobles County — Cottonwood, Jackson, Murray, Rock, Pipestone — all our area counties were created 151 years ago (May 23, 1857), while Minnesota still was Minnesota Territory. We could celebrate our counties nonetheless.
One thing lifts like a pillar from the history of the southwest counties. Travel. It has been a story of travel from the beginning.
There were few here to begin with because there was almost no way to travel here. When the railroad was completed, settlement began. When the railroad was completed there was a way to ship Nobles County flour to Chicago or Boston and a way to ship farm machinery and codfish to Worthington. People rented boxcars. Like Noah and his family, immigrant settlers herded their creatures and carried their possessions into boxcars and rode the rails to this fair land.
Some came by covered wagon, of course. I was reading lately a guide book for people who wanted to cross the American prairies in a covered wagon. Get young oxen or mules, the guidebook says. Horses aren’t best for this travel. A man with a wagon should have two woolen undershirts, four pairs of woolen socks, “two blue or red flannel overshirts, open in front, with buttons.”
People traveled to get here and few ever really stopped traveling. Trains are gone and horses are rare; people today fly and drive. A writer was asking lately, “When does Minnesota’s travel season begin?” Even with $4-per-gallon gasoline, it is thought a new travel season begins with May. Some argue the Minnesota travel season begins Nov. 1. This (approximately) is when the old folks flee their North Star state to take up life as Texans or Arizonans — er, Arizonians — er, Florida folks. Whatever.
When did the southern treks begin? Frank La Pachek went from Worthington to Florida on a Harley Davidson motorcycle in February 1917, almost a century ago.
Frank and Ada (Black) La Pachek lived in the Henry Davis house at the corner of Fourth Avenue and 13th Street, opposite the Dayton House. The Davis/La Pachek house is one of Worthington’s most historic. Henry Davis built the house with money he earned selling supplies in the Black Hills gold rush of 1876. Anna Davis bought an altar and hosted Worthington’s first Catholic masses in that house.
Frank La Pachek came to Worthington in 1906 as a railroad telegraph operator. A decade later he was ready for a winter in Florida.
Frank pushed his Harley south over frozen ruts and gravel — there was no paving. He had a leather riding jacket, leather boots and leather gloves with gauntlets. He packed his camera in a saddle bag. Photography was his pleasure.
Frank took pictures of the beach beauties of 1917 wearing swim caps, stretch pants that reached to their ankles and swim dresses that reached to their knees. Arms were bare.
Under a snapshot of one of these beauties Frank wrote, “The chicken is about to alight on the sand.” Under another snapshot of a buxom woman in robust good health lifting herself from the water, Frank wrote, A Sea Lion.
Going to Florida or riding a motorcycle, not much has changed in the passing of 100/150 years. Then as now as always, people of Nobles County have loved travel.
“Minnesota 150,” which looks into 150 of Minnesota’s greatest people/places/things. That will be on sale as one part of the big celebration on the State Capitol front lawn Sunday afternoon. A week from today the U.S. Postal Service will put the Minnesota Sesquicentennial stamp on sale.
(That Minnesota stamp — it was long in planning. Unhappily for Minnesota this year, the stamp features a bridge over the Mississippi River. We Minnesotans really don’t brag a lot about our bridges.)
Someone asked, “Well, Nobles County — Nobles County is 150, too?” No. Nobles County — Cottonwood, Jackson, Murray, Rock, Pipestone — all our area counties were created 151 years ago (May 23, 1857), while Minnesota still was Minnesota Territory. We could celebrate our counties nonetheless.
One thing lifts like a pillar from the history of the southwest counties. Travel. It has been a story of travel from the beginning.
There were few here to begin with because there was almost no way to travel here. When the railroad was completed, settlement began. When the railroad was completed there was a way to ship Nobles County flour to Chicago or Boston and a way to ship farm machinery and codfish to Worthington. People rented boxcars. Like Noah and his family, immigrant settlers herded their creatures and carried their possessions into boxcars and rode the rails to this fair land.
Some came by covered wagon, of course. I was reading lately a guide book for people who wanted to cross the American prairies in a covered wagon. Get young oxen or mules, the guidebook says. Horses aren’t best for this travel. A man with a wagon should have two woolen undershirts, four pairs of woolen socks, “two blue or red flannel overshirts, open in front, with buttons.”
People traveled to get here and few ever really stopped traveling. Trains are gone and horses are rare; people today fly and drive. A writer was asking lately, “When does Minnesota’s travel season begin?” Even with $4-per-gallon gasoline, it is thought a new travel season begins with May. Some argue the Minnesota travel season begins Nov. 1. This (approximately) is when the old folks flee their North Star state to take up life as Texans or Arizonans — er, Arizonians — er, Florida folks. Whatever.
When did the southern treks begin? Frank La Pachek went from Worthington to Florida on a Harley Davidson motorcycle in February 1917, almost a century ago.
Frank and Ada (Black) La Pachek lived in the Henry Davis house at the corner of Fourth Avenue and 13th Street, opposite the Dayton House. The Davis/La Pachek house is one of Worthington’s most historic. Henry Davis built the house with money he earned selling supplies in the Black Hills gold rush of 1876. Anna Davis bought an altar and hosted Worthington’s first Catholic masses in that house.
Frank La Pachek came to Worthington in 1906 as a railroad telegraph operator. A decade later he was ready for a winter in Florida.
Frank pushed his Harley south over frozen ruts and gravel — there was no paving. He had a leather riding jacket, leather boots and leather gloves with gauntlets. He packed his camera in a saddle bag. Photography was his pleasure.
Frank took pictures of the beach beauties of 1917 wearing swim caps, stretch pants that reached to their ankles and swim dresses that reached to their knees. Arms were bare.
Under a snapshot of one of these beauties Frank wrote, “The chicken is about to alight on the sand.” Under another snapshot of a buxom woman in robust good health lifting herself from the water, Frank wrote, A Sea Lion.
Going to Florida or riding a motorcycle, not much has changed in the passing of 100/150 years. Then as now as always, people of Nobles County have loved travel.
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