Thursday, October 11, 2012

Volume 97; Number 16

www.bladepublishing.net

A community newspaper serving Browerville, MN and surrounding areas. USPS 067-560

75

Candidate Forum will be held at Browerville School Oct. 24th

By Jason C. Brown, Publisher/Editor Long Prairie Leader Candidates hoping to represent the interests of residents in Todd County will face off in a candidate forum Oct. 24 from 7-9 p.m. at the Browerville High School. Candidates for the Todd County Board of Commissioners, Minnesota House of Representatives District 9A and 9B and Minnesota Senate District 9 have been invited take part in the forum. The Todd County newspapers including: The Long Prairie Leader, Browerville Blade, Independent News Herald and the Staples World along with the Long Prairie Chamber of Commerce and the Staples Motley Chamber of Commerce are organizing the event. The public is encouraged to attend and submit questions for the candidates to their respective community newspaper and chamber office. Questions for the candidates may be submitted to: news@lpleader.com staff@bladepublishing.net news@inhnews.com info@staplesworld.com info@longprairie.org smchamber@arvig.net Submitted questions will be compiled, combined and edited to eliminate duplicates and for clarity. The deadline to submit questions is Oct. 18 at noon. The candidates will face a number of prepared questions before o11-18c they face reader submitted questions.

2012 Homecoming King and Queen

Maxwell Goligowski and Brooke Kolstad were crowned the 2012 Homecoming King and Queen on October 8th.

A Brief History of Eagle Valley Township

By Rin Porter This is the eighth in our series of Township Histories, begun in the winter of 2012. Eagle Valley Township came into being 132 years ago. Readers may remember that Minnesota Territory was organized in 1849. Todd County was drawn on a map and named in 1855, while Minnesota was still a territory. Todd County settled on its present size and boundaries in 1858 at the time of statehood. Our actual county government was organized in 1867, after the Civil War and after the Dakota Conflict, when three commissioner districts and three townships Hartford, Long Prairie, and West Union were declared to exist. The governor of Minnesota, William R. Marshall, elected in 1866, appointed A. D. Brower, William H. Redfield, and J. M. Gordon to serve as the first Todd County commissioners. The Eagle Valley area of the county was part of the original township of Hartford, which included the northern third of the county, and what today are 16 townships. Eagle Valley township was officially organized March 17, 1880. The settlement of Eagle Valley Township by Americans and European immigrants was strongly affected by three important industries: logging and the building of the Great Northern Railway, brick making, and farming. After the Dakota Indians were removed from Minnesota following the Dakota Conflict in 1862, their lands were offered for sale. Henry Louis Bischoffsheim of London, England, a land speculator, purchased thousands of acres of forest land in Todd County from the federal government, and expected to make a lot of money when settlers arrived. Bischoffsheim hired George G. Howe, a former U.S. surveyor, to watch over his interests in Minnesota. Howe was born in Utica, New York, in 1825 and came to Minnesota in 1855. He settled his family in Faribault. James J. Hill, an entrepreneur in Minneapolis and president of the St Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway Company, was attempting to build a new line called the Great Northern Railway through Todd County. He negotiated unsuccessfully with Bischoffsheim to purchase rights-of-way for the railway, and finally decided to just buy all the land himself. After Hill bought the Todd County forest lands, Hill retained George G. Howe and asked him to continue to look after the lands. In the 1870s and 1880s, the Clough Brothers, a firm of loggers, carried out logging work for James J. Hill on thousands of acres of land in the Clarissa and Eagle Bend areas that needed to be cleared for the rail line. Hill decided to use the oak in railway construction. During those years, the Clough Brothers hired workers to log out and saw up the oak for ties and rail car timbers. They used a mill at Clarissa, built by Frank Nutting, and another at Eagle Bend for this work. This logging and sawmill enterprise provided employment to many residents of Todd County and brought new people to the

28th annual Marathon for Nonpublic Schools

Christ the King students raised $4,700 of their $5,500 goal on a cold, windy day at the track for their annual Marathon for Nonpublic Schools on October 5th. Above: Kindergarten students pose for a quick photo on their way around the track. Additional photos inside.

Continued on page 16

WEEKLY WEATHER REPORT

Tue. Oct. 9 Pt. Cloudy/Wind 47/25 Wed. Oct. 10 Mostly Sunny 54/31 Thur. Oct. 11 Partly Cloudy 48/24 Fri. Oct. 12 Sunny 53/38 Sat. Oct. 13 Showers 48/37 Sun. Oct. 14 Partly Cloudy 56/37