MCHS - Gone!

Gone!
I was driving home from work one day and rounded a corner that I’ve rounded countless times before. A shed, serving as a milk transfer station, that sat on this corner for as long as I can remember was suddenly gone. Pouf! It had been there the day before, on April 10, 2007, but by April 11, it was no more. The only evidence of its fate was an orange bulldozer and a small pile of litter on the site. Somehow, I figured, something seemingly so permanent should take longer to dismantle. I thought surely the block foundation would require more than a bulldozer to destroy. I was sad to see it go. No longer would I see Oak Grove trucks parked beside it, or have to maneuver around one parked sideways across the road. And then, horror struck! No one had taken any pictures of the milk transfer station! Oh, wait . . . I had, for the Morrison County Historical Society’s 2003 photography project, Uncommon Focus. Whew! Relief. When I searched through photos from this collection, I realized a couple of things: 1) The milk transfer station did not have a solid block foundation; it was merely a wood building resting on cement blocks. 2) An awful lot of structures have gone missing since our 2003 project. Not including Hennepin Paper Company or Upsala’s W.P.A. bridge, which were mentioned as being slated for destruction in the Winter 2004 issue of the newsletter, here are some of them. The lesson in all of this? Enjoy those structures while they’re around. They might just disappear in the blink of an eye. By Mary Warner Copyright 2007, Morrison County Historical Society

Oak Grove Dairy milk transfer station, corner of Sixth Street & Third Avenue NE, Little Falls, Minnesota. Demolished between April 10 & 11, 2007. Photo by Mary Warner, March 2003.

Freedhem Evangelical Free Church, 203 Street & County Road 48, Freedhem, Minnesota. Purposely burned July 5, c. 2003-05, in order to prevent problems by vandals. Photo by Yvonne Kalahar, June 2003.

Larson Motor Service, back side, on First Street NE next to Riverside Park, Little Falls, MN. Demolished the first week in May 2006 in order to make way for an apartment complex. This was the former site of N.P. Clarke’s sawmill, which was purchased by Pine Tree Lumber Company in 1891. Excavators of the site found sawdust still in the ground. Photo by Mary Warner, October 2003.

House at the Warren/MacDougall Homestead site owned by The Nature Conservancy, located a half-mile west of 58 Street & Hillton Road, Royalton, MN. Burned by vandals August 21, 2004. Photo by Gwen Berg, March 2003.

Little Falls water tower, located on Seventh Avenue NE, next to Little Falls City Hall. Dismantled November 8, 2006, after being replaced by a larger water tower in northeast Little Falls. Photo taken from behind and below Larson Motor Service. Photo by Mary Warner, October 2003.

	Morrison County Historical Society The Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Memorial Museum
	A Museum and Resource Center for the History of Morrison County, Minnesota, U.S.A.