Have you found pottery sherds or projectile points (arrowheads) in Pope County? Want to learn more about them?
Please bring them to the Pope County Museum ASAP. We have experts visiting in April to examine our collection and any pieces we have on loan from the public. (We are open 10-5 Tuesday – Saturday)
By lending us your finds, you will contribute to this valuable research project and learn about your items. Your collection will be returned to you when the analysis is complete.
Note – This is not a public presentation or discussion at this time. We are simply gathering materials and making the items available to researchers. Once the report is finished, we will have more information and will develop public programming.
The primary researcher is George Holley, professor emeritus, Department of Anthropology & Earth Science, Minnesota State University Moorhead.
The Pope County Historical Society will hold its annual meeting Saturday, March 9 at 10:00 a.m. at the Pope County Museum. The brief business meeting will be followed by a screening of a 1931 Glenwood movie discovered last summer.
Staff will play the 13-minute movie in its entirety, then give a brief explanation of each scene with then and now photographs of the movie locations.
The film was commissioned by Henry Longaker, proprietor of the Glenwood theatre and features scenes from downtown Glenwood, the Glenwood Fire department, local churches, the Minnewaska Resort, and dancing at the Lakeside Ballroom. The movie footage was discovered by Aric Oeltjen at the Tom Kramer Inc. landfill in Glenwood, and digitized by the Minnesota Digital Library.
We will play the move throughout the day and give the PowerPoint presentation again at 1:00 and 3:00
Please join us at the Pope County Museum on Saturday, December 2nd from 1-4 pm for our Holiday Open House. Local Author and retired Minnewaska Kindergarten teacher Debbie Hoven will read her book “Light Up the Year” and talk about the process of self publishing.
“Light up the Year!” Don’t put the holiday lights back in the box! Watch what happens when they take off on an adventure that leads them through the calendar year.
After forty years of encouraging her students to use their imaginations, retired preschool and kindergarten teacher Debbie Hoven followed her own advice. Her books will delight young children with their colorful pictures and whimsical prose. Debbie enjoys the lakes of beautiful Alexandria, Minnesota, where she lives with her husband, Brad, and their black lab, Norman.
Join author Carolyn Mankell Sowinski Wednesday October 18th at 6:30 pm at the Pope County Museum for a book talk about The Great Storm: Minnesota’s Victims in the Blizzard of January 7, 1873.
On January 7-9, 1873, Minnesota residents experienced a violent blizzard when dozens of people died primarily on the flat, tree-less prairies. Kandiyohi County native, Carolyn Mankell Sowinski will take you back 150 years and tell the stories of these victims using primary documents and secondary sources. She has identified 84 people from 31 western and southern counties who died in this storm: men and women; children and babies; Civil War veterans and recent immigrants; homesteaders and villagers; residents and visitors. Friends died together; neighbors died together; family members died together. Many died alone–suffering for one, two, or all three days.
Her recent book The Great Storm: Minnesota’s Victims in the Blizzard of January 7, 1873 gives the biography of each victim with genealogical information, immigration story, place of residence, journey in the storm, and burial location. Each biography also includes a section titled “Adventures in Research” where Sowinski provides other information about the victim, local history, or her research process in identifying these victims. The reader will also learn about the State’s Native American population who were removed from their historic lands, making room for the homesteaders.
Born and raised in Kandiyohi County, Carolyn Mankell Sowinski graduated from the New London-Spicer school district and St. Olaf College in Northfield. She received Masters Degrees in Library Science and American History from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. An archivist and historian, Sowinski has written several non-fiction books about her ancestors and the farming community where she grew up in Lake Andrew Township.
We have attempted in the four previous articles and their introduction to present to our readers the extensive history of the Fremad Association and its founders, the Wollan Family. Our journey with you has taken us all back to the 1860’s and up to today. We have travelled up the Red River Oxcart Trail and the Wadsworth Trail, by horseback, ox driven carts and wagons and even on foot. We have given you a brief biography of the early White Bear Center pioneers and their accomplishments and how one family looked into the future and saw the opportunity to enter into the mercantile business, and how they evolved into a full-service general store, grocery and clothing enterprise. And later they found themselves in the banking business. Yes, they were Pope County’s own “Wollan-Mart”.
The Wollan Store, 1871
We have enjoyed the countless hours spent in researching and sharing this all-important information. It has allowed us and you to return deep into the history of a very key part of the area’s formation. Afte rall it covered over 150 years of detailed history not only about the Wollans and their extended family, but the many other entrepreneurs that followed.
For some of us, this brought back memories of our own “formative” years and the stories we heard from our grandparents and mentors. Yes, there have been many changes and quite an evolution to the downtown business district. The economy has evolved as well and key industries and employers have filled in during that transformation. As Elvin Gandrud was quoted, “there are not as many businesses, but the new ones are bigger and more attractive.” Therein debate might arise.
“Progress” and being “new” does not, in some eyes, mean better. However, “change” is sometimes a necessity. We will leave that debate for another time. But for some of us who enjoy a look back into the past, we remember what was once on that block. For example, during the 1960’s these buildings and business entities were all on the block where Tom’s Market, the Fremad Block, the (PCSB) Law Building and Eagle Bank now stand: They were the Ten Pin Inn bowling alley, the Sinclair Full Service Gas Station, Builders Lumber Yard, Ogdahl Construction, the Glenwood Post Office, The Minton Hotel (which housed a hotel, Corner Drug, an accounting office and the Municipal Liquor store, the Glenwood Theatre, The “old” Pope County State Bank and the Fremad (with its many businesses) – All on that block and all gone by September 2023. And as was stated in our series introduction, the Fremad and the Pope County State Bank are on the National Register of Historic Places.
From oxcart and horse drawn wagons, sending orders and cash by suspended wire baskets and now to online shopping and internet banking – What will the future bring? We will just have to wait and see. The next generation is waiting to show us!
Time marches on and the next generations will take up the duty to record our past and decide how best to preserve it. History is being made every day and how we reflect it, preserve and share it is always transforming. Mistakes are made and some we learn from. It has long been said that ignorance of history can lead to repeating mistakes made in the past. Living and learning need be passed on to those who will shape the future.
Learn more about Pope County and its citizens, businesses and organizations. Please stop into the Pope County Historical Society, open Tuesday-Saturday from 10am- 5pm. Personal files and all the rest are there for your perusing and research. Be a part of history. We have much to share.
We would like to thank the Steve Nestor for writing this series of articles about the history of the Fremad building, and the Pope County Tribune for initially publishing the articles.
The Wollan Brothers were confronted with a business challenge in the 1870’s. They were operating a general mercantile store in a rural community selling groceries and general merchandise. Down the street in 1872, Emmet Lytle opened the Bank of Glenwood in a small wood frame office. This bank building did not appear to be very substantial nor secure. As patrons of the Fremad Association accumulated more cash than they wished to keep either on their person or at home, they asked the folks at the Fremad store to keep their money for them. Because the store had a large safe and they trusted the storekeepers, the Wollans, they started placing their funds in their hands. A form of savings and checking grew and this became a cause for concern.
Adding to that, in 1876 the James and Younger gang had attempted the well-known bank raid in Northfield, Mn. As a precaution, M.A. Wollan packed up all the cash in a bag and took it to the Scandinavian American Bank in Minneapolis. The Minneapolis bankers told him he was in the banking business and should be following more formal bank procedures. M.A. Wollan then began operating a bank, the Fremad Association Bank. It had used other names prior to that, the Wollan Bank, The Glenwood Bank or the Fremad Bank. But now it was official.
On April 4, 1894, the Fremad Association amended its articles of incorporation to include “to carry on the banking business…” However, during the 1880’s and 1890’s, although they had relationships with the major banks in the Twin Cities, the fact was they were not operating as a full-fledged bank with any formal organization. On Dec. 2, 1901, the Fremad Association formally organized a private bank known as the “Pope County Bank.” All of the banking department assets and liabilities were transferred from the Fremad Association to the newly formed Pope County Bank.
They continued to operate the bank in the Fremad Building, but the Association business was growing so much that they no longer had room for the banking offices. In 1906 they built a beautiful new bank building north of the Fremad Store. By 1908 the private bank filled to be a state-chartered bank, and it became the Pope County State Bank. The PCSB remained in that location until October 11, 1971.
Pope County State Bank
M.A. (Michael) Wollan was the first president of the newly formed Pope County State Bank. He had been the cashier for the Fremad Association and had developed the banking business for that organization. Although he managed the bank, he kept the title of cashier until 1906 when he became president. As described in an article in the Glenwood Herald, “he was a man of the strictest integrity, of untiring energy and enterprise, he is today one of the most influential citizens of this part of the state.” He remained president of the bank until 1925.
In the new bank building, which will be demolished later this summer, there was not only a fully certified state bank, but other occupants as well. The second floor was fitted for a medical and dental office. Dr. E.A. Eberlin, physician and surgeon, and Dr. J. Jeffers, dentist, became tenants, Jeffers until 1926. “Doc” Eberlin was there until 1964! In 1946 Dr. Jim Gilman, dentist, joined with Eberlin and was there until 1970. On the second floor? Yes, on the second floor. No elevator, no escalator! In fact, at that time, second floor offices were the standard for all dentists and private doctor’s offices throughout the entire community.
M.A. Wollan turned over the banking reins to Andrew Lund in 1925 and he was president until 1931. Lund was on the board from 1926-1933. Like the Wollans, he was born in Norway and at age 20 came to Minneapolis. There he was in construction until 1881 when he joined the Gold Rush in the Black Hills in Dakota Territory. In 1881 he was in the mercantile business in Norcross, Mn., and later he was in banking in Wheaton. By 1905 Andrew Lund had opened a bank in Norcross. He joined the PCSB board of directors in 1926 and succeeded M.A. Wollan as its president in 1931. Because of failing health, he resigned as president but remained on the board of directors until 1933.
Oluf Gandrud stepped in and filled the presidency in 1931. He had invested in the PCSB in 1926 and was its cashier until 1931. He and his brother Gustav had purchased their home farm and later Oluf sold out to Gustav and purchased an interest in the I.S. Selleseth Mercantile in Glenwood and later managed a sash and door company in Fergus Falls. In 1926, Oluf Gandrud invested in the PCSB, and now realizing a life’s ambition was made cashier. In 1932 he left PCSB to be named president of the Swift County Bank in Benson.
Succeeding Olaf in 1932, another local lad, Elvin A. Gandrud, became president of the PCSB. Like the others, E.A. Gandrud was raised on a Pope County farm. He served as the bank’s president from 1932 until 1977 and was a director until his passing in 1979. One of his recollections and certainly his most vivid memory was of the depression days and especially the famous “bank holiday” in March 1933 when the government froze the assets of all banks in the country for a few days. But, as difficult as those years were, the bank survived and prospered.
Born Feb. 3, 1891, Elvin Gandrud was raised on a farm and attended the Glenwood Academy and graduated from Park Region College in Fergus Falls. He taught school for two years in Yellow Medicine County and entered the banking business in Hazel Run, Mn. That was interrupted by army service in World War I. In 1918 he joined the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Fergus, where he was assistant cashier until 1926. He was promoted to cashier and chief executive officer of their F & M Bank of Dalton. In March 1931 he became the vice president of the PCSB and by January 1932 was the president.
In 1932 the total assets of the PCSB were $350,000.00. In those days all ledgers and transactions were done by hand – no machines or photo copiers. Elvin was quoted in a Pope County Tribune biography as saying “I enjoyed great satisfaction in helping others and seeing them progress” and knowing that he had assisted them. He saw the streetlights installed in Glenwood, and as time went on, “fewer stores, but now larger and more attractive.” One of the major changes E.A. Gandrud saw was the “decline in the Soo Line payroll” which effected bank deposits. In the 1960’s over 200 Glenwood families were supported by Soo Line Railroad salaries. Gandrud also noted that “tourism increased and new industries were developed” to offset the decline in railroad jobs.
E.A. Gandrud was an active member in the Glenwood Chamber of Commerce, Glenwood Lutheran Church, Glenwood Public School Board Director, Minnewaska Golf Club president, a Mason and a World War I veteran.
The minutes of the 1937 annual meeting of the PCSB show E.A. Gandrud as president with directors T.R. Thompson, Oluf Gandrud, and Magnus Troen. T.R. (Ted) Thompson was cashier, his wife Leonora teller, Allan Peterson asst. cashier, & H.K. (Harold) Vegoe stenographer and bookkeeper. T.R. Thompson joined PCSB in June 1926, promoted to cashier 1931-1958, vice president 1958-69 and director 1931-69. Ted’s first job was at the First National Bank of Glenwood in 1922. He worked there for “three months for nothing.” They told him they were not hiring but if he wanted to learn the business they would try to teach him but could not pay him anything. After the three month “internship” they paid him $25.00 per month. The First National Bank building still stands as Theresa’s Turn Bakery. This bank was officially organized on April 16, 1904. But by 1926 was put into receivership and closed on Oct. 31, 1926. Not unique by any means – 496 state and private banks failed in Minnesota! In 1926 there were 15 banks in Pope County and by 1986 there were five, two of which had branch banks in Villard. T.R. Thompson moved down the block and joined the staff at PCSB. He was a combination janitor, bookkeeper and teller. Two years later he was assistant cashier, by 1931 a director, and by 1958 Thompson was vice president of the PCSB. Ted’s father was a Soo Line employee and Ted was born in Enderlin, ND. They moved to Glenwood when he was 7. A Glenwood High School graduate, one of his first jobs was driving a passenger bus down the Soo Hill from the depot. Eighteen passenger trains went through Glenwood each day and folks and freight were hauled downtown daily. Thompson was a member of the Glenwood City Hospital board, member of the Pope County Bankers Assoc., a Mason, Chamber of Commerce Director and Glenwood Lutheran Church member.
Allan Peterson was an employee of the PCSB from April of 1936 – August of 1977, a 41-year career with a three-year service to our country in World War II.
Interior of Bank Lobby
H.K. (Harold) Vegoe graduated on a Friday night from Glenwood H.S. in June 1936. The following Monday he started work at the PCSB. Like Allan, H.K. retired in 1977 as a vice president and was quoted as saying “the banking business has been good to me. It is the only job I ever had other than caddying at the Minnewaska Golf course in high school.” He was the banks fifth employee in 1936. E.A. Gandrud passed away in 1979 at the age of 88. He was one of three founders of the Glenwood Retirement Home, the last survivor of the Glenwood City Charter Commission that established the present-day form of city government here in Glenwood. He worked diligently on the improvements of State Hwy 28 between Glenwood and Sauk Centre which for years had been a narrow, dipping and turning, winter hazardous road for autos and trucks, not to mention school buses.
Earlier we mentioned the two offices and waiting room on the second floor occupied by Drs. Jeffers and Eberlin, then Gilman. There were other tenants in the building as well in the early years – in the basement. From 1912- 1936 Andrew Eliason had, of all things, a cigar factory below the bank! Andrew was born in1878 in Norway Lake Township in Kandiyohi County. His family farmed there on a 160 acre homestead farm that had been abandoned by a Civil War veteran. Andrew stayed on the farm until he was 17 when he went to Willmar to learn the cigar maker trade. After seven years in the trade in Willmar and Morris, his former boss asked him to help open a cigar factory in Glenwood. They started it in 1903 and the following year Andrew bought it. The factory was in the building that stood where presently the Village patio garden is. It burned to the ground along with half of the block in 1905. Eliason’s insurance policy had expired the day before! Whoa! A substantial setback.
Andrew became frustrated with the cigar business and in 1908 joined the Fremad Association in their lumber department. He worked there until leaving for North Dakota to work with his brother in law in a restaurant. In 1910 he was back to Glenwood and purchased a cigar factory from “a Jew,” Mickelson. (This was the term used in his biography, a sign of the times). This cigar factory had four employees and was located in the McCauley Building. He moved the equipment and business to the north side of Minnesota Avenue where Ace Hardware is located, and once was the site of the Glenwood Creamery. For the next few years he stayed there and had six employees, and at times was 10,000 cigars behind in orders. In 1912 he moved the factory to the basement of the Pope County State Bank. After World War I the cigar trade began to slip due to modern cigar rolling machinery. By April 1936 he had quit business and retired to his home library where he had some books dating back to the 8th and 9th Century.
From 1921-22 the Voss sisters’ Glenwood Film Shop was in the basement and in 1933 Lindquist’s Glendale Studio. From 1936-1944 Clarence Torguson and Ben Erickson had a barber shop on that lower level. From 1948-49 Ben Cole and Leo Moe had their real estate business there. And from 1953-58 John Dieltz had his insurance and real estate office there. (During those days there was an exterior stairway entrance on Franklin Avenue at the front of the building where customers entered from the sidewalk and down to the basement businesses. You can see the railing on the older photos of the Bank.)
In 1957, Elvin Gandrud’s son, Richard, returned to Glenwood and began his career at the PCSB. Dick was a Glenwood High School and Luther College graduate. He served two years in the army and taught school for one year. He spent two years in St. Paul in banking and another year in Montevideo. He was also a graduate of the Wisconsin School of Banking, a lifetime member of the American Legion, Sons of Norway, Chamber of Commerce, Minnewaska Golf Club, District Boy Scouts, Glenwood JCs, choir director at Glenwood Lutheran for 22 years, and first president of the Glacial Ridge Hospital District. He has been with the PCSB for over 57 years, was named vice president in 1958 and president in 1979. He has always supported the state banking association and its continuing education program. Today at age 95, Dick still resides in his beloved Glenwood with his wife Loraine.
In the late 1950’s it was common for area banks to be open M-F from 9-3 PM and Friday nights from 7-9 PM. However, when perusing the local newspaper, it appears there was some pressure by local retailers to have different hours. Some back and forth went on and in one ad they announced “the PCSB would not be open on Saturdays.” By the late 60’s they announced they would be open on Friday evenings from 6:30 – 8:30 PM. Afterall, Friday was the “shopping night.”
In 1969 the PCSB bought the Minton Hotel which sat on the SW corner of Franklin St. and Minnesota Ave. The Minton was built in 1884 and was at one time owned by the Fremad Assoc. Having gone through various owners it was purchased and managed by John and Gladys Thieke from 1916 – 1965. In 1965 Jim Stradtman and Walt Chapman purchased the hotel. It then housed the Minton Hotel and Corner Drug Store, as well as the Municipal Liquor Store and Lund Accounting. At the time of the PCSB purchase in 1969, the Minton was the oldest standing building in Glenwood that had been used for the same purpose since its construction. At one time there were five hotels in downtown Glenwood used by the thousands of passenger and tourists that came into this area. Hundreds of wealthy southerners flocked to the Lake Minnewaska area in the summer time.
Minton Hotel, Glenwood Theatre and Bank on South Franklin Street
In 1970 the Minton was razed and construction of the new PCSB building began. The grand opening was held in October 1971. The new Pope County State Bank had the first drive up teller window in Pope County. The scrolling message and temperature sign was added by 1976. The bank had a common wall with the Glenwood Theatre. An alley separated the theater from the 1906 bank building. Yes, Glenwood had a movie theatre. It had 625 seats on the main floor and 220 seats in the balcony, the largest screen in West Central Minnesota and the first stereo equipment. The McCauley Opera House opened in December of 1919 as a vaudeville and silent movie house and was built by J.H McCauley. In 1930 McCauley leased the theater to the Harry Longaker family who purchased it in 1936. The Longakers ran it until 1972 when it was purchased by Branstock Productions, Inc. owned by Steven Nestor. He sold in 1977 to Merlin Adolphson. The theater was purchased and razed by the PCSB in 1995 for an addition to the 1971 bank.
The banking business started by the Wollan Brothers in 1873 in a wooden storefront continues in business today under the direction of another Pope County family. Erick Gandrud is president of Eagle Bank and represents the third generation of the Gandrud family to operate the bank following father Richard and grandfather Elvin Gandrud. Erick’s brother, John, oversees operations in their branch banks. In the past few years the fourth generation of the family, Elvin’s great grandson Ryan Gandrud, has joined the business. Eagle Bank continues to grow and now has branch locations in Villard, Starbuck, Wendell and Elbow Lake. “Seeing you into the Future,” they now operate under the corporate name, The Eagle Banks.
We would like to thank the Steve Nestor for writing this series of articles about the history of the Fremad building, and the Pope County Tribune for initially publishing the articles.
Pope County Museum - Museum Musings 