My Musical Family

A Crookston woman contacted me at the end of March seeking permission to publish some Riggs family pictures as part of a series of newspaper articles she was writing about the city’s former bands and bandmasters. I was happy to discover recently that Janna Johnson Dinkel’s series has been running this month in the Crookston Times—the same newspaper that featured countless stories about the musical doings of G. Oliver and his wife, Islea, more than one hundred years ago.

Parts III and IV of the series feature G. Oliver’s musical contributions to the city, and I have included links below:

Part III: For the love of music: the rise of the band under G. Oliver Riggs

Part IV: For the love of music: the golden age of Crookston culture

Part IV also contains information about G.