Ruminations on a Road Trip

I’m back in Northfield after a three-day whirlwind trip that took me more than 350 miles north of home and more than 100 years back in time.

Seeing so many cool old buildings still intact in downtown Crookston and Grand Forks gave me a feel for what it might have been like to live there in the early 1900s.  I hope the residents of those towns recognize and appreciate what they possess, which is something so many communities would love to replicate: a sense of place that’s meaningful and unique.

Sadly, not all the important buildings from my great-grandparents’ time are still standing, or are in good condition.  The Grand Opera House in Crookston, for example, was the place where G. Oliver’s bands often performed during his first stay in town (from 1898-1909).  It's also the place where John Philip Sousa’s band played in 1899 and 1902, and where Mark Twain spoke a few years before G. Oliver and Islea moved to Crookston.  The building was destroyed by fire in the 1980s.

This photo was taken at the Grand Opera House in March 1909, at a joint concert of the Citizens' Band of Crookston and the Burnham Creek Band, both directed by G. Oliver Riggs.  The photo hangs on the wall at the Polk County Historical Museum.

On a walking tour of downtown Crookston, preservation advocate and blogger Kay Hegge showed us the vacant lot where the Opera House once stood.  She remembers being at her dad’s nearby store the day of the fire, and worrying that the fire could spread to other buildings.  When my parents and I visited the Polk County Historical Society on Tuesday, we saw pictures of the fire-damaged building.

Dad and G. Oliver on the former site of the Grand Opera House.

It was interesting to stand on the site, now a parking lot, and imagine how large the building must have been.  But it would have meant so much more to walk inside an intact, renovated structure that had reclaimed its role as the center of important community events, a place so lovely and enriched with history that it gives you goosebumps.

That's how I've felt when I've attended concerts at the renovated Paramount Theatre in St. Cloud, where G. Oliver and Islea performed later in their careers.

Another Crookston structure from G. Oliver's time that is in danger of becoming a parking lot is the Palace/Wayne Hotel, built in 1891.  G. Oliver and Islea probably walked by it almost every day.  I know that the band marched past it during parades.  When you look at the abandoned building and envision what it could become, it makes me wish that a modern-day James J. Hill or Andrew Carnegie would step in with some financial muscle and save the day.

The Crookston Band, in about 1899, marches past the Palace Hotel on Second Street near the intersection with Main Street.

 The abandoned Palace/Wayne Hotel today, at the corner of Second and Main.

I can see why Crookston appealed to G. Oliver.  It was an up-and-coming place a century ago, but small enough that people probably felt that the other residents knew and cared about them, a quality it seems to have retained.  And after visiting historic downtown Grand Forks, I can see why G. Oliver might have decided to move in 1909 to that even more up-and-coming city, with its bigger buildings, fancier homes and wealthier music benefactors.

The former home of Mrs. W.A. Gordon, president of the Thursday Musical Club, at 411 Reeves Drive in the tony neighborhood southeast of downtown.  Islea belonged to the club while the family lived in Grand Forks.

Grand Forks must not have been utopia, though.  After a year directing the Grand Forks Military Band (a city band that played military-style music), G. Oliver left for Tacoma, Washington, to put together a professional band.  When that effort failed – one of the few times in his career that he wasn't able to work his band-organizing magic – he returned to the Conservatory of Music at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mt. Pleasant to teach, before taking a band directing job in Havre, Montana. 

G. Oliver was enticed into returning to Crookston in 1914.  He directed adult and juvenile bands there until the spring of 1919, when he was lured to Bemidji.

I wonder what G. Oliver would think if he knew we'd taken a trip to his old musical haunts in Crookston and Grand Forks.  I'd like to think that he would be pleased to know that my dad and I are fascinated by his life story, and that we feel a responsibility to make sure he is remembered.  

Louisa has said that she hopes her great-granddaughter is interested in knowing about her life one day.  I'm glad my work has her thinking about family history.  If my kids get nothing else from my adventures into the past (besides the souvenir box of “Chippers” from Widman’s Candy Shop), I hope they develop a sense of pride in knowing where they came from, and a sense of appreciation for those who made it possible.