Litchfield, Minnesota

The January 22, 1880 Litchfield News-Ledger newspaper stated, “Twenty-five years ago (1855), where now stands the beautiful and enterprising city of Litchfield, was an unimproved waste, inhabited only by wild beasts and wandering bands of red men.” There wasn't much else here other than some thick woods and a prairie. The famous “Big Woods” was just four miles away. But, the plentiful wood, nearby water, and rich black earth was appealing to settlers. And the price was right...$1.25 per acre for the homesteader. (The homestead law did not become effective until January 1, 1863.) In an early historic document, our area of Minnesota was called the “garden of the State”.

In the late spring/early summer of 1855, John W. Huy, Benjamin Brown and someone named Mackenzie (John?), all employed by a St. Paul lumber company, paddled a canoe up the Crow River to the Minnesota Territory's west-central area in search of pine timber. Not satisfied with their findings, they returned to St. Paul, but Huy organized another exploring party, consisting of young lawyer D. M. Hanson (called the first Swede to visit the area), Dr. Thomas H. Skinner, and Rudolph Schultz. Late that summer, the explorers took off for the same area and, in the fall, they stopped in what is now the township of Harvey. There they planned to start a town and call it Kar-i-shon, Sioux for “crow”, which is what the Indians called the area. But, for some reason, they moved on to the present day Forest City area where they met Dr. Frederick Noah Ripley. They preferred this area so Schultz and Huy made a dugout house on the banks of the Crow River where it made a junction with a creek and Huy stayed in it through the following winter to make a claim on the land. He thus became the first permanent white resident of the county. The others, except for Dr. Ripley, returned to St. Paul where Hanson went before the legislature and urged them to create a new county, which would include the area he had just visited.

The legislature complied and established Meeker County on February 23, 1856. The county was named in honor of Bradley Burr Meeker of Minneapolis, who was an associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court from 1849 to 1853. Hanson and Huy, who were appointed county commissioners, met in the newly started Forest City on May 6, 1856, and organized the county on paper. Ripley, another appointed commissioner, was to have joined them, but he had frozen to death the previous March 3 half a mile from the lake which now bears his name. William S. Chapman found his body later in the spring. With the nearby Crow River for transportation, more and more people gravitated to Forest City. It was named the county seat.

Litchfield was originally a portion of a Congressional township named Round Lake, but most people called it Ripley after the lake one mile from its center. Prairie schooners or covered wagons brought the first white people to settle in the area in July 1856. They were Ole Halverson of Ness or Nes, Norway, who changed his name to Ole Ness, Henry T. Halverson, Sr., Ole Halverson of Thoen, who changed to Ole Thoen, Amos Nelson of Fossen, changed to Amos Fossen, Nels Charles G. Hanson, Colberg Olson, Gunder Olson, and all of their families. Having previously left their homeland of Norway in 1846, the settlers came here from Orfordville, Wisconsin (south of Madison, almost to Illinois). Nels Charles G. Hanson had a twin brother named Carl John Gottfried Hanson, who I believe didn't accompany Nels.

Later that year, William Benson, Sven or Swen, and Nels Swenson, Michael Lenhardt, and Ferdinand, Christian, Frederick and William Cook came, also by prairie schooner. Sarah Jane Dougherty became the first white child to be born in Meeker County. She was born in her parents’ prairie schooner on July 15, 1856. (She died in 1952 in Litchfield.) The first white male child, born in his parents’ crude log cabin on December 11, 1856, was Ole Hoen H. Halverson. (He died in Litchfield on June 22, 1925.) I suppose Henry Thoen Halverson and his wife Margaret's cabin was the first “house” in town if you can call it that. There was another “first house”. More about that later. More people came in 1857. The 1857 Litchfield township census had Englishman George Blackwell, Norwegians Ole and Margaret Halverson, Gunden Alson, Keeted and Carrie Harrison, Henry and Margaret Hulverson, Barbary Hendrickson, Ole Halverson, Oliver and Jane Halverson, Guider Holson, Nelsoter and Annie Johnson, Gulfan Eberson, Asmond Nelson, Oli Climinson and Swedish Ole Benson. After the census, more people came. They were Bengt Hanson, John Larson and his sons, Nels, Andrew, Peter E. and Lewis Larson, Hogen Peterson, Thorlson J. Cornelius, Ole Amundson, Nels Danielson, Kittel Haroldson, Henry J. Johnson, Ole Kittelson, Jesse V. Branham, Sr. and his sons, Jesse V., Jr., William and Edward Branham, Oscar Erickson, Nels Clements, Ola Johnson, and Louis and Maximillian Cook. Still more in 1858. They were Iver Jackson, Bengt Nelson, John and Thomas McGannon, and a man named George B. Waller, Sr. George had so much land, that he deeded one-half interest in 150 acres of his land to the railroad company to plat a town upon, and upon which a part of the original township was laid out in July, 1869.

Waller shipped the lumber to build a house, which he had gotten out of Minneapolis, to here as soon as the trains were running, and he put up one of the first houses in the village. He moved his family here in November 1869. The pioneers, some of whom lived in nothing more than a “dugout”, named their settlement Ness on April 5, 1858, because most of the first settlers’ home church was in Ness, Hullingdahl, Norway. Minnesota became the 32nd state in the Union on May 11, 1858. In the fall of 1858, the Ness church here was established in the Ness home, which was southwest of present-day Litchfield. Norwegian Reverend William Frederickson conducted the first service and, in 1874, the settlers there built an actual church building.

The government started offering free land to homesteaders in the Litchfield area in 1861. The Indian Outbreak of 1862, also called the Sioux Uprising, slowed immigration to the area, however. The Sioux War moved further out west as the local Indians were put under control and the Civil War ended in 1865. Veterans started coming to Minnesota looking to start a new life. Immigration to our Meeker County, however, continued to be slow until the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad, which became the St. Paul and Pacific and then the Great Northern, started coming through the Ness area in 1869. The first train to arrive was a construction train on August 13, 1869. Having been in service for only seven years, the railroad's first locomotive was called the William Crooks Engine No. 1. A man named Bernard Dassel paid out money to the railroad workers along the route from the train's “pay car”. In gratitude for his loyalty, the railroad named a village after him.

The William Crooks brought the first female residents to our town. Marietta Porter, who was married to Charles O. Porter, came on August 26, 1869 and Mary L. Pixley, wife of insurance agent B. F. Pixley, came the next day. In September 1924, the railroad sent the William Crooks engine on a good-will tour from Chicago to Seattle. It stopped in Litchfield pulling two 1862 coaches and was met by a large crowd of on-lookers. The September 13, 1924, Litchfield Saturday Review read, “Old engine to be here. Great Northern engine No. 1, the William Crooks and the old sleeper car No. 9, the first to be used on the Great Northern, will be in Litchfield on Friday of next week between 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. The appearance of the William Crooks, which last was operative in 1908, should prove of interest to young and old.”

Litchfield was just prairie prior to 1869. An old pioneer, interviewed by the newspaper, said there was prairie grass growing down Sibley Avenue and there was a small pond where Sibley Antiques is today. The pioneer remembered shooting ducks at that pond. Another pioneer, butcher Chris Sather, remembered a big wheat field in the mid-1870s from the corner of Sibley Avenue North and Second Street all the way out to Lake Ripley.

In 1867, George Baker Waller, Sr. moved his family to Minneapolis from Illinois, where they had lived for two years. Then, in June 1869, Waller came to the area where Litchfield now stands. While living in Minneapolis, George had purchased the northeast quarter of section 11 here, knowing that a town would soon be located in this vicinity. George must have heard some talk in Minneapolis about the railroad coming this way and he even knew the route of the rails’ path. When the railroad did come here, George owned the land and he deeded an undivided one-half interest in 150 acres of his land to the railroad company to plat a town upon. I wonder what he got for his land investment? Possibly he just gave the railroad the land as an inducement for the railroad to locate a town here, which of course would increase the value of the rest of George's land. Regardless, railroad engineer and surveyor Charles A. F. Morris surveyed the land that Waller had deeded to the railroad and formally platted it on June 17, 1869.

George moved his wife Mary and two of his sons, George, Jr. and Henry W., here in November 1869. He had a large apple orchard on the one hundred and sixty acres he kept, where he also grew beets. Waller's oldest son, John A. C. married Retta D. while working as a clerk in Minneapolis in 1869. He brought her to Litchfield where he had the first post office in town in his home starting on September 20, 1869. (One local newspaper tells us that Horace B. Johnson was the first postmaster, so John must not have been officially appointed, but he acted as a postmaster.) From 1870 to 1874, the post office was at the northwest corner of Sibley Avenue and Second Street where Litchfield's first official postmaster Horace B. Johnson had his clothing store. The Pizza Ranch is there today. John D. and William C. “Billy” Peterson were on one of the first trains that stopped here. They eventually had a tobacco and candy shop on the west side of Sibley Avenue. They said that when they arrived, the only building in town was a little eight by ten-foot shack across the street to the east from the current Post Office. That would be at the northeast corner of Marshall Avenue and Second Street (202 North Marshall). Ole lived in the barn for a summer while his house was being built. Truls Peterson built the building in 1869 that John and Billy referred to. Truls conducted a tailoring business from it. He had bought the southeast corner of Sibley Avenue and Second Street but traded it for this corner. Ole Ness-Halverson bought the lot and it was Farmers’ Insurance Company agent B. F. Pixley's residence for many years.

It's no surprise then that Litchfield's first real residential house and the second building was next door north of Truls’ shack. Even though the land was deeded by the railroad to Nils Pearson for the sum of $50 on October 6, 1869, George B. Waller, Sr. built the house in 1871 and it was at 206 Marshall Avenue North and still there today. In those days, you could order a house from a lumberyard, like from the big lumberyards in Minneapolis. The lumberyard would then ship, by rail, everything you needed to build the house, including detailed construction plans. So, George had a house shipped to him from Minneapolis as soon as the trains were up and running.

The third building to go up was Samuel Alvin Heard and C. D. Ward's general merchandise store at the southwest corner of Sibley Avenue and Third Street. It was Litchfield's first store and Heard was Litchfield's eighth Village Council President in 1879. The clothing store and Post Office building owned by Horace B. Johnson at the northwest corner of Sibley Avenue and Second Street came next. Johnson was Litchfield's third Village Council President in 1874 when the population of Litchfield was just nine hundred people. At some time J. M. Miller's house went up somewhere. Next came a lumberyard owned by Joseph James, just across the railroad tracks to the south and also his office building, which was on the west side of Sibley Avenue.

When the railroad came in the fall of 1869, the businesses in town were Samuel Alvin Heard and C. D. Ward's store, William S. Brill's drug store, which became Meeker County's first drug store, the lumber business (but not a lumberyard) owned by Joseph James, a lumberyard owned by John Esbjornsson and Charles Ellis Peterson, Clark L. Angell's photography studio, Chase and Dunn's livery stable, Charles John Ludwig Almquist's hotel called the Litchfield House, and the Railway Land Office managed by Col. Hans Mattson. The lone doctor in town was George W. Weisel, Litchfield's second Village Council President in 1873, but there were three lawyers, Francis “Frank” Belfoy, Newton H. C. Chittenden, and Judge Charles Henry Strobeck. Strobeck, born in New York, was the first lawyer in town and he was Litchfield's eleventh Village Council President in 1882 and seventeenth mayor in 1895.

Some other store “firsts” were B. O. Esping's jewelry store, D. E. Potter's furniture store, Mark Baldwin's harness shop, (John) Vander Horck and (Smith D.) King's hardware store, and Harrington and Lynn's Bank of Litchfield, which closed in 1877. Lewis L. Nyholm laid the first cement sidewalk in Litchfield in 1895 in the 200 block of Sibley Avenue. Before that, of course, any sidewalks in town were made of wood. Because there was a gentle southerly slope of the land in town towards Daley Slough, by the time the sidewalk reached where True Valu hardware was, it was four feet off the ground and required steps. Daley Slough was a large wet area taking up more than the block where Longfellow Square apartments are today at 416 Sibley Avenue South. It was deep enough that some old-timers remembered swimming in it.

By 1871, the village, which by then was then called Ness, had grown to double the population of Forest City. The county, at that time, had 6,610 people living in it. Somewhere in town, most likely by the tracks and the depot, the St. Paul and Pacific railroad put up an “immigrant’s reception house.” The 1871 Meeker County News referred to the twenty-five by sixty-foot one-story building as an “emigrant house”. The railroad put them up in villages, such as Litchfield, Willmar, Benson, Morris, and Breckenridge, along the railroad's lines in the 1870s. The largest one was in Duluth and it could accommodate one hundred immigrants. The houses were “fitted up with cooking-stoves, washing conveniences, and beds.” The newly arriving immigrants were given shelter in the reception houses and the chance to buy food and clothing at cost from the railroad while they looked for land in the area. It wasn't that costly to come to America in the early days. In 1885, the Stevens and Company Bank offered tickets from Germany to Litchfield for $23.00. In 1886, you could get a ticket from Sweden to Litchfield for $29.50.

Litchfield got its name from a man named Electus Bachus Darwin Litchfield. Little is known about the man. E. Darwin, as he preferred to be called, was a contractor, an investor, and a stockholder in the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. That railroad line originally went from St. Paul to St. Cloud and was built from 1862 to 1864. Later, Mr. Litchfield's investments provided the means for building a more southern line through Meeker County to Breckenridge. The town of Darwin got its name from Mr. Litchfield also.

The village here was called Round Lake, Ripley, and finally Ness, and the people of Ness were permitted to vote on the actual chartered village name of their township. Electus, showing his business sense, had his wife in London donate grants of $2000 each to various religious sects in town to build churches. The Episcopal and Presbyterian churches were two of them. The Presbyterian Church, Litchfield's first church, was built in 1870. Presbyterian minister Reverend D. B. Jackson had held the first religious service in Litchfield on August 15, 1869, in a small building that had no windows. It was also used as a schoolhouse. Litchfield's first school, however, was in the home of Ole Halverson-Ness in 1860. Ole employed and paid John Blackwell to teach his children and as many others who could get to his house.

The church-going three hundred and fifty-three people in town could hardly snub Mr. Litchfield and keep the name Ness. The citizens put their votes into a ballot box made out of butternut wood in 1868 by Hendrick Thoen “Henry” Halverson, Sr. The box was still being used in town in the early 1900s. The majority voted for the name Litchfield and the township of Litchfield was chartered as a village on February 29, 1872. The first village council meeting was held on April 5, 1872, in the railroad's land office, which was at the northeast corner of Sibley Avenue North and Depot Street, where Sibley Antiques is today. Jesse Vawter Branham, Jr. was elected the President of the Council, which was the same as being elected mayor.

In October 1924, Electus Darwin Litchfield's son, also named Electus Darwin Litchfield, came by train to visit the town. A telegram was sent in advance and the city fathers mistakenly thought old man Litchfield himself was coming. They pulled out all the stops, meeting the train with dignitaries, speeches and flowers. Junior was embarrassed and he wrote the Independent newspaper a letter of apology for the misunderstanding. He wrote, “I am afraid the telegram may have been worded so as to give you all the impression that my father was to arrive. I hope you will again thank Mr. (Jesse V.) Branham’s daughter (Alice) for the beautiful flowers, which his son appreciated no less than would have his father for whom they were intended.” Remembering that Mr. Litchfield's son was an architect, the town petitioned the government to have him design its new post office. Washington, D.C., gave the job to the son in November 1933 and so the son of Litchfield's namesake designed that brick building on the northwest corner of Second Street and Marshall Avenue.

Litchfield's entire downtown, between Depot Street (once called Wall Street) and Third Street, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Most of the store buildings were built between 1882 and 1945. Many were built with bricks manufactured between the years of 1875 to 1899 at Henry Ames and Sons’ Brickyard Farm northeast of town. The first building, made from Ames’ bricks in Litchfield, was barber Michael Robert “Mike” Weiss’ residence on Sibley Avenue South in about 1877. I would say the years of 1885 and 1886 pretty much defined the look of downtown Litchfield. Many of the first brick buildings on Sibley Avenue North, especially the 200 block, went up in those years, as well as the first brick courthouse and the G.A.R. Hall across from the park. The brickyard closed in July 1902, moving to Paynesville.

An 1889 Litchfield Ledger article about Litchfield called it the “Queen of the Prairies” and added the statement “No Drone in Her Hive, and Every Inhabitant Full of Work and Public Spirit”. Apparently the newspaper editor thought quite a bit of the city that had ballooned to a population of 2,500. Litchfield wasn't officially a city until 1943. Up until then, it was a village or a town. In the early fifties, a billboard by Lake Ripley boasted that Litchfield had a population of 5000 (exactly?) and a town motto of “Large enough to serve you, small enough to know you.” The north end of town had a billboard that claimed “Litchfield - The Hub Of Rural Progress”. I don't think you could argue either motto. Litchfield's businesses did have everything we needed to get by in life and everyone in town knew everyone else's business.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 5.40 square miles (13.99 km²), of which 4.43 square miles (11.47 km²) is land and 0.97 square miles (2.51 km²) is water.[8]

U.S. Highway 12 and Minnesota State Highways 22 and 24 are three of the main routes in the city.

• Bernie Bierman (1894-1977) - Minnesota Gophers football coach, won five national championships, seven Big Ten titles
• Florence Riddick Boys (1873-1963), Indiana journalist, suffragist, state official, born in Litchfield
• John Carlson, Jr. – football player, Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Seahawks
• Herbert W. Chilstrom - Presiding Bishop (1987–95) of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
• John W. Foss - US Army (Ret.) four-star general and former commander of Training and Doctrine Command
• Peter E. Hanson (1845–1914) - politician and businessman
• William A. Nolen (1928-1986) - surgeon and author, wrote syndicated medical advice column that appeared in McCall's magazine for many years; his best-known book, The Making of a Surgeon, was written in 1970; appeared multiple times on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show
• Wally Pikal (1927-2017) - entertainer and musician, Minnesota Music Hall of Fame inductee, resident of Litchfield for more than 30 years; appeared on The Tonight Show, Mike Douglas Show and Bozo's Circus, played with such notables as Frank Sinatra Jr, Conway Twitty, and Victor Borge
• Michael Shaw - Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, Mid-America Music Hall of Fame, first open heart surgery survivor, operation by Drs. Lillihei and Lewis
• Gale Sondergaard (1899–1985) - Academy Award-winning actress 1936 (first Best Supporting Actress award); appeared in more than 40 Hollywood films, numerous TV shows, radio, Chautauqua circuit and many Broadway plays
• Hester Sondergaard (1903–1994) - Famous radio (CBS, NBC Mystery Theatre, Arch Obeler) character actress working with notables such as Ingrid Bergman, Burgess Meredith, Robert Mitchum, and Glenn Ford, she appeared on Broadway and was an actress in three movies (Seeds of Freedom, Naked City, Jigsaw).
• Dan Sperry - magician; signature style of magic is called "Shock Illusion," performing cutting-edge magic incorporating razor blades, needles, broken glass, voodoo and industrial shredders.
• Ann D. Montgomery, Federal judge of United States District Court for the District of Minnesota.

• Grand Army of the Republic Hall (G.A.R.) was founded in 1885 by Civil War veterans, who called themselves the "Boys of '61". Membership was limited to the Union (Northern) vets of the Civil War whose motto was "Fraternity, Charity, and Loyalty". The Hall remains exactly as it was when the "Boys of '61" met there. The Litchfield G.A.R. Hall is one of very few left in the nation and the only authentic one remaining in Minnesota. The G.A.R. Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 21, 1975.[9]
• Litchfield Commercial Historic District is an unusually intact business district of a small Midwestern agricultural trade center of the late 19th and early 20th centuries with 36 contributing properties mostly built between 1882 and 1940.
• Henry Ames House was built in 1888-1889 by area pioneer Henry Ames. The house is the only original structure that remains from what was known as the Litchfield Brickyard that operated during the years of 1883–1900. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 9, 1984.[10]
• The Litchfield Opera House was built in 1900, the building is a darling of St. Paul architect William T. Towner, who designed it with a unique “Renaissance Revival” façade. Considered a jewel on the prairie; many people came to watch the performances of the traveling shows that came to the Opera House. The Litchfield Opera House was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 4, 1984.[11]
• The Little Red Schoolhouse District 59 was built in 1913 on an acre of land 6 miles south of Litchfield. The architecture is a classic revival-style featuring a single story, red brick exterior, hip roof, and eight white Doric columns, was constructed at a cost of $3,500.[12]
• Manannah (Union) Century Church, called Manannah Union Church when it was built in 1897, relied on traveling pastors to lead its flock. When membership dwindled in 1985, the church closed its doors. Esther Hegg, a longtime parishioner, bought the church at an auction. Hegg then lead the charge to move the church to the Meeker County Fairgrounds where it stands today.[13]
• Ness Church was organized in 1861. It is one of the state's oldest historical sites and the first organized church in Meeker County. Buried in its cemetery are the first five victims of the U.S. Dakota War.[14]
• Trinity Episcopal Church Founded in 1871, the church was entered into the National Register of Historic Places on June 20, 1975. The architecture of the church is attributed to Richard Upjohn, a famous architect from New York known for Carpenter Gothic architecture. Upjohn founded the American Institute of Architects and served as its first president. The door and side entry belltower, lancet windows, and batten walls are typical characteristics of Carpenter Gothic architecture.[15]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Litchfield, Minnesota.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Litchfield (Minnesota).

• Litchfield Chamber of Commerce
• Litchfield Independent Review newspaper site
• Meeker County Historical Society