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• <br /> 1850s,with Pierre Bottineau's Riverside Hotel. An earlier log <br /> cabin on the site remained adjacent to the frame hotel. <br /> Bottineau sold the hotel to J.Q.A.Nickerson and it was <br /> subsequently owned by Nickerson's brother Henry.An <br /> advertisement of March 25,1853 in the St.Anthony Express may <br /> have referred to this property.It described a large tavern,store <br /> building,a dwelling and a barn and stables.The building <br /> burned in 1907. (This is now the First National Bank of Elk <br /> River site.) <br /> • <br /> View of Elk River,Sherburne County(1879). <br /> The original townsite plat of Elk River was like those of many <br /> railroad towns,where the streets straddled the trackage and <br /> provided depot,warehouse,store,and hotel sites. The two- <br /> block commercial district was centered on State Street facing <br /> the tracks.The bird's eye view of Elk River shows the <br /> collection of frame buildings,most with boom-town facades. <br /> By the 1890s,there were about twenty businesses in the area, <br /> including the Norval and Wheaton general store,Baltzell <br /> Furniture,A.N.Dare's newspaper office,Peter Moeger's <br /> tailor shop,the Heebner and Babcock general store,J.M <br /> Crockett's tin and hardware store,and the Lewis and <br /> Crawford drug stores. The Bank of Elk River,a GAR Hall,a <br /> Music Hall and a roller rink completed the area.A railroad <br /> hotel,the Sherburne House,was built in 1867 on the south <br /> side of the railroad tracks.It was subsequently enlarged and <br /> renamed the Merchant's and later the Blanchett Hotel. <br /> • <br /> Elk River Historic Contexts Study Draft 5/2002 <br /> 24 <br />