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• Many Main Streets in Minnesota have suffered fires,but Elk <br /> River has had at least four major conflagrations.In 1887 a fire <br /> destroyed Uppertown mills and businesses. In 1898 thirteen <br /> buildings were destroyed on State Street north of the railroad. <br /> A shift of the business district was made closer to the river at <br /> Main and Princeton(now Jackson)streets.Here,an open <br /> market square on a wedge-shaped block was eventually <br /> improved into a public park with a few trees and a wooden <br /> pavilion dating from 1917. (This space is now called Jackson <br /> Square.) <br /> The park was framed by a block of masonry buildings on <br /> Jackson Street,most erected around 1898 and then rebuilt <br /> after another fire in 1903. Yet another fire in 1914 destroyed <br /> four stores on Main Street including the building housing the <br /> post office. The earliest remaining downtown building <br /> appears to be the J.H.Romdenne Drugstore at the corner of <br /> Jackson and Main.However,the exterior of the two-story <br /> brick structure has been completely modernized. <br /> The Houlton Block and Jackson <br /> Strom,ca.1910.Photo:MI-IS. <br /> II t <br /> f=- <br /> 3 9 / <br /> _ <br /> \ <br /> Between ca.1898 and 1920,two blocks of Main Street parallel <br /> to the river developed with a cautious mix of one and two- <br /> story brick buildings.After about 1914,Main Street also <br /> attracted a new generation of automotive dealers and service <br /> garages,gradually replacing liveries and blacksmiths.The <br /> Elk Theatre,Sherburne County Farm Bureau,and furniture <br /> and general stores were among early tenants on Main Street. <br /> The Elk River telephone exchange installed in 1902 was first <br /> housed in the Babcock Store on Jackson Street.A variety of <br /> automotive buildings and a new theater(1947)were among <br /> additions between the 1920s and 1950. <br /> Like periodic fires,highway construction remade downtown <br /> Elk River. The construction of the Jefferson Highway in the <br /> late teens,and the Highway 10 bypass in the 1940s <br /> • demolished many downtown landmarks.The present <br /> alignment of Highway 10 also encroached on the eastern end <br /> of Jackson Street. <br /> Elk River Historic Contexts Study Draft 5/2002 <br /> 25 <br />