6.2. HRSR 05-28-2002 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Elk River Phase II Inventory Form May 2002 Draft • Downtown Elk River, Minnesota phase II Resour II HResources Inventory May 2002 Draft for Review and Comment , x , w ,a` �,� gip. ,�. „J.,' 0-'7"' A u% Main Street from Quincy Street,looking southeast to Jackson Street,ca. 1910. The Oddfellows Block at middle left is no longer standing,but many of the other buildings in this photo remain. SC photo. Summary of Findings Elk River seems to be peculiarly unfortunate in the matter of fires for a town of its size, for besides three disastrous confl agrations in recent years it has in the course of its history lost by fire two flouring mills, two or three saw mills,planing factory and adjacent machine shop, two large stores and several smaller ones at upper town,a brick school house and numerous residences. Sherburne County Star News clipping,ca. 1902. Elk River's commercial architecture over the past 150 years has been of generally simple and utilitarian character. The first small stores built by Ard Godfrey and others in the 1850s were of frame construction,with gable roofs and flat trim. By 1900,several two- school blocks housed banks,stores,and offices. Several fires between 1887 and 1914 destroyed the record of much of Elk River's nineteenth-century commercial architecture. The Romdenne Block(now Sunshine Depot) appears to the earliest survivor of Main Street,but its later neighbors such as the W.H. Houlton Block(1906) and the Bank of Elk River(1915) are also local landmarks. • All have had exterior modernizations,but a fair amount of historic fabric probably survives behind the changes.