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incorporated. Soon the village, the hub of the region's "potato belt,"became a prosperous trading
<br /> center for dairy and other farm products.4
<br /> Most buildings in the burgeoning community were made of wood,which was relatively
<br /> inexpensive and readily available. It also burned easily,to the dismay of area residents plagued
<br /> by a series of fires in the late nineteenth century. The upper milling district burned in 1887.
<br /> Downstream,W. H. Houlton lost three sawmills to flames. The town's most devastating fire
<br /> occurred in 1898,when thirteen frame buildings along State Street(now Railroad Drive
<br /> Northwest)burned to the ground. These buildings housed nearly the entire business district of
<br /> Elk River. Instead of rebuilding at the same location,business owners moved the center of
<br /> commerce across the railroad tracks to the area near the intersection of Main and Jackson
<br /> Streets.5
<br /> The wanton destruction caused by these wood-fueled fires was due, in part, to the lack of a
<br /> municipal water system. The problem was exacerbated by inadequate fire-fighting equipment.
<br /> According to Sanborn insurance maps, which provide details about building construction and
<br /> community fire protection, Elk River had neither a fire truck nor an organized fire department in
<br /> the nineteenth century. For emergencies, the village used a 600-foot hose to carry water from the
<br /> Great Northern Railroad water tank. It is easy to imagine how fires could quickly burn out of
<br /> control by the time the hose reached the scene—if it could even extend that far. After another
<br /> large fire in 1903, the village finally organized a volunteer fire department with a chief and six
<br /> firefighters and acquired a fire engine. Water could be supplied to the engine's pumps by three
<br /> artesian wells in the village. These wells were apparently the community's first public water
<br /> supply. A municipal water system was not created until 1920.6
<br /> The establishment of public services is a sign of a community's coming of age. In founding the
<br /> fire department,the village took a significant step in that direction. Sometimes,though,the
<br /> private sector leads the way. It took the capital and the tenacity of a local businessman to
<br /> electrify Elk Rivera
<br /> "Waterman's Folly"
<br /> When Thomas Edison brought electricity to Manhattan in 1882, it lit the imagination of the
<br /> nation. Electric lights could illuminate dark streets, and eliminate sooty oil and gas too expensive
<br /> for many,promised fresh meat and dairy products even on hot summer days, without the bother
<br /> of ice blocks.
<br /> a Ibid.;Theodore Christianson,Minnesota:A History of the State and Its People(Chicago:American Historical
<br /> Society, 1935),398;J.W.Clark,"Bits of Early Elk River History,"Sherburne County Star News,February 1, 1934;
<br /> Cynthia Seelhammer and Mary Jo Mosher,eds., The Growth of Sherburne County 1875-1975(Becker,Minn.:
<br /> Sherburne County Historical Society, [1975]),ad passim.Population statistics are from the ninth federal census.
<br /> 5 Seelhammer and Mosher,Growth of Sherburne County, 101, 135.According to the 1894 Sanborn map,businesses
<br /> included a bank,grocery,printer,drugstore,tailor,and post office. See Sanborn Map Company,Elk River,Minn.
<br /> July 1894,Sheet 2,and Sanborn Map Company,Elk River, Minn.January 1905,Sheet 2.
<br /> 6 Sanborn Map Company,Elk River,Minn.December 1899,Sheet 1,and Sanborn Map Company,Elk River, Minn.
<br /> January 1905,Sheet 1.
<br /> 7 Hollenstein,Power Development in Minnesota,5.
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