7.1. SR 07-29-2002 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The railroad transformed the Elk River economy. In the 1860s, outgoing freight included lumber and lumber products such as shingles, chairs, and wooden shoes, and flour exported to customers as far as Boston. The St. Paul and Pacific was sold to the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba line in 1879. In 1884 this company built its own line parallel to the St. Paul and Pacific. Subsequently, the company was purchased by the Great Northern Railway Company. 37 A spur served the starch factory on Main Street. The Great Northern operated the parallel tracks as a single railroad. These lines merged into the Burlington Northern in 1970, now the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. In 1886 the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba (Great Northern) built a line to Princeton connecting to the Minneapolis and St. Cloud Railway to Duluth and Superior. This line incliaded in Houlton Siding, a small station three miles north of Elk River and on the 3,000-acre property of William H. Houlton (1840-1915), one of the area's leading businessmen and political leaders. By 1890, there were ten daily passenger trains stopping at Elk River, in addition to freight and logging trains. Travelers were greeted by a second hotel, the Sherburne House (later known as the Merchant's and the Blanchett). By 1908, this well - advertised hostelry featured thirty rooms, steam heat, and gas lighting, since electrification had not yet reached the town. Both hotels looked like New England boarding houses, with gable roofs, clapboard exteriors, and long porches. Good Roads and Charles M. Babcock The territorial road that connected Minneapolis and St. Paul with St. Cloud passed through Elk River, and was one of the most heavily traveled routes in the state. By 1860, a system of rough township and county roads linked Elk River to Princeton to the north, to Big Lake at the west, and to Anoka and points south.38 Over the next decades, villages, townships and counties labored to improve roads between farms and trade centers. Before a system of state and federally funded roads, much planning for community infrastructure was done by local business leaders. Around the turn of the century, however, electrification and other municipal utilities and road construction were primary topics and the capital and energy once available for road building waned. By the 1890s--on the eve of the introduction of the mass-produced automobile--business leaders and other groups campaigned for better roads under the umbrella of the Minnesota Good Roads Association, founded in 1893.39 In 1898 the Good Roads Act was passed by the state legislature. In 1905, the Minnesota Highway Commission was created to plan local highway improvements and approve the Elk River Historic Contexts and Phase II Downtown Commercial Area Study 19