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ELK Ri YE R <br /> <br />Elk River. Atlas of Sherburne County (1903). Orono is at left; the Elk River townsite and its additions occupy <br />the central and right portions of the'map. <br /> <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. An 1879 bird's eye view of Elk River shows the <br />collection of frame buildings, most with boom-town facades <br />(a usually squared-off and sometimes ornate front applied to a <br />smaller gable-roofed building). By the 1890s, there were about <br />twenty businesses in the area, including the Norval and <br />Wheaton general store, Baltzell Furniture, A.N. Dare's <br />newspaper office, Peter Moeger's tailor shop, the Heebner and- <br />Babcock general store, J.M Crockett's tin and hardware store, <br />and the Lewis and Crawford drug stores. The Bank of Elk <br />River, a G.A.R. Hall, a Music Hall and a roller rink completed <br />the area. The Sherburne House, a railroad hotel was built in <br />1867 on the south side of the railroad tracks. It was <br />subsequently enlarged and renamed the Merchant's and later <br />the Blanchett Hotel. <br /> <br />Elk River has had at least four major business district fires. In <br />1887 a fire destroyed Uppertown mills and businesses. In 1898 <br />thirteen buildings were destroyed on State Street. <br />Subsequently businesses located closer to the river at Main and <br />Princeton (now Jackson) streets. Here, an open market square <br />on a wedge-shaped block was eventually improved into a <br />public park with a few trees and a wooden paviliondating <br /> <br />Elk River Historic Contexts and PImse II Downtown Commercial Area Study <br /> 28 <br /> <br /> <br />