WHAT IS THE RATIO BETWEEN HOUSES AND OUT HOUSES?

 One of the better historians from Main Avenue North, is a person named Wayne.  He found Old Trunks and Worn Shoes when plugging in people from his own history manifest.  From what he read here and there, his mother, named Alice and my Dad, Stanley, went to school together.  Most likely it was at Rosebank because that school was on the side of the ridge those children would attend.  Perhaps I should remind readers that Rosebank was built by Gust and Olaf Opseth, my grand uncles, who had a block factory in or around Rosewood, (the community).

And the reason Wayne even communicated, (perhaps) was because he was playing on the Ferris Wheel we had in our back yard on Main Avenue and got hurt and when home bleeding.  Wayne states they lived at 1020 North Knight which was a block west.  Old Trunks doesn't remember the Ferris Wheel there but later, my brother would tie me off in the top bucket and go play on Oakland Park Road and I would scream until someone untied the rope.

The Mystery of the Ten Hundred Block continued as he verified what Frank had already told us.  We knew that Emmet Mousley had a sign company in the middle of the block.  Frank lived there with his family until they moved to the east side and resided on St. Paul Ave.

Now Wayne is older, graduating in 1954 verses my graduation year of 1966, so one has to give him a lot of credit for what he remembers.  It is almost gospel because of his age.  And the man has incredible memory skills.

Now I don't have to like that he wrote that in those days, there was no city water or sewer in the area.  All the folks who lived north of 10th street had out houses.  Household refuse was carried to the slop pile and dumper along the side of the out house.  There was no garbage pick up in those days.  Spring time was when people either hired someone to haul the refuse to the dump or take it themselves.  He went on to write the sign company placed his cans of paint and old neon lights in the alley. 

It seemed the best thing to do is write to the city of Thief River Falls and have them review the original plats around the ten hundred block of North Main.  And this was the answer.

"The original plats adjacent to the ten hundred block of North Main are Fairgrounds Addition to the west (platted in 1913 as part of Pennington County) and Fairfield Addition to the east (platted in 1903 as part of Red Lake County). Sanitary sewer was installed in 1947 and 1954 to serve this area. I found a MnDot highway plan from 1948 when the highway was constructed just south of the 1000 block that shows a 4” cast iron pipe water main as existing at that time, probably installed with the sewer in 1947. Our records are not very good for this old of infrastructure.    Mark Borseth"

 

Wayne was right and probably knew more than the man who answered the email!