was hauled in by the wagon load to fill up the street. There were 8 street lights. Kerosene lamps were used for street lights, homes and business places. The marshal got $10.00 a month, and the council got cussed as they do now.
The big fire of May 11th, 1911, wiped out the north side—that is, the business portion. In all, thirty buildings were destroyed. Here is the toll: Harness and shoe shop, butcher shop, bowling alley, drug store, restaurant, department store, state bank, 2 lumber yards, furniture, barber shop, real estate office, the depot, two machine sheds, two water tanks, engine house and store building, 3 box cars, elevator, 2 ice houses, 5 barns, 2 coal sheds, and 2 cement sheds—a hard blow, but they took it on the chin. The council room was used as a bank, barber shop, real estate office, etc., and things were kept moving. Fire departments came from Pipestone, Slayton and other towns, but the wind was blowing a gale that day, and as there were no waterworks, the afternoon was spent watching the town burn. There was a local fire outfit here: two gas machines, but they could do nothing against a blaze like that. The fire started in a barn at the rear of the Grier store. The wind was a howling gale from the northwest and in less time than it takes to tell, the town was a mass of flames. By nightfall everything on the north side was leveled to the ground. The Farmers elevator and the Peavey elevator escaped destruction as did the little postoffice and the old hotel building.
The town came back with a real bang. For years its Farmer's Day celebrations were the leading sporting event in this section. People flocked here to see good baseball. And what good baseball teams we had! Besides the county teams, there was the best in this section of the state. Here John Donaldson, negro player and greatest pitcher of all time, either black or white, strutted his stuff with the All Nations, and then there were the Sioux City Packers when they were in their prime, the Raggedy Tennessee Rats, Gilkerson's Union Giants, a team that had more power than any other colored team that made this section, the Flandreau and Pipestone Indians, Estherville and Spencer, Pipestone and Marshall. Calling the names of the teams who played here in those balmy days would include the name of every better team in this section of the state,
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The Lake Wilson Nickel Plate Band in the spring of 1905
South Dakota or Iowa. The management always had this thought: get the best.
Those early "Farmer's Days" were the "Golden Era" for this section. There was the community spirit that comes to the builders of a community, and the farmers in this vicinity joined in to help make these big days a success. They were just as proud of the Farmer's Days as the folks in town. Baseball was not everything on the program. There was always a topnotch speaker, good bands; then there were prizes for the best buggy team, the best single horse, best draft team, horse races, tugs-of-war and all kinds of minor sports. The first airplane to take to the air in Murray County took off at one of the "Days." Then there were the foot races for the men, boys and girls, some good free acts and the day ended with a big dance in the evening. All the ladies aid societies had eating stands. In fact everybody entered into the spirit of the affair. In the winters we had calf shows, colt shows, corn and grain shows and then there was always the Farmers' Institute for two days, generally the two coldest days of the winter. These were the horse and
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