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The history of Detroit Lakes is interesting and unique,
thanks to the many lakes surrounding it
that have helped shape and develop the area.
You can learn all about that history
at the Becker County Historical Society and Museum
in downtown Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.
[acoustic guitar plays softly]
The Becker County Historical Society was founded in 1882
as the Pioneer Settler's Union,
so we have a really long history here in the county.
The Settler's Union was a group of people--
you had to be able to prove that you had settled
in Becker County prior to 1872.
The county was opened for settlement in 1868,
and so those very early settlers started to gather their stories,
which is pretty amazing really
for that early in the history of our area.
And so we have all of these written histories and stories
of those original settlers, including people
who were the first in each township.
So they gathered those stories
and they also started to gather artifacts.
They actually held their collection in the library,
and that group eventually became
the Becker County Historical Society in 1943
and opened their first museum
in the basement of the Becker County Courthouse.
Our collection ranges from objects starting in 1812
and going all the way through about 1980 right now,
and we're moving forward past that.
The strengths of our collection really are
the Native American objects that you can come see,
both Dakota, Lakota, and Ojibwe.
And then we also do have some original pioneer settler's cabin
that has been moved a few times
and has wound up here inside the museum.
We also have the world's smallest gas station
in the basement, which is always
a fan favorite for people to come and visit.
The big folk hero of our museum I guess is Old Three Legs,
which is a wolf that the kids love to come and see.
Detroit was a natural place for settlement
because of the waterways here.
We have two big lakes, we have the Pelican River,
all converging in one spot.
It also was one of the first towns
that the railroad hit as it came through, so as
a result of that, it became a really thriving area as well,
and by 1881, '82, till about ten years later,
a fellow named John K. West was really interested
in promoting the tourist aspect of the lake.
He built the Minnesota Hotel, and it's really
a luxurious Victorian building, brightly painted.
He guaranteed also that you could get from train to hotel to lake
in one hour or less, which at that time was quite a big deal.
He also developed the Pelican River Navigation Company,
which was a series of canals, locks and dams,
that went from Lake Detroit to Lake Sallie and Melissa.
So you could literally go from the train station
in Detroit Lakes to your cabin at Lake Melissa
in about an hour's time, which was pretty phenomenal
given the time period that we're talking about.
There was also a huge draw
because of the ice that came from the lakes.
(man) Ice harvest began in 1887; it lasted till about 1970,
that's when Northern Pacific had ice-making equipment,
so they could uh, make ice on site.
But it was an important part of the development of this area,
because it provided jobs for people during the winter.
It was miserably cold work to be out there on the ice
working in below zero conditions, but up to 110 people
would be employed by the Addison Miller Company
harvesting ice for the railroad.
The ice was loaded into boxcars; they would ship
up to 4,000 boxcars a winter from Detroit Lakes west
and it provided work for about 6 to 8 weeks,
depending on weather conditions and how much ice was needed.
It's really a beautiful place to live, lots of wonderful scenery,
you can drive and see everything from a really dense woodland
that was once clear-cut for timber and is now grown back
all the way over to a really wide open prairie
in the very edges of Lake Agassiz,
so it's a beautiful, natural environment, I think.
Along with that, has a really interesting natural history.
So animals that live here that don't or aren't able
to live other places because of that.
We have been really a wonderful beneficiary
of legacy funding here at the museum.
We have traveling exhibits, both from
the Minnesota Historical Society
and the Minnesota Children's Museum.
We had a traveling exhibit last fall
from the National Museum of the American Indian,
part of the Smithsonian, and that is all because of the fact
that we have been able to access those Legacy funds,
which really has enhanced our ability to tell the story
of our history here in Becker County.
Two men who were in charge of the museum,
went and looked at this 40-by- 80-foot space and measured it
and said, "Oh my goodness, how will we ever fill it up?"
And now we have about 15,000 square feet
of uh collections and artifacts in our current location,
and we house about 20,000 artifacts
and 14,000 photographs,
along with a full research library and all kinds
of interesting things that people could come and see.
We are open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 to 4:00
during the summer months, and then winter form November
through March 31st, we're open Tuesday through Friday
from 10:00 to 4:00, and we are always free!