This sound clip highlights the history of Polaris Industries. The Roseau County Historical Society prepared this radio script to share county history through broadcasts on KJ102 FM in Roseau. The topics highlight the history of Roseau County and the people that lived there.
Roy M. Nordine (1904-1989) discusses his career working at the Jewell Nursery Company in Lake City, Minnesota, the Davey Tree Expert Company in the eastern United States, and at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois. He discusses his collaboration with the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum on cold-hardy plants, and the impact of tree pests such as Dutch elm disease.
Mary Nihart (1893-1990) discusses businesses in downtown Lake City, Minnesota. She also discusses traveling across the ice from Stockholm, Wisconsin to Lake City, working in a chicken processing plant, using ice boxes, making homemade ice cream, and the Great Influenza pandemic of 1918.
Ellen (Carlson) Jackson (1900-1989) discusses living in a neighborhood of descendants of Swedish immigrants, and the early businesses downtown. She also discusses the first car in Lake City and her education, social life, and recreational activities.
Robert "Bob" Wallace (1923-2007) presents the history of the foundry in Lake City, Minnesota including its many name changes from H. Gillett and Sons to Gillett & Eaton and eventually to AE Goetz.
Henrietta Howatt (1917-2003) discusses clamming on Lake Pepin, and the pearl button manufacturing business. At one time there were two factories in Lake City, Minnesota where buttons were cut from Lake Pepin shells.
Hattie (Gross) Brown (1900-2003) discusses clamming on Lake Pepin and in Lake City, Minnesota during the 1920s and 1930s. She also discusses immigrating from Austria, her early life, the Depression, and her family's homes. She also discusses competition among clammers, types of clams, the cultured pearl industry, pearl button factories, and selling pearls.
The area west of the Arena Auditorium occupied here by hundreds of parked RVs will be developed into Bay Front Park. In the summer of 1983, an Airstream rally occupied all of the Arena Auditorium parking lot and the area seen here taken by RVs. The dark rectangular building near the stern of the ore boat is the Flame Restaurant building. The slip at the far right will be filled. In the foreground the I35 freeway is under construction and building materials laid out to the right. the Ship Canal piers were being remodeled/rehabilitated in 1985-1986.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
View of the saltie vessel Socrates grounded on Minnesota Point on November 18 and 19, 1985. Ships run aground every day, but not in our own back yard. The exception was Nov. 18, 1985, when a fall gale drove the 584-foot Socrates within 50 feet of a Park Point beach shoreline. It was a soft landing for the Liberian-registered freighter, which had been anchored in Lake Superior awaiting a cargo of grain. Although pounded ashore by waves, the saltie sustained only minor hull damage, recalls Dan Sydow of FedMar International, its local agent. Everyone took photographs of this event and the gigantic ship. In this view lookers on are on the beach observing the Socrates. When the ship is loaded with cargo, the orange-red painted portion of the ship is submerged underwater and not visible. As it os riding high, you know it is light because without the weight of its anticipated cargo.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
View of the saltie vessel Socrates grounded on Minnesota Point on November 18 and 19, 1985. Ships run aground every day, but not in our own back yard. The exception was Nov. 18, 1985, when a fall gale drove the 584-foot Socrates within 50 feet of a Park Point beach shoreline. It was a soft landing for the Liberian-registered freighter, which had been anchored in Lake Superior awaiting a cargo of grain. Although pounded ashore by waves, the saltie sustained only minor hull damage, recalls Dan Sydow of FedMar International, its local agent. Everyone took photographs of this event and the gigantic ship.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
View of the saltie vessel Socrates grounded on Minnesota Point on November 18 and 19, 1985. Ships run aground every day, but not in our own back yard. The exception was Nov. 18, 1985, when a fall gale drove the 584-foot Socrates within 50 feet of a Park Point beach shoreline. It was a soft landing for the Liberian-registered freighter, which had been anchored in Lake Superior awaiting a cargo of grain. Although pounded ashore by waves, the saltie sustained only minor hull damage, recalls Dan Sydow of FedMar International, its local agent. Everyone took photographs of this event and the gigantic ship.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
View of the saltie vessel Socrates grounded on Minnesota Point on November 18 and 19, 1985. Ships run aground every day, but not in our own back yard. The exception was Nov. 18, 1985, when a fall gale drove the 584-foot Socrates within 50 feet of a Park Point beach shoreline. It was a soft landing for the Liberian-registered freighter, which had been anchored in Lake Superior awaiting a cargo of grain. Although pounded ashore by waves, the saltie sustained only minor hull damage, recalls Dan Sydow of FedMar International, its local agent. Everyone took photographs of this event and the gigantic ship. Coast Guard staff are the tiny bits at the bow of the ship.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
View of the saltie vessel Socrates grounded on Minnesota Point on November 18 and 19, 1985. Ships run aground every day, but not in our own back yard. The exception was Nov. 18, 1985, when a fall gale drove the 584-foot Socrates within 50 feet of a Park Point beach shoreline. It was a soft landing for the Liberian-registered freighter, which had been anchored in Lake Superior awaiting a cargo of grain. Although pounded ashore by waves, the saltie sustained only minor hull damage, recalls Dan Sydow of FedMar International, its local agent. Everyone took photographs of this event and the gigantic ship. In this view members of the Coast Guard are attempting release of the Socrates.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
View of the saltie vessel Socrates grounded on Minnesota Point on November 18 and 19, 1985. Ships run aground every day, but not in our own back yard. The exception was November 18, 1985, when a fall gale drove the 584-foot Socrates within 50 feet of a Park Point beach shoreline. It was a soft landing for the Liberian-registered freighter, which had been anchored in Lake Superior awaiting a cargo of grain. Although pounded ashore by waves, the saltie sustained only minor hull damage, recalls Dan Sydow of FedMar International, its local agent. Everyone took photographs of this event and the gigantic ship.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
