Ren Holland's Website

Sarah Solberg Libbon, me, and John Solberg, about to search a 1975 Fuller’s Golden Book for a Little Mantrap entry in the Fuller’s Fishing Contest (click to enlarge photo).

On August 3, 2013, I enjoyed speaking again at Itasca State Park’s Brower Visitor Center as part of the Presenter Under the Pines Series. My talk included slides of early tourism in and around Itasca Park. I was happy to meet several guests who shared information about early resort experiences. Their recounting touched memories of when I lived with my parents on Little Mantrap Lake.

One couple has been coming to the park since 1959, renting the same Douglas Lodge cabin each year! A special enjoyment that brought them each year was hearing the night calls of the loons on Lake Itasca. I hope to learn more about this special couple’s 54 year milestone.

Another couple, the Reverend Cy Solberg and his wife Betty, have vacationed for 57 years at Little Norway Resort, operated by Chuck and Sissel Brandon on Little Mantrap Lake. This was explained to me by their son and daughter, John Solberg of Mitchell, South Dakota, and Sarah Libbon of Duluth. Their parents were family friends of Lloyd and Ida Thompson, who built Camp Lloyd “from scratch.” It later became Little Norway Resort.

As lake neighbors, our family and the Thompsons became good friends, and when my brother Royce looked for his first summer job during high school, he found it at Camp Lloyd.

Like the amazing couples mentioned above, I am sure there are many vacationers who have formed a bond with a particular resort and who are approaching some kind of longevity milestone. I plan to introduce a “Hall of Fame” feature to recognize these individuals and families who have consistently vacationed at a single resort for 25 years or more. I would like to know their favorite memories and what made them return year after year. If you have someone in mind, click here to let me know!

My thanks to the DNR staff at Itasca State Park, including Connie Cox, Sandra Licter, and Barb Michel, for their assistance in making the Presenter Under the Pines program possible.

UPDATE 10/21/13:  The Vacationer Hall of Fame webpage is now started.  Click on the “Hall of Fame” tab above, or click here to learn about families and resorts with long traditions.

The 66th Minnesota Governor’s Fishing Opener at Park Rapids celebrated the beginning of the 2013 tourist season on May 10. It is now history, and will go down as unique because of ice covering the major lakes in the northern third of the state.

The tradition of the Governor being involved in the fishing opener had a nebulous beginning, and not all governors attended. According to the Minnesota Historical Society, Governor Elmer L. Anderson is credited as starting it in its present form. The titles “First Annual Fisherama” and “Governor’s Fishing Party” were replaced with “Governor’s Fishing Opener” by Governors Rudy Perpich and Al Quie.

Park Rapids Main Street

Cities take the hosting honor very seriously, as shown in the most recent one at Park Rapids. The double wide Main Avenue was cleared of its center parking and cars were replaced with tents containing various games, live music and entertainment, product displays, food and drinks, etc.

The Nemeth Art Center and three visiting artists, Jill Odegaard, Anne Greenwood and Sandy Sampson lead a welcome mat weaving project to connect the community with the Governor’s Fishing Opener. Various student and community organizations participated. WCCO’s News anchor Frank Vascellaro and meteorologist Chris Shaffer visited Dorset and Park Rapids and provided interesting TV coverage of the event leading to the opener.

Governor Dayton speaking

Governor Dayton and Lieutenant Governor Yvonne Prettner Solon gave short informal talks and shared the stage with U. S. Eighth District Representative Rick Nolan and his wife Mary, John Erdman (Director of Explore Minnesota Tourism), DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr, Katie Magozzi (Executive Director Park Rapids Area Chambers of Commerce), Mayor Pat Mikesh, and Dennis Mackedanz (Chairperson of the Governor’s Fishing Opener).

Community picnic

 A free dinner of pulled pork, beans, French fries, fruit, soft drinks, and ice cream was provided inside a giant tent that filled a short block on Second Street. A professional fireworks display ended a fun-filled day of activity before the midnight opener. The Governor and his party fished on the open Fish Hook River with fishing guide Jason Durham. Governor Dayton caught a walleye shortly after the season began.

More of the 2,500 estimated diners.

I was amazed by the crowd, as well as the organization and planning involved in successfully presenting this special event; the Park Rapids area citizens, organizers, and participants should be proud.

The 2014 Governor’s Fishing Opener will be hosted by the Brainerd Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce. Grand View Lodge will serve as event headquarters.

The first quarter of the nineteenth century found the citizens of the United States busy clearing land, building structures, and expanding the western frontier. Half the country was considered wilderness. There was little opportunity or means for citizens to travel for pleasure.

But when steamboats began appearing in the 1820s, they freed the nation to travel the rivers of the eastern interior, and by the 1850s, railroads began to open the West. While the European traveler looked for classic literature, music, art, or architecture, those who made the big decision to come to America, sought the beauty and adventure of the raw land that called, and because of Minnesota’s location on the Mississippi River, it became the focal point for the nation’s first wave of tourists.

The Grand Excursion up the Mississippi

In 1854, the first rail line connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River was completed between Chicago and Rock Island, Illinois (click here to read more about the first railroad engine to reach the Mississippi). To celebrate the accomplishment, the railroad and its contractors proposed a special combined rail and steamboat publicity tour. It started out as a simple affair, but soon flared to national attention. Major eastern newspapers publicized it and sent journalists to Chicago for the tour. Soon many celebrities, church and education leaders, business representatives, artists, writers, and politicians became involved, including a former president, Millard Fillmore.

After a rail trip from Chicago to the new terminal at Rock Island, the highly publicized tour group, estimated at 1200, transferred to five steam-powered paddlewheelers for a luxury ride up the Mississippi to St. Paul (estimated population only 4,000 to 6,000 at that time). It was labeled the “Grand Excursion,” and it was the first time a large group of tourists visited Minnesota. One guest described the service on the steamboats:

“Morning, noon and night a table was spread, that in most of its appointments and supplies would have done honor to our first class hotels, and its confections would not have disgraced a French artiste with all the appliances and means of a French cuisine.”

The travelers were awestruck by St. Anthony and Minnehaha Falls (photos below), Lake Calhoun, the vast beauty of Lake Pepin and the southern Minnesota bluff country. Upon their return home, their excited stories would trigger the first wave of tourism to Minnesota, and within two years, 56,000 tourists visited St. Paul in a single season.

Minnehaha Falls 1860 (click to enlarge)

St Anthony Falls early 1900s (click to enlarge)

For more information on the seven steamboats that were part of this Grand Excursion, click here, or click here for a picture and history of one of these seven steamboats, The War Eagle. These steamboats would be one of many to come:

“In the years that followed, hundreds of excursions were made to this garden spot of the West. Solitary travelers, tired business men and their families, private parties, various religious, political, and social organizations, made pilgrimages to this Mecca of the upper Mississippi…Probably no other single factor was so Important In popularizing the fashionable tour with Easterners as was the grand excursion of the Rock Island Railroad in 1854.”

–William J. Petersen, The Rock Island Railroad Excursion of 1854 (click here to read more about this excursion)

While the first grand excursion of tourists used steamboats as floating hotels, the route would eventually see permanent hotels and businesses in the new cities along the Mississippi. Frontenac and Wabasha were two of these early cities.

Anderson House, Wabasha, ca 2011 (click to enlarge)

The city of Wabasha, on the south end of Lake Pepin, was established in 1830 and is believed to be one the oldest towns on the upper Mississippi River. B.F. Hurd built a hotel in 1856 known as the Hurd House. Its name was changed to the Anderson House in 1909. Except for a brief period in the recent recession, the hotel has been continuously open. Click here for information on Wabasha lodging and activities.

Lake Side Hotel, Frontenac, Built around 1859 (click to enlarge)

The Lake Side Hotel (Frontenac Inn) on Lake Pepin was built about 1859. It is considered Minnesota’s first summer resort hotel. Early Frontenac became known as the “Newport of the Northwest.” (Newport, Rhode Island, bills itself as “America’s First Resort.”) The building was first used as a grain warehouse, then as a store. It became a hotel in about 1865 and is one of the few hotels that has survived from the steamboat era. It is vacant and in danger of being lost.

By the late 1800s, steamboats and riverside hotels lost their popularity on the Mississippi as railroads became dominant.  But the “floating hotels” had made their impact on Minnesota by spawning a tourist industry that continues today.

If your have a story about early Minnesota tourism, click here to contact me. We may be able to include your story in a future blog post.