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Excerpts from
the section, Social Life and Institutions (The Hobe Years):
“During the Knox years St. Patrick’s
Catholic Church of Phillips had established a mission at Knox Mills. There
were churches for the Protestants located in Spirit, a few miles to the
south.”
“One of the first things the new
settlers that came to Knox Mills did was to start a congregation of their
own. A short history found in the cornerstone when the church was they
built in 1902 was torn down stated that on March 15, 1898, twelve families,
under the guidance of Pastor L. E. Nord, started
the Nathaneal Skandinavian
Lutheran congregation.”
“The first officers appointed were:
Secretary – Nils A. Brekke;
Treasurer – Oliver Berhow; Trustees – Herman Sandquist and Enok Erickson;
and Kerkesanger – Ole Haugerud.”
“On January 2, 1901, the Ladies Aid
Society was organized.”
“The Modern Woodmen of America…Knox
Mills Camp #5801 was organized on January 25, 1901, with a beginning
membership of 23. Meetings were held twice a month…The M.W.A.
offered life and accident insurance for its members.”
“Alfred Sandquist,
a Knox Mills resident, and H. A. Harris, the bald headed depot agent at Brantwood, organized the Knox Mills band in 1898, and
they were frequent entertainers. Another source of entertainment was added
on February 10, 1900, when Ole Karl Hobe married Helen Anita Adams…E. H.
Hobe gave them a piano as a wedding gift. It was the only one in town.
Helen Hobe and her mother, Helen Adams, played the piano and sang.”
“…Knox Mills
residents had parties in their homes where sometimes as many as fifty
people met to dance and play games. They celebrated birthdays,
anniversaries and other events in the lives of their neighbors and
friends.”
Excerpts from
the chapter: Town Government (The
Hobe Years):
“The Town of Knox was a new town when E. H. Hobe
purchased the Knox Lands. The first annual meeting and election had been
held at Knox’s store on April 7, 1896. William H. Knox was elected
chairman.”
“Town government was carried on as it
had been when the Town of Knox was with the
Town of Brannon.
The town was responsible for its schools, roads and the poor. Constables
provided the law enforcement and Justices of the Peace settled disputes,
decided a person’s guilt or innocence and meted out punishment.”
“A major concern of that board was
communicable diseases such as diphtheria, whooping cough, scarlet fever,
and small pox because there were no means of prevention and poor methods to
cure the disease once it was contracted. Their job was to place a quarantine on the whole household of the victim of the
disease until any chance of passing the illness along has passed to prevent
epidemics. Before the quarantine could be lifted the home had to be
fumigated.”
“By the end of 1901 Knox Mills had a new
owner. Mr. Hobe had sold all of his lands, mill, store, railroad, etc. to
the Bradley and Collins Company of Tomahawk.”
“The President of the company, William
H. Bradley…[owner of the Electric, Water and
Telephone Company], extended its line into Brannan making communication
with Tomahawk a reality as early as 1900.”
[By the end of 1901]”…connections by
rail and phone were complete as far as Spirit.”
“Knox Mills was looking forward to a new
prosperity [under Bradley’s ownership]. “However, on January 7,
1903…Bradley died of cirrhosis of the liver…”
“Soon after his death his partners,
brothers Edward and James, and W. G. Collins, began selling some of the
business enterprises…The stock at Knox Mills was sold to K. O. Knutson, a
farmer who had moved to Knox Mills when Hobe did.”
“The switch from a company town to a
private industry was gradual. Knox Mills had always been a shipping point,
and it continued on as it had in the past. The Soo
Line picked up cordwood, ties and logs along the Knox Mills branch from the
farmers who were cutting their own wood, and local farmers were kept busy
loading for other mills that shipped their product from that point.”
“The Norwegian Lutheran
Church…found an acre
of land in the SW ¼ of the NW ¼ of Section 22…They built a church there in
February 1902 and located a cemetery beside it.”
“Roads in most places were just twelve
feet wide and were so rocky and rutty that teams had to follow the center
of the road. They were hemmed in by logs and brush on either side. When
teams met, or had to pass, they had to wait until they could find a
favorable place on the road.”
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Excerpts from
the chapter, A Withering Economy
(1905 – 1909):
“In the winter Knox Mills
residents made their living working in the logging industry. During the
summer months they farmed.”
“By 1905 creameries had begun to be
built throughout the county and the home dairy was being replaced with a
factory method. A creamery was built close by, in Spirit, in 1906. Prior to
the creamery, butter was churned at home and farmers had to find their own
market for the finished product. They usually sold it locally for 12 to 15
cents a pound. Now the cream was shipped to a local creamery which was a
surer market and a steadier source of income.”
Fighting the raising cost of taxes brought farmers
together. “Some of those farmers had become
interested in a different view to solving their problems. Socialism had
been advocated for some time in the northern portion of the Town of Knox and the platform
of the Socialist Party in 1900 “called on the toiling masses to wage war on
the exploiting classes until the system of wage slavery shall be abolished
and the cooperative commonwealth established.” Most farmers must have seen
themselves as the toiling masses and for some of them the time was ripe for
a turn to a different view. Knox Mills had always been a Republican town,
so for them the radicalism of Socialism was quite alien to their nature.”
“In 1907 quite a different Fourth of
July than ever commemorated in Knox Mills was celebrated under the shade
trees at the home of Alfred Sandquist…Alfred Sandquist’s home was located at the extreme northern
end of Knox Mills and was a likely place for the Fourth of July event that
took place that year. It was the first Socialist celebration ever held in Price County. Everyone was invited.”
“The program was in English and Finnish
with songs and music. And lasted six hours. It was the greatest number of
Socialists ever gathered together in Price County.”
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Excerpts from
the chapter, New Smaller Mills (1910
– 1918):
“In 1914 the Ogema
Telephone Company began constructing a system of telephone lines into Knox
Mills.”
“In 1910 a Knox Mill landmark was built.
It was the Stone
Arch Bridge
on Old Mills Road
that crossed Long Meadow, or Knox Creek. Automobiles were also beginning to
appear.”
“Carl Sandquist
of Brantwood became the owner of a Columbia Grand
Concert Grafanola and a collection of Columbia records and
entertained people from surrounding communities with evenings of music and
dancing. Elmer Carlson, also of Brantwood,
purchased a moving picture machine and traveled to surrounding communities
entertaining crowds with movies. At times, the two, Carl and Elmer, would
combine their amusements. They became popular entertainers in Pre-World War
I. Many of their performances were held at K. O. Knutson’s Hall above his
store in Knox Mills.”
“In 1914 a member of the community
appeared before the Town Board of the Town of Knox and brought it to their attention
that there wasn’t a cemetery in the Town for people who weren’t affiliated
with any church. Since the Norwegian
Lutheran Church
had established a cemetery by the church when it was built they sold their
old cemetery located on West
Knox Road, just north of Old Mill Road to the Town of Knox to be used as
the town cemetery.”
Although the cemetery is still there, all but three of
the tombstones have been vandalized and destroyed. Link: Knox
Mills Cemetery
“By 1914 a growing economy and World War
I increased the demand for wood products. Business at Knox Mills escalated
as the large mills, numerous small jobbers, and area farmers stepped up
their shipment of products along the Soo Line
from Knox Mills.”
By 1916 there were fifty cars a day
being shipped out between January and March. Most of the wood products
shipped out went to Rhinelander and consisted of logs, ties, pulpwood and
bark.”
“A growing economy meant a growing
population, and in 1916 Knox Mills found that when its school house doors
opened for the 1916-17 school year, the school room was too small to meet
the growing demands of the Knox Mills country. That year there were over
eighty children of school age in the district.”
“In 1917 the United States entered World War
I. At their annual town meeting in 1917 the town government passed a
resolution against the war. Copies of the resolution protesting the war
were sent to President Wilson, Senators Husting
and LaFollette and to Congressman J. L. Lemont of
the Town of Knox
congressional district.”
“In June of 1917, Knox Mills boys had to go to Prentice and from there to Worcester to the Hackett Town Hall
in order to register for the draft (this route indicates that they went by
train). Like all other young Americans, they began watching newspapers to
see when they were called to service for their country. Four young men from
Knox Mills were called: Gerhardt Erickson, Nick Kaski,
John Niemi and John Nuutinen.”
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