June 2011MAHS News1

Milaca Area

Historical

Society News

Preserving and sharing Milaca’s history for over 25 Years

June 2011 – Volume 13, Number 2

President’s Notes

2011 is another busy year for the Milaca Area Historical Society and Museum. We have new exhibits, new members, and new items in our collection. Our membership now stands at 162,and we’ve hadover 600visitors as of mid-June. Nearly 400 of those visitors were classes from Milaca Elementary and High School. In May, the second grade came to look at our exhibits; the third grade walked through town learning about the Old City Hall, the Depot and the lumber mills and Armory; and Mr. Kragt’s seventh grade social studies classes came for a scavenger hunt through our exhibits. It was a busy month, and fun! There are many great historians with great questions in our schools.

We began preparations for the new school-related exhibits after the museum closed in November, and it was a huge job. We had regular workdays throughout the winter, with email notices going out to a team of volunteers alerting them to which days the museum would be open for work. Many thanks to volunteers: Ann Johnson, Jack and Margaret Palmer, Lynn Kent, Betty Anderson, Jere Day, Karen Schlenker, and Tom Sauer. There were many tasks to do, from putting away objects from the old exhibits, to finding objects for the new; cleaning the cases and the museum; researching and writing up information about objects on exhibit; accessioning new acquisitions; and the ever present clipping and filing of historic information.

Internet Access

We now have internet access at the Museum—at this point only available to volunteer staff (rather than public access), but this does enable us to do some lookups for our visitors. We also have a new email address: . We have a lot of learning curves going here, so bear with us as we work to make our resources accessible and useful to our members and the community.

New in 2011: Milaca Schools Exhibits!

It has been a huge effort. Over half of our exhibit space now holds new displays related to schools and education in the Milaca area. The impetus for this effort was this year’s big all-class reunion, and while exhibits are always fine-tuned as long as they are on display, we are ready for visitors! In the auditorium, in addition to our ongoing Military exhibit and a display of new acquisitions, we tell the story of Milaca High School through the years, including academic, athletic, and musical accomplishments of students.

In the downstairs display space, we still have our displays about area small towns and about the early logging industry, but we are also devoting a large area to country schools. There were over 60 rural schools in Mille Lacs County before the last of them closed in 1970, and we have desks, books, photos, records and other objects from several of those schools.

We welcome visitors to come, reminisce, and learn about how education has changed (and stayed the same) over the years.

Can You Help Fill In the Gaps?

Do you see anything missing from our school displays—and happen to have just the thing in your closet? We welcome donations to fill out our collection. And we could use help researching some aspects of school history. For instance, we have a list of Homecoming Queens that goes back to 1946, but we don’t know if there were homecoming celebrations and royalty before that. Do you know?

Also, see our “History Mysteries” board by the research room door. We will post interesting questions that have come up as we set up exhibits and respond to research requests. It will be updated as we get answers, so check often.

Local History – It’s Where You Live!

From the Record

More on Asa R. Dailey

In the last newsletter an article on Asa Dailey appeared because we think he was the lumberman for whom Dailey Township was named. We received a surprising response from long-time member and officer of MAHS, Mary Jane Bridge. She wrote:

“I was thinking I should drop a note to thank you for the interesting newsletter and then I got to page 3 and found Asa Dailey - "Uncle Ace"!!!!!!! He was married to my great grandmother's sister, Barbara, as Lynn states. I remember having Dailey township cross my mind to wonder after whom it was named but never tracked it down...... I'll have to pull the information I have sometime - if you want it for a file. I don't have a lot more but do have some.”

Mary Jane did send some additional information which gives some interesting details about him. Included was this tribute in the Duluth News Tribune after his death July 19, 1921:

Civil War Veterans Will Honor Asa Dailey at Memorial Hall

Funeral Plans Await Arrival of Son from West

Funeral arrangements for Asa Dailey, Civil War veteran, who died early yesterday morning at the home of a daughter, Mrs. A. H. Little, 327 East First Street, will be made following the arrival from Seattle of a son, Roy A. Dailey. Services will be conducted in the Memorial Hall at a time to be announced later, Mrs. Little said. The body is at Crawford’s undertaking rooms.

Asa Dailey was born September 18, 1840 at Millrush, Ontario, Canada. At the age of 13 he and his parents emigrated to Hudson, Wis. where in 1861 he enlisted in Company A thirtieth Wisconsin, in which he served throughout the Civil War.

After several years in the lumbering business in Hudson following the war, physicians advised his removal to Duluth for his health. This took place in 1870 before the first railroad had entered Duluth. Shipments of products from the Twin Cities and Chicago were handled overland from the terminus at Carleton after the closing of navigation. Mr. Dailey was one of the pioneers who witnessed the arrival of the first train from St. Paul on the old St. Paul Duluth line, now the Northern Pacific.

Furnished Railway Ties

Mr. Dailey established a sawmill on Minnesota Point, furnishing lumber for many of the first structures in Duluth as well as ties for the first street railway line. He later operated a retail lumber yard on Lake Avenue South, retiring on account of his health.

Recovering his health in 1893, he became deputy auditor of St. Louis County, retaining this place until the new courthouse was erected when he was offered the position of custodian of Memorial Hall. This place afforded him a long-awaited opportunity to build up the GAR and affiliated organizations in Duluth, assisting veterans and their families.

Collection of war relics interested him to the extent that his exhibit now placed in Memorial Hall is among the leading ones of the nation. His last important work was compiling data and arranging for a large memorial bronze tablet bearing the names of 300 members of Willie A. Gorman post 13, G.A.R., which was unveiled in Memorial Hall May 31, 1920. Mr. Dailey was one of the organizers of this post and was among the early post commanders.

Three sons and two daughters survive. They are Mrs. A. H. Little and Charles E. Dailey of Duluth, Josephine B. Dailey of Minneapolis, Francis P. Dailey, Nampa, Idaho and Roy A. Dailey, Seattle, Washington.

From the Collection

W. S. Foster, Lawyer

Many things are in our collection, and we never seem to have enough time to put together the fragments of stories which they contain. We are helped in this effort each time we get another gem—however fragmentary. We recently received from Debbie Sahlstrom an old sign. It’s very simple: a large wood board painted black, with large gold letters painted on it to read “W. S. FOSTER, LAWYER.” We have a book of illustrated biographies of important Minnesotans (Minnesota, Special Limited Edition, The Lewis Publishing Co., 1915) which includes entries for Wesley Sherman Foster and his wife, Halesia Sperry Foster, so we can learn something of their accomplishments in the early years.

W.S. Foster entered the practice of law in Milaca, following completion of his Bachelor of Law at the U of M in 1899 (he was born and raised in Olmstead Co.). He was also active in the buying, selling and development of real estate, and left active legal practice for the real estate business sometime before he departed Milaca for Minneapolis in 1911. Whether or not he returned to active practice in Milaca, his name was on a series of law firms in town. While in Milaca, he was very active in civic life, serving for ten years as president of the village board of education (during which time the first high school was built), helping to start the Milaca Creamery, and serving as director of the Milaca State Bank for five years. He also platted Izatys and Waldemere on Lake Mille Lacs, and when one of his two daughters died at age six, he platted the Eleanor Foster Cemetery at Bay View by the lake, where she was buried, in her memory. An obituary in our files tells us W. S. Foster was also buried there, in 1949.

There is a surely a wealth of additional information to confirm and expand on this story, right in our collection. We have village records, school records, newspapers, etc. which hold nuggets of information that would expand and deepen our understanding of W.S. Foster as well as other early Milaca area settlers and the communities they created. We hope our efforts to organize and care for our collection will encourage researchers, from hobbyists to professionals, to dig in and explore the stories of our history.

(Photo from Minnesota, Special Limited Edition, 1915)

MAHS Business Members

Please thank these businesses for their support of Milaca Area Historical Society.

June 2011MAHS News1

All-Aboard Travel

Billings Service

Blue Moon Saloon

Drive In

Fransen Decorating

Greater Minnesota Credit Union

Harris Hardwoods

Jim’s Mille Lacs Disposal

Koch’s Hardware Hank

Kulick Law Office

Milaca Copy Fast

Milaca Local Link

Mille Lacs Co Area DAC

North Star Garage

Peterson-Johnson Funeral Home

Town & Country Finance

United Country-Milaca Real Estate

June 2011MAHS News1

2011 Calendar

Events and activites coming up this year

June

  • June 22-25 Gateway to Northland festival, all-class reunion
  • Summer newsletter
  • June 21 meeting – Milaca City Hall

July

  • July 22-24 – Milaca Bluegrass Festival
  • July 26 meeting – 7 p.m. Milaca City Hall

August

  • Aug 23 meeting – 7 p.m. Milaca city hall

September

  • Sept 20 meeting – 7 p.m. Milaca city hall

October

  • Oct 25 meeting – ELECTION OF OFFICERS 7 p.m. Milaca city hall; membership forms for renewals
  • Sat. Oct 29 – last day of 2011 museum season

November

  • No general membership meeting

December

  • No general membership meeting

MAHS

PO Box 144

Milaca, MN 56353