Do you wake up at night pondering questions that only very myopic or very strange people would care about?So do I.
Like, How many "automobiles and auto trucks" were there in Morrison, Benton and Stearns counties in 1914/1918...and who owned most of em?
Read on:
According to the statistical pages of the "History of Stearns County, Minnesota" (Mitchell, 1915), in vol. II, page 714, theres a list of township with the total real and personal property assessed by township, and "total automobiles: 249". This number must be autos owned by landowners in the townships, since farther down the page it says "total automobiles in cities and villages: 655". So, a total of 904 automobiles in the county. Ok, that's Stearns.
In Morrison county....I couldn't find totals, but in the second volume of Fuller's "History of Morrison and Todd Counties" (1915), there are nine mentions of people owning autos, with one of them, a Mr Farrow, buying a chain drive Reo in 1907, which he says "was the third automobile in Morrison Co".
According to the St Cloud Times, in 1918 Benton County had 835 automobiles, mostly owned by farmers.
And that fact--mostly owned by farmers--is a bit of a surprise, until you realize who needed to travel a distance every day to bring cream to town. If a townie had a car, it was more a novelty, but for farmers, it was necessity, at least to give the horses a break.
BTW, Happy St Patrick's Day!
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