The granite railroad in north Sauk Rapids, Minnesota

You know how a mystery can sit in the back of your mind for years, and then one foggy weekend 46 years later, answers appear just like that?

When we were kids, we had a wide area to roam, as long as we were home by supper.  We'd go "exploring" in the woods that were across the field behind our house (upper right, second 1965 aerial map below). (BTW, someone drew-in the horizontal road in the pic.  It was not there). We'd go a little farther each time out, and one day, I remember realizing we were following an abandoned railroad (!).  It was a built-up bed, with ties overgrown with moss and grass, and the trees on either side made an arch overhead.  It was a green heaven to me, and I felt like Thor Heyerdahl at least. See the diagonal sort of space going NE?  Could that have been it?

"Probably NOBODY ELSE KNOWS about this!", I thought.  

Even better, the railroad ended at an abandoned quarry. I was sure we'd stumbled on a secret...fort... or bunker...or something (What's a bunker? None of us knew, but it sounded pretty cool ☺).

 Since this was a SECRET discovery, it was probably 2 weeks before I mentioned it to someone who might know: the old man who owned the coal company downtown.  (That was where we got chunks of bituminous to make **salt gardens).  He thought it might have been abandoned "during the Civil War".  Ever gullible, I believed him for years.

Eventually, we studied WWII and the "war effort"-- could the rails have been  torn up then?  But what would account for all the youngish trees up there?  Even I knew what a hundred-year-old tree looked like, but the romantic me thought the Civil War sounded fine, ya know?
(Oooo!  Added months later, from the 1938 St Cloud promo booklet the WPA paid for:)

Cool, huh?
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 Then last night, Larry found these photos of the Sauk Rapids Granite Company, and the locomotive that was used on their own railroad to and from the quarries EAST of town.

WOW.

A lifetime mystery, solved.  The only question still outstanding is, where did the tracks run?
Sauk Rapids is built in the valley (and up the hillside) formed by the Mississippi.  The quarry was probably 3 miles up over the hill from the river, but the train must have taken a more gradual route.  The granite shed was still there when we were kids, about where the new bridge lands on the SR side of the river.  (OR, see the first map up there?  The granite co was north of the bridge about 4 blocks, between Broadway and the Northern Pacific tracks).
And look ◄...whenever the granite industry was active in SR, there were no trees to get in the way of commerce.
Oh, and "they" knew about the abandoned quarry.  It eventually became the "scenic" town dump.




Whew!  Cool, huh?

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Added May, 2016: Another WOW is this map of Sauk Rapids from 1903-- THERE'S the Granite Co Railroad!
Evidently, they just backed down the tracks with a load of granite, then forward to the sheds (about where the S in Sauk Rapids is if I recall correctly).  Isn't this COOL?
(Oh, and look how Rogosheski was spelled originally ☺)

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**To make a salt rock garden In a glass or plastic bowl, put some pieces of coal, coke, porous brick, tile, cement or sponge.
Day 1: Over the base material, pour two tablespoons of water, two of table salt (iodized or plain)
and two of Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing.
Day 2: Add two more tablespoons of salt.
Day 3: Pour into the bottom of the bowl (not directly on the base material) two tablespoons each of
salt, water, and Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing, and then add a few drops of mercurochrome, vegetable
coloring or ink to each piece.
By this time a beautiful flower-like growth should have appeared. If all the conditions are not
ideal, it may be necessary to add two tablespoons of household ammonia to aid the growth. A free
circulation of air is necessary, and these formations will develop better where the air is dry.
To keep it growing: Add more M.S.B., salt and water from time to time. It will “bloom”
indefinitely into beautiful rosebuds, coral and crystal. Try it!

Snort!  I actually still have a bottle of Mrs Stewarts Bluing!  Sure, I'll share...lol

The Blue Eagle

When we were kids in Sauk Rapids, Mn in the 1960s, there was a bar downtown called the Blue Eagle.  It was among the "near ocassions of sin" that the nuns warned us about--

Of course, I couldn't find a picture of the building, but searching "Blue Eagle" found articles about FDRs New Deal and the Blue Eagle Pledge, 1933 to 1935.  Did the two have anything to do with each other?

My sister Kath thinks she remembers hearing that the bar was originally a speakeasy, during Prohibition...but it could also have been a "blind pig":

The term "blind pig" originated in the United States in the 19th century; it was applied to lower class establishments that sold alcoholic beverages illegally. The operator of an establishment (such as a saloon or bar) would charge customers to see an attraction (such as an animal) and then serve a “complimentary” alcoholic beverage, thus circumventing the law.   

 The difference between a speakeasy and a blind pig was that a speakeasy was usually a higher-class establishment that offered food, music, live entertainment, or even all three.  But a blind pig was usually a low-class dive where only beer and liquor were offered. --Wikipedia

The Blue Eagle in Sauk Rapids was an ordinary bar, in a fairly ramshakle brick building, with beer signs in its windows and almost nothing remarkable about it. We'll get back to that, but first--what WAS the Blue Eagle Pledge?  We didn't find a copy of the actual pledge, but Larry found this parody in the Sauk Centre Herald in August, 1933.
The idea was to enlist business people in a fairness pledge, and use social approbation to make it work.

  The rest of this headline article (below) can be found here.

So, it's possible that the Blue Eagle Bar was named with tongue-in-cheek.  Prohibition ended in 1933--did the owner decide to use the new program for  what he could--a play on the idea that "we do our part"?  We don't know...lol

 But, back to why we were really even aware of the Blue Eagle as school kids walking home:  Just inside the north door of the place was the towns BEST display of penny-candy, and a fairly patient bartender who was usually willing to bag-up our carefully considered choices.  "Ok, two of those....and two of those....no, make that one...and then three of THOSE...."   It did smell like beer in the "near occasion", but we were innocently after 25 cents worth of candy.

YAY!  Photo found in July 2013 on St Cloud, Remembered, a Facebook blog.

THEN & NOW

This post is mostly for my sibs--remember how empty we thought the north end of 4th Avenue was when we moved there in 1959?  Well, it really WAS--we built on the edge of a corn field, with only Bigleys and Larsons north of us.
Here's the area in 1940....not too different than it was 20 years later:  the farm upper left was Shaws.

Compare that with how it looks now: click the image to biggify.  4th Avenue North is in the middle here. The Good Shepherd Community has grown into the entire block with the "H" looking buildings, upper left.  WOW, huh?

Quickie Quiz Question:  Where did Earl the cop live, in the 1940 photo? 

BTW, you can see my reading tree in the school yard, even from the air!

Ok, north Sauk Rapids in 1965 or so.  (And yes, I do have too much time on my hands tonight...lol)

When we built the house at 1004, we were the ONLY house in front of a few trees and a huge wheat/corn field.  The nearest neighbors were Shaws on the farm across the road, and Bigleys, a young family at the top of the hill.

                                                                                                         

'Our' house is STILL that robins egg blue, only very very faded, but the sapling in the front yard is 45 years old now, and so are the pine trees we jumped over when dad planted 'em.  They're about 50 feet tall. 

What we called "the woods" was a natural drainage ditch from the field behind the house. Larsons had used it's edges to pile rocks from the field. 

The "end of the woods" was a massive willow tree that we made into a really COOL fort.  (No wonder I have a willow in my yard now). 
 
Maybe a block beyond the end-of-the-woods was a lone oak tree with a substantial limb that curved out to the south.  In the summer, it's where I took a bag of crab apples and my current book.  I'd climb onto that limb, rest my back against the trunk and be alone there. I could see all around me, and figured I was invisible among the leaves.  It held exactly one kid, and it was heaven.

These days, I have a client who lives in the housing development in that field, so I'm up there alot.  My reading tree....is still there, and it's on the lawn of the school that was built in that field:

THAT makes me happy.