YES! Another map ☺

Many thanks to Larry and his side-kick, The Library of Congress.  Just look at this cool map they found, from 1897. It was a Galbraith's Railway Mail Service map, a quick reference to towns served by railroads where customers could pick-up freight.  It's loaded with visual puns of localities in Minnesota--like a king for Royalton or a goat for Buckman ☺.  (If you're enamored, Galbraith also did Illinois, Michigan, Kansas and Nebraska, Indiana and Missouri).

It's kinda melancholy to see train lines that never existed, like the one shown here, from Little Falls to Gravelville to Pierz.  It was maybe the planned Luce Line that never materialized, or the Great Northern line promoted by John Schmolke.  How different our history would be if those tracks were ever laid, huh?

Mapping Bohemia

Man, there have been some wonderful maps made over the years, particularly helpful maps of "our" part of Europe. They're beautiful, and give us a good idea of the topography where our folks lived.  I've never understood how mapmakers could create something fairly accurate 300 or 400 years ago tho.  WELL!  The World's Best Researcher found a pdf file called Mapping Czech Lands, and it's very interesting.

"The Műller’s map of Bohemia includes the division of settlements into 10 basic categories (royal and other towns, towns with ramparts, townships, castles, mansions and knight palaces, small towns with a castle and a church, villages with a castle, villages with and without a church, individual farmyards, passable villages and scattered settlements). Further there are monasteries and lonely standing churches and farm buildings. Depicted are rivers and ponds...The thematic content of the map is very rich and it shows mining areas of various raw materials, glass factories, ferries, postal stations, medicinal and  thermal springs, tilt-hammers, water mills, roads and vineyards". Look for the tiny trees that depicted forests and reeds that show swamps...cool, huh?

  And here's the answer to my question of HOW:

 "For mapping he used geodetic points, their position was measured astronomically. For drawing of topography he used the compass and the distances he measured by the number of turns of wheels of measuring cars pulled by horses".

Really--click the link up there.  It's a veritable Hesch history lesson. ☺

Finding fun stuff when you're not looking for it

 These two COOL maps were found in JULIUS CANN'S  OFFICIAL THEATRICAL GUIDE (1905-1906 edition, posted about on October 1st).  Why is this a big deal to me?  Cuz back when Larry and I were writing about the diary dad's uncle Math kept on his trip to Europe in 1914, we looked and looked for railroad maps current at the time.  We finally found what we needed, but didn't think to look in such an obscure place, even if we'd known about it at the time.  That's the thrill of paging thru old publications--what else can be found there besides what it says on the cover??

More about Waumandee and Buffalo County, Wisconsin

Ok, here are maps of the Hesch part of Wisconsin:  Buffalo Co is right across the Mississippi from Winona, Mn.

This map ► is the whole county, in 1914.  Waumandee is in the lower half, in yellow.
Now, this part of Wisconsin is nothing like the Hesch part of Minnesota.  The farm land is in large valleys, between bluffs and ridges...the roads are winding, sometimes in the valley bottom, sometimes halfway up the side of a huge hill.  And sometimes, the roads are narrow, with "limited sight distance" ahead.  It's beautiful, and feels almost uninhabited, or similar to what Kentucky hollows must be like (just my impression, ok?  But let me recommend street view in Google Earth, on the drive from Cochrane (near the river) to Waumandee to see what I mean). ☺

These maps ought to enlarge a LOT when you click on them.  This is still 1914, but just Waumandee township.  Valentine's land is way in the top corner, and there's land next to Val in the name of "M Hesch"...I assume it was land his dad Mathias still owned, and which became trust land?

◄ 1914

                                                          1920 ►

◄ 1930

Here are two towns that figure in Hesch history--Royalton (left) and Vawter (right), both from 1920.  Royalton was important because it was the railhead for produce going northwest or south, like to Fargo or St Paul/Minneapolis.  Royalton was also the second largest town in Morrison county after Little Falls, and you could get there without much in the way of hills for the horses to climb--which wasn't true for Little Falls.  Besides, Royalton had feed mills and grain storage right there by the tracks.  And probably, Little Falls was just too BIG. 

Vawter, on the other hand, was built only because of the Soo line tracks were there.  WHERE was Vawter, you ask?  If you're traveling to Little Falls from Royalton on Hiway 10, there's a turn to the right and a sign that says "Buckman...11 miles".  Take that, and you'll pass the left hand turn-off to what was once the village of Vawter.  The town pretty much died once the train no longer stopped there. 

Another interesting factoid about Vawter is that our friend John Schmolke supposedly named it: 

"The town of Vawter was founded in 1908 in northern Bellevue Township. The Minneapolis and Saulte Ste. Marie Railroad (Soo Line) had the town platted as it put in lines from Duluth to western Minnesota. The Soo Line apparently ran through John Schmolke’s property and he supposedly gave the town its name by commenting that there was “vater” everywhere. The truth of this legend is unknown, but the town grew to include a grain elevator, several stores, the Vawter Community Church, and a school. A postal drop was established in the community in 1922. Farmers near the town used Vawter to ship their goods via the railroad to markets in Duluth. By the 1940s, this shipping service and the post office were discontinued and the town disappeared".

Info from MCHS

1920 Buckman township Plat Map

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is the map of who owned what in 1920 around Buckman, Minnesota.
Click the map and it should open large enough to read.  I've circled HESCH land in red  &  SAND in blue.

Some interesting things:

♦ I've wondered where the "Wheeling Schoolhouse" was--and there it is, south of Mike Sand.  It was the Wieling school, kitty-cornered from Henry Wieling's land, but actually on Sand property in 1920.  It was District #17, the school Olivia (Dehler) Kelzenberg taught for years.

♦ Speaking of schools, District #41 WAS just west of Buckman. (Anon says it was about a block west of the old Zenners store, was in use from about 1910 to the mid 1930s,  and that it was moved to a site south of Mayhew Lake.  It's a private home now that beautifully retains the original schoolhouse look.  THANKS, Anon!)  This was the map I saw it on ☺, as well as the plat of Buckman itself (below). Yes, there were a lot of one room schools in the township, but that was true of every township in the state by then.




♦ Otrembas owned land along the top edge of the township as well as in Agram and Pierz townships to the north. 

♦ It's really neat to discover familiar names like Schmolke, Mischke, Mueller, Hortsch, Sitzman, Suess, Zenner...and to notice that the Janson farm was owned by Joe Brandl in 1920. 

♦ The village map is particularly interesting in light of the list (on the post below) of businesses in town five years later:
"...a bank, two groceries, two general stores, a garage, two hardware stores, a blacksmith shop, two farm implement houses, a harness shop, a confectionary and a creamery.  It has a public school, a parochial school and a Catholic Church..."

♦ Have you noticed the main street names, btw?  St John Street was/is Highway 25, and the cross street is St Peter Street.  They're used on the censuses, too,  along the left side of the page.
♦ Makes ya wonder which Peter and which John got to name them?