There was a short stretch of railroad built from the main line into Nebish between the building or depot and Nebish Lake and on south between Nebish and Maple [now Smyth] Lakes, where logs were picked up and taken to Red Lake
also, there was a camp just behind the store building that was called Bakus and Brooks, here Tim Bjella of Bemidji used to file saws for the camp when he was only a boy, in about 1907 or 1908. There was also a camp near here called Halverson-Richards Camp.On the Nebish Lake shore there was a shingle mill, called Sherman Mill; it stood only a short distance from our log cabin, it was in operation until about 1911 or 12. Mr. Henry Howe, father of Mrs. Katherine Baily of Redby, and Mr. Willet lived just north of the mill and used to help there.
There was a school house and five or six dwelling houses here, a black smith shop, owned by Louis Gibson and Knute Hagen, also two saloons a little north of the town in the railroad tracks, one owned by Mr. Nelson and the other by Mr. Oranger . . . after Mr. Oranger left Nebish for the west coast Carl Saterlee had the saloon, later Frank Cook took one of the saloons over and ran the saloon and a lunch room combined.
Old Nebish never expanded very much. It did have needs. Nellie Sadler tells us how her father helped to fill them:
We had lumber camps all around up there [Nebish] and my dad made moonshine. He would set big barrels of mash. When my folks went to Bemidji to buy groceries it would be a two-day drive and we children were left to run the liquor off. It was called a still. My dad and the oldest boys would sell it to the lumber camps, to the men. We made some money that way. (NC,1986, p.43)The rail line came to the natural fill dividing the lakes (Lake Nebish was really two lakes.) and a trestle was built to hoist logs out of the lake. The "company enlarged the camp already there and built car shops and a round house and a large log building for an office and store."(Hagg, ML, 169)
Bob Mitchell says: "As for Nebish there was not much to see except a store and the headquarters for Halvorson Richards on the east side of the lake. The headquarters was a store, rooming house, post office and depot. Old Nebish was right on the high ground northeast of the shore. There were not many buildings - there wasn't room for many." (ML, 173) But there was a cedar yard,
Charlie Hightshoe described Old Nebish this way:
One lady who came here in 1904 had a picture of Old Nebish taken about 1906. Her husband's name was Carney . . . . But the picture showed Old Nebish was just a lumber camp, and that is all it ever was. The camp and maybe 10 or 15 houses; maybe as much as most old towns in those days. There was a cedar mill and a saloon, the barns and shops, a big rooming house and the depot. There was a post office and store in with the rooming house.The fate of Old Nebish was sealed when on November 15, 1912 the railroad abandoned its track into Nebish and moved to a depot at Whitefish Junction. The first depot was the old Crookston Lumber Company warehouse. E.M.Tschoepe was the new agent.(Nebish Book of History and Memories,p.32)I was going to write a story about Old Nebish once, but when I got at it there was nothing to write; it was just a logging camp.
Nebish had two schools, one at Old Nebish and the other over a couple of miles on the Old Leech Lake Trail, going to Red Lake. My wife's folks bought the old school building at Old Nebish and it still stands, just a mile south of here, but it has been built onto.
There is one house that was moved from Old Nebish that still stands, that is at the corner where you leave the tar. Frank Markus had it. (NC 1979, p.87)
Thus came into being Old Nebish and New Nebish. New Nebish was an orderly townsite on the railroad with lots for sale and with room to expand. Charlie Hightshoe (NC, 1979, p.87) gave his explanation of why the townsite was moved:
Nebish moved up to the corner where it is now about 1912, 1 will tell you just what happened. Wilbur Nebish had a land company. Wilbur Nebish Colonization Company of Willmar. They bargained for 12,000 acres around Nebish. They started selling from there. The land company said they would give five acres for a graveyard if they would move the townsite to where it is now, and of course, they did. I have the minutes on that; I have the old records of the township; a neighbor of mine laid out the townsite.
Mrs. Florence Gillman tells us that the only buildings in new Nebish when it began were "a warehouse belonging to the Crookston Lumber Co. and the Page & Hill Cedar camp and the St. Croix Cedar Camp, which Mr. Mrs. Fred Barr . . .took care of." The warehouse was the first depot in Nebish for the new Minneapolis, Red Lake and Minneapolis Railway.
The new townsite grew because there was room and the land could be bought by settlers. The settlers needed goods and services. To accommodate the new settlers and the new businesses, buildings had to be put up. As New Nebish grew, Old Nebish declined. Charlie Hightshoe bought the old depot and reassembled it as a home on his land. More stores were set up. A school was established. Homes were built. New Nebish became Nebish. At the depot you could go north to Redby or leave for points south to Bemidji.
According to Harold Hagg, the railroad was profitable, at least making an operating profit, but it could not pay the interest on its bonds. (NC, 1984, p.49) In 1929 it sold the Puposky station, a sign of declining business in an area of rather sparse population. Nebish was also declining, and of course the nation was entering the years of the great depression.
In 1937 the Minneapolis, Red Lake and Manitoba Railway applied for permission to discontinue operations. (NC, 1984, p.49) In 1938 the rails were taken up. The Puposky depot had been sold in 1929. Bob Binkley bought the Nebish depot and assembled it on his land.
The railroad operated for over thirty years, but time did finally pass it by. The frenzy of logging was over. The great forests that had been bought up by the Crookston Lumber Company, C.A.Smith, and others had been logged off. The great river drives were at an end. The long trains of logs were diminishing. A cheap road to a distant stand could replace a spur.
As Hagg points out, there were more roads, and they were improving. More people were owning automobiles. Trucks and busses were beginning to supplant the railroad as carriers. A short-haul railroad in northern Minnesota had little chance of survival.
The Red Lake line and the Minneapolis, Red Lake and Manitoba Railway had become the subject for reminiscence and for historians. The country it served had been opened and settled. Northern Minnesota lumber had furnished homes for the countless citizens of an expanding America, but the search for more timber had moved west. Scrap steel was in demand. It was time to go on to the next chapter.
Go back to Part II: The Minneapolis, Red Lake and Manitoba Railway
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Copyright 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008 William and Madeline Sutherland