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August 2006
Koochiching County Celebrates a Century
By Douglas P. Skrief
Koochiching County is looking back, and with good reason. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the county's founding. Celebratory events to mark the birthday have already occurred and more are planned for the months to come. The celebrations mark the end of a fight for division of what was once Minnesota's largest county, Itasca. And the fight had at its crux a myriad of economic concerns.
In 1906, trains had not yet reached the northern borders of the state, though Minneapolis entrepreneur E.W. Backus had been pushing his timber interests north since the turn of the century. It was Backus who had taken on the challenge of harnessing the great falls of Koochiching linking the young village of Koochiching and its older sister across the international boundary, Fort Frances.
Backus's vision included a dam across the waterfalls to power paper mills on the American side and grain mills on the Canadian. Sawmills to cut the remaining giant white pine of the region were planned. Railway service would link the Great Plains and the Eastern seaboard through Koochiching - his "City of Destiny" - that Backus had helped to rename "International Falls."
While homesteaders had preceded Backus across the muskeg and into the river valleys, and while steamboats had plied the waters to serve farms and gold miners, the promise of the print paper industry is what assured the residents of northern Itasca County that the time was ripe for a separate government and a new county seat.
"It needs no telescope to discover that International Falls is coming. She has already arrived," wrote a Backus-friendly Minneapolis Journal on May 27, 1905.
Later, the Minneapolis Journal would argue that the new iron ranges near Itasca's county seat, Grand Rapids, would profit the southern half of the county while the northern half would have its own timber, manufacturing and agricultural resources.
The International Falls Echo argued the case for the citizens of the border area who had, without benefit of rail or road, to endure extreme hardships to carry out county business over 100 miles away.
"The distance to the county seat, the cost of time and money in going there, the inability to inspect records as desired, and the almost impossible thing of going into court with a lawsuit, and the big county expense incurred by our remoteness from Grand Rapids, have all combined to make the need of reorganizing the county almost imperative."
So, petitions were circulated. Competing plans for division were fought over, including those that would have placed a county seat in Ripple or Big Falls. And on a dark and dismal day in November 1906, an election was held.
While the results of that election were contested for months, Governor John A. Johnson nevertheless proclaimed the county into existence on December 19, 1906. Two railroads reached the new county seat of International Falls the following year.
Events marking the 100th anniversary began in International Falls on June 29 when a public ceremony was held on the front lawn of the county courthouse, begun in 1909. A time capsule was removed from the courthouse cornerstone and its contents later revealed to an overflow audience in the recently refurbished third-floor courtroom. Its contents and new items are to be returned on the centennial of the building in 2009.
An "Old Settlers Picnic" will be held at the Northern Minnesota District Fairgrounds in Littlefork on August 5. Live music, free food, games for all ages, exhibits, a beer garden and fireworks will mark the day.
"We wanted to reinstate the term 'Old Settlers' and get people together from all over the county," said Edgar Oerichbauer, director of the Koochiching Museums and chair of the centennial committee, about the picnic. "It's basically to have a good time," he said about the committee's reviving a once-customary event.
Other history-related exhibits and traveling programs, including a centennial play visiting county schools, are planned for the coming months, he added.
What began in 1906 as a response to economic hardships and opportunities, Oerichbauer pointed out, now has its own economic impact in the form of services and employment.
Koochiching County's annual budget for 2006 is set at $27,954,976. Department budgets now dwarf the county's first annual operating expenses, but the benefits can be argued just by listing the divisions now serving Koochiching County residents: general government, public safety, roads and bridges, human services, public health, culture and recreation, conservation and environment, solid waste and economic development.
While citizens look back to the county's origins, they celebrate not only the survival of the county but the many ways in which it continues to serve the people.
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