Looking over copies of the Bancroft Pioneer

Published 11:50 am Friday, March 26, 2010

Not long ago the Freeborn County Historical Museum Library acquired 277 microfilm reels consisting of copies of area newspapers from the Minnesota Historical Society. These publications include the Alden Advance, Ellendale Eagle, Kiester Courier. New Richland North Star, New Richland Star, Wells Advocate, Wells Forum, Wells Forum-Advocate, Wells Mirror and especially the Bancroft Pioneer. These newspapers are based on a time frame from 1858 to 2007. And for the Bancroft Pioneer, the year 1858 is very significant.

The Bancroft Pioneer was the second weekly newspaper published in Freeborn County. In reality, this newspaper’s first edition was dated Oct. 17, 1857. However, no copies of this issue have been preserved. The new microfilm at the museum’s library has only three copies of the Bancroft Pioneer dated March 11, July 29 and Aug. 5, 1858.

Freeborn County’s first newspaper, The Southern Minnesota Star, published its first edition on July 18, 1857. This weekly was located in what was then a dinky frontier village named Albert Lea.

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Both newspapers were strong advocates for their villages to become the location of the future courthouse for Freeborn County. The Star and the Pioneer really became boosters for their respective communities to grow and become centers of area commerce.

In time, Albert Lea won the election to become the county seat and Bancroft came in second. Also, the Star evolved into the Eagle and eventually the Freeborn County Standard, a weekly publication that was a part of area life for about 70 years. The Pioneer faded away within a year. Its owner and publisher became better known as a part of several other Minnesota newspapers, plus gaining fame as a promoter and manager of two famous American musical organizations.

With these details out of the way, let’s shift the focus back to the Bancroft Pioneer.

In 1857, David Blakely of Minneapolis was persuaded to bring his type and printing press to Bancroft. This brand-new prairie community near a grove of trees and next to a small creek was growing and needed a newspaper to promote a promising future.

The three copies of Blakely’s newspaper on the new microfilm reel has some rather interesting details about life in the county 14 decades ago.

When the museum’s librarian, Linda Evenson, looked over the first issue of the Pioneer, she found in print the first known listing of daily temperatures in the county. These readings of a thermometer were taken at 6 a.m., noon and 6 p.m. from Jan. 21 to Feb. 28, 1858, by S. M. Thompson of St. Nicholas, M.T.

Today, St. Nicholas is what can be called a ghost town on the south shore of Albert Lea Lake near what’s now a park with that name and a roadside marker next to South Shore Drive (County Road 18). The M.T. initials represent Minnesota Territory, the actual status of this part of the nation in early 1858. (Statehood came on May 11, 1858.)

Thompson’s temperature readings were listed in the Pioneer as the “Thermometrical Record.” The highest temperature for those two months was 50 degrees above zero on Jan. 22 and again on Feb. 26. The lowest reading was 27b on Feb. 10.

The 27 b translates into 27 degrees below zero. Maybe Blakely didn’t have a minus symbol in his type setup. Then again, the letter b could have been used to indicate a below zero reading 150 years ago.

We’ll have more details from those old copies of the Bancroft Pioneer in the next column.

Meanwhile, here’s an update on a slide photo on page 4C of the March 14 issue.

The four people in the photo taken on the stage of the ZCBJ Wooden Hall north of Myrtle are, from left, Mrs. Ed (Marie) Schradle, Charles Cech, and Ed and Eleanor Flusek. Special thanks go to Violet Ringham, Marie’s daughter, for this information.

Ed Shannon’s column has been appearing in the Tribune every Friday since December 1984.