The following appeared in The Rose History in 1911.
Rock County Village continued from 8-27-20 edition of the Star Herald.
Beaver Creek
On the banks of the “roaring” Beaver creek, eight and one-half miles southwest of the capital city of Rock county, is the little village of Beaver Creek, a village which has played an important part in the history of Rock county. Excepting Luverne, Beaver Creek is the oldest municipality in the county. Founded during the closing days of the great grasshopper devastation, it rapidly grew to a place of importance, and before it had reached years of discretion was contesting with Luverne for county seat honors. For a dozen years after its founding Beaver Creek continued to prosper; then came a bad fire, followed by the lean years of the early nineties, and the town took a backward step. At one time its very existence was threatened by the establishment of a rival town a few miles away. Better times came, and during the last decade Beaver Creek has advanced until it again takes rank among the progressive places of a prosperous county.
Situated in the midst of a fine farming country that is thickly settled with an intelligent class of people, Beaver Creek has an exceptionally good, though limited, trade territory. It is served by the Worthington-Mitchell branch of the Omaha railroad, of which road it was at one time the terminus. The village has substantial business houses and fine residences, as well as the public enterprises and institutions that make a community a desirable one in which to live.
The site on which Beaver Creek is located was recognized from the very earliest days as a desirable one on which to locate a town, and so early as 1873 a plat for a town only a stone’s throw from the present village was surveyed, with the intention of founding a city. R. D. Buchanan, the promoter of a colony of New Yorkers who located in the vicinity, conceived the idea (and started to put into execution his plan) of founding a town at a point just southwest of the present village. During the month of May he had the site surveyed1 and promised the early founding of the town. Mr. Buchanan came out to Rock county with another colony in August, with the announced intention of giving his attention to the new enterprise, but that is the last mention in the local press we have of the city. Like many another city conceived in the western country in an early day, it “died abornin’.”
Beaver Creek had its birth in the fall of 1877, and came in to existence as a result of the extension of the Worthington & Sioux Falls (now the Omaha) road to that point. The year before this the road had been built from Worthington to Luverne and the survey extended westward to Sioux Falls. In August, 1877, Ex-Governor Stephen Miller, then in the employ of the railroad company, began purchasing right-of-way for the road west of Luverne, work of constructing the line was commenced in October, track laying was completed to the site of Beaver Creek early in December, and in the first part of January train service was established to the new station.
Before the line was completed to the site, however, the town of Beaver Creek had made its debut. Charles Williams, who owned a farm on section 28, Beaver Creek township, donated eighty acres of land to the railway company for townsite purposes (reserving one block of the plat for himself), the selection of the site being announced about the middle of September.2 From the eighth to the eleventh day of October, inclusive, O. D. Brown, a surveyor, was engaged in platting the townsite for the Worthington & Sioux Falls Railroad company; the dedication was made October 27 by Horace Thompson, president, and George A. Hamilton, secretary, of the railroad company, and the plat was filed in the office of the register of deeds October 30. The original plat consisted of nineteen blocks.3 The name first proposed for the prospective town was Bishop, in honor of General J. W. Bishop, manager-in-chief of the Sioux City & St. Paul railway lines, but before the plat was put on record the new town was named Beaver Creek, after the creek and township of that name.4
1“… In response to this demand it has been deemed the part of prudence and good judgment to start another town, and the valley of the Beaver is the locality selected, at a point about ten miles west of Luverne. It is situated on the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter of section 29, township 102, range 46, upon land donated for the purpose by Ira Crawford, Esquire. The survey has been made and the town platted by P. J. Kniss, county surveyor.” Rock County Herald, May 30, 1873.
2“Mr. Williams was among the earliest settlers on that wide reaching prairie, and now, after brief period, he finds himself located almost in the path of the iron horse and his dwelling in the very heart of a prospective village.”—Rock County Herald, October 5, 1877.
3Additions to Beaver Creek have been platted as follows:
First, by Daniel Shell and C. H. Smith, July 1, 1886; surveyed by Orrin Nason.
Crawford’s, by J. F. Crawford, Daniel Shell C. H. Smith and F. S. Gibson, February 9, 1887; surveyed by Orrin Nason.
County Auditor’s Outlots, by County Auditor, October 16, 1909; surveyed by W. N. Davidson.
4The creek was so named because of the many beaver and their dams which lined the stream when the first settlers came. The township was named after the creek at a meeting of the settlers held in August 1872.
The story of the village of Beaver Creek will continue in the September 10 edition of the Star Herald.
Donations to the Rock County Historical Society can be sent to the Rock County Historical Society, 312 E. Main Street, Luverne, MN 56156.
Mann welcomes correspondence sent to mannmade@iw.net.