The following appeared in The Rose History in 1911.
Rock County Village (continued from 12-24-20 edition of the Star Herald)
Steen
In the list of Rock county’s unincorporated villages Steen ranks among the foremost, both in size and importance. It is located on the northwest quarter of section 32, Clinton township, near the southern boundary of the county, and is a station on the line of Illinois Central railroad connecting Sioux Falls with Chicago. Steen makes no pretense of metropolitan greatness but is content with being a prosperous and substantially built hamlet, surrounded by a rich farming country. Several lines of business are represented, including a bank, general store, hardware store, drug store, furniture store, hotel, blacksmith shop, harness shop, pool hall, lumber yard, two elevators, livery barn, fuel dealer and stock buyers. The town also has a town hall, two churches and a first grade public school, employing two teachers.
The land on which the town of Steen is located was taken as a homestead in 1871 by John P. Steen. A brother, Ole P. Steen, filed a homestead claim to the quarter section adjoining the year before, and it was in honor of these two pioneers that the village was given its permanent name.4
The last few years of the eighties witnessed the founding of three towns in southern Rock county as a direct result of the construction of two new lines of railroad, the Illinois Central and the Sioux City & Northern. Included in this number was Steen, or Virginia, as it was originally known, on the Illinois Central, which commenced laying rails on the extension from Rock Rapids to Sioux Falls in September, 1887. The station of Bruce, seven miles to the west in Martin township, was the first of these to be located, the site being selected in December.
Early in the year 1888 the Illinois Central authorities announced their intention to plat and develop a town on the line between Bruce and Rock Rapids, in Clinton township. A number of the residents of that precinct at once became interested in the project and lent their assistance in its furtherance. It was the offer of John P. Steen to donate twenty acres of his homestead for townsite purposes that influenced the railroad company to locate the proposed station on his land.
The track-laying on the extension was completed so as to permit the operation of the first passenger train on June 2, 1888. In the course of the same month the townsite of Virginia was surveyed by J. F. Whalen. The plat, made to comprise thirteen blocks, was dedicated on June 13 by N. T. Burroughs, president, and W. A. Sanford, secretary, of the Cherokee & Western Town Lot & Land company, and it was placed on record September 3.
The farm house of John P. Steen was the only building on the Virginia townsite prior to the activities of the railroad company at that point. No sooner had the survey been completed than work was commenced on a depot building and a flat grain warehouse, and before the summer of 1888 was over, there were signs of a promising village.5 Two grain warehouses, one erected by John Butler, and the other be E. M. Dickey, had been established, and the pioneer merchant, C. C. Clemetson was actively engaged in business. A petition signed by residents in the vicinity of the new town asking for the establishment of a postoffice was granted, and before the year had closed an office was being operated in the store with Mr. Clemetson as postmaster.6
4At the time application was made for a postoffice at this point, in 1888, the name asked for by the petitioners was Virginia. This request the postmaster general would not grant because a postoffice previously established on the Iron Range in the northern part of the state bore that name. It was then decided to name the postoffice Steen. The station located by the Illinois Central, however, was designated as Virginia and was known as such for a number of years. The name of the station was then made to agree with that of the postoffice. The last mention of the town as Virginia in the local press was made in the summer of 1893. In July of that year reference was made to the town of Steen, and Virginia, Rock county, became an incident of history.
5“Virginia, the new town in Clinton township, on the line of the Illinois Central, is getting to the front. It has two warehouses, a depot and a store.” —Rock County Herald, September 14, 1888.
6Steen has been served by five postmasters since the office was established. Those who have succeeded Mr. Clemetson, in the order of their succession, are J. P. Steen, George J. Roan, C. H. Peterson and Chris Clemetson.
The story of the village of Steen will continue in the Jan. 7 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.