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1924: Looking back 50 years to life in Rock County

Subhead
Bits by Betty
Lead Summary
By
Betty Mann, Rock County Historical Society President

The following appeared in the Rock County Herald on July 18, 1924:
 
ROCK COUNTY AS IT WAS FIFTY ODD YEARS AGO
 
Being a Paper on Pioneer Life as Read by Representative J.N. Jacobson at Hills Old Settler’s Re-Union
 
Permanent settlement began in the southwest corner of the county in 1876. A few years before that time, trappers had operated in the county, visiting streams for the taking of pelts of the fur-bearing animals which were then to be found. We have data concerning the operations of only a few of these.
Of those who later became residents of the county, one of the first white men who looked upon the soil was Robert Douglas, who passed through Rock county with the soldiers in pursuit of the Redskins, after the Indian uprising of the early ’60s. He reported many elk and deer in the county and was responsible for naming Elk Slough in Magnolia township.
James A. Rice, later sheriff of Rock county, in company with G. M. Scott, tramped along Rock river and traded with the Indians in the fall of 1866 and spent over a month within the county’s boundaries. During their stay on the river in 1866, Rice and Scott saw an occasional elk, deer and antelope and one day they saw two buffalo which had come back once more to their stamping grounds before bidding adieu forever.
The trappers liked the looks of the country, and Mr. Rice in after years told of his and his companions’ speculations as to the length of time before the country would be settled. “We knew it was as nice a country as ever laid outdoors,” he said, “but we had no idea that it would be settled in fifty years.”
(This article will continue next week.)
Donations to the Rock County Historical Society can be sent to the Rock County Historical Society, P.O. Box 741, Luverne, MN 56156.
Mann welcomes correspondence sent to mannmade@iw.net.

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