Elk Point History, Part 1

Elk Point, South Dakota, a Long Time Ago  ~  by Donald D. Fowler

   Nearly one hundred years ago, I was born in a mid-western country town of about 1200 souls when the total population of the United States was just under one hundred million persons.  The population of the town was a microcosm of the nation with almost all being immigrants or descendants of immigrants from western European countries.  Everyone was white and looked a lot like me.  Nine miles to the east of my town was an even smaller town, Jefferson, mostly Catholic and populated primarily with French Canadians, as we called them, and second generation Irish.  Here lived the Authiers, Chaussees, Girards, Chicoines, Beaubiens, and Bernards alongside the Kelleys and the Callahans.  They were different from most of the citizens of my town, but not significantly different, and we related to them peacefully and productively.  In fact, a few of them also lived in my town.  North of my town were farmers for as far as the eye could see, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish farmers, hard working Republicans.  Here were the Kalstads, Ophstahagues, Olsons, Johnsons and Jensens.  All were Lutherans going to separate Norwegian and Swedish Churches, and a mixed German, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish Lutheran Church, with a single minister serving all three churches.  Reverend Runsvold or Reverend Aamouth, depending on the time, had to get up early on Sunday mornings successfully to make the rounds, especially since the churches was as far as seven miles apart.  West and south of the town, and within the town, lived a variety of nationalities, English, German, Finnish, French, Polish, Latvian, etc., who attended Methodist, Baptist, Congregationalist, Lutheran, Episcopal and Catholic Churches. Here were the Fowlers, Troskeys, Mains, Curries, Schatzels and Simonsons.  In my town, we all went to the same public school, unlike Jefferson which had a Catholic school and a public school.  In the public school, all nationalities meshed into a harmonious whole, the students coming from the town and from all directions of the countryside.  Nationality intermarriages became common, as did Catholic and Protestant.  Much later, a Negro family moved into town, served as the area veterinary, and was assimilated immediately and without intimidation. A hundred years later, the town sees little change, in total population, nationality content, economic status or political and educational institutions.  While it brags of an industrial business or two, it is still primarily an agriculture town, supporting mostly small farmers, raising corn and soy beans. 

  May I insert a small Fowler Family feature?  You should know that I am one of seven Fowler siblings, all of whom grew up in this small town, successfully navigated the local public school through high school and married, for better or for worse, but with no divorces up to this time and none is expected. Three of us, all of English/German ancestry, married into other ancestral nationalities.  My sister Inez married a Chaussee, my brother Charles (Chuck) married a Trudeau and my sister Marjorie (Midge) married a Kalstad of Norwegian origin.  Two were of the Catholic faith and one a Norwegian farmer of the St. Paul Lutheran Church located six miles north of the town.   

The Elk Point County Courthouse, from a 1905 postcard

  Our town was and is the county seat of Union County.  In Elk Point was the County Courthouse, an imposing structure for those times, in the Victorian style and of so-called Sioux Falls red granite.  I have a large picture of the now demolished Courthouse, but in its fading days when the distinctive and decorative central tower had been removed. The replacement for the stately old Courthouse lacks the keen architectural discrimination of the nineteen-ninety population of Union County. I was born and lived within a city block of the Courthouse and, as a young boy, rambled on a lovely circular walkway by it almost daily.  It was then a slightly fearful but brave boy who walked by, as the jail was in the lower floor with barred windows open so that the inmates could taunt little boys as they walked, or possibly ran, past the jail.   Here were housed all of the separate branches of the County government, the head of each elected by the citizens of the County, the Clerk of Courts, the Treasurer, the Auditor, the Sheriff, the Corporate Counsel, the Registrar of Deeds, etc.  Democratic principles were at work and all employees of the County were well aware of their duties and responsibilities to the educated electorate.  Three, and later five, elected County Commissioners set the policy and practices of the County, under the State Constitution and the laws of the land.  Recently, some strong differences of opinion have developed over the approval of the building of a billion dollar refinery in the rural territory some five miles north of the town.  This is a sad situation for a rural community that has lived peaceably for over a hundred years without such a controversial intrusion.  The decision to permit a refinery is a county-wide one, with the voters living farthest from the enterprise overwhelmingly approving, while those who live at or near it tending to vote to disapprove.  Little do the inhabitants realize that the core business, with all its environmental hazards and infrastructure requirements, will adversely affect all of the citizens of this sparsely populated county.  Most importantly, being the County Seat has given  Elk Point a special character and refinement, it may not otherwise have had.

  I would like to say a word about two family friends and supporters, At two separate times in our early teens, sisters of mine suffered contagious illnesses, scarlet fever and measles, which resulted in family quarantine, a common practice in that far off era to prevent the spread of the diseases.  For me to remain in school, and not risk academic failure, Sheriff John Dahlene and his wife took me into their home for the several weeks during those two occasions.  Mrs Dahlene was also my Sunday School teacher and my sponsor for the Leopold Schepp Foundation Scholarship.  To remain on his job, my father found another temporary abode, but where I have no idea.

Stay tuned for the next installment!