Volume 20
Spring 2005
Newsletter of the Sherburne County Historical Society
Big Lake: Vacation with a Capital V!
By Bobbie Scott
Big Lake as a vacation destination? Today it’s hard to
imagine—most of us travel long distances regularly for
both work and play, and a trip to the Twin Cities is
routine. But go back a hundred years and there was
vacation traffic the other direction: people from the Twin
Cities came to Big Lake for fun and entertainment. Big
Lake’s accessibility to the Cities by train and, from the
early 1920s, by paved road, made Big Lake a convenient
destination for a day in the country. And the lake’s
potential for recreation was exploited early on.
From the earliest days when the Minnesota Territory
was opened for settlement in 1849, Big Lake lay on a
well-traveled route from the Twin Cities to the north and
west—from the Red River Ox Cart Trail and the Military
Road to the coming of the railroad in the 1860s and finally
the construction of the Jefferson Highway, now known as
Highway 10.
When Joseph Brown came to Big Lake, then known as
Humboldt, in the late 1840s, he quickly built a hotel that
was used by Red River cart drivers, among others. While
the hotel building itself burned several times, the Brown
family rebuilt and expanded. The Brown family was
prominent in local affairs and Brown’s Hotel was an
institution in Big Lake until the 1950s when Joseph’s
granddaughters died, the hotel was razed, and Lake Street
was extended north of Highway 10.
Joseph’s son N. D. Brown ran the hotel after his
father’s death, but he also worked for the railroad. It was
N. D.’s brother George who really started the resort
business in Big Lake with his decision in 1909 to plat his
lakeside property “with the intention of making Big Lake
a popular summer resort” (Monticello Times, 17 June
1909). The ad for these lots boasted of “suburban acres for
sale,” not a phrase most of us would probably associate
with early twentieth-century Big Lake! But once George
took the plunge, the community followed along eagerly. In
response to the proposed sale of these lakeshore lots, the
citizens of Big Lake voted to spend $3,000 to buy some of
the lots and build a picnic grounds and baseball diamond.
George Brown,
front left, and
brother N. D., back
right, with other
Brown family
members at a
picnic. The ad
below appeared in
the Sherburne
County Star News in
1909.
Some “enterprising
young men” formed a
committee to negotiate
the price of the lots and
the Big Lake Park
Association was formed.
It didn’t take them long to make their mark, and the
local newspaper of the time, the Big Lake Wave, was a
strong booster of Big Lake’s resort aspirations. By 1910
the newspaper was running a column in the summer under
the heading “Lake News.” An August 1910 column
reported that:
Three auto loads of Minneapolis pleasure-seekers
picnicked at Big Lake, Sunday.
Harry W. Miller of Minneapolis...accompanied by his
wife, spent Sunday at “Beautiful Big Lake”, enjoying its
splendid beauties and pleasant breezes.
Three Roggatz brothers and their families from the
Flour City spent a couple of days, the first of the week, at
our Beautiful Big Lake. They think this is certainly the
place for an outing from the City.
The Park Association must have been made up of
Vacation...Cont. on Page 4
Vacation...Cont. from p. 1.
energetic individuals. In
1911, just two years after
their inception, the Park
Association sponsored at least
three major events at the
park—the annual MinnesotaIowa picnic in June, the July
4th celebration, and a special
picnic in August featuring
Governor Eberhart as the
guest speaker. In their quest
to attract the masses to this
event, they might have gone a
bit overboard in their
advertising: “The people of
Sherburne, Wright and Anoka
counties in particular and of
other localities and states in
general, are urgently invited to take part in one of the most
interesting events ever held in the Northwest. DON’T
MISS IT.”
This event was covered by the Minneapolis Sunday
Journal, which was then quoted in the Big Lake Wave on
August 18, 1911. After describing the governor’s speech
(on “Education and the Consolidation of Schools”) and the
events of the day, the paper noted that Big Lake was
located on the Great Northern and Northern Pacific
railroads only 35 miles from Minneapolis and that it was
“a most beautiful place” with a “splendid” lake. It went on
to say that Big Lake “is fast becoming a popular place for
summer residents and many summer cottages have been
built. Sites for more have been laid out and indications are
that the number of cottages erected will increase rapidly in
the near future. The park association has been holding a
series of entertainments to create interest in the natural
facilities possessed by Big Lake as a summer resort, and
Governor’s day, today, was in line with this policy.”
By 1920 the resort industry was well developed and by
1929 the Star News could report that the park comprised
over 10 acres of wooded land on the shores of Big Lake
with “every form of recreation or amusement” represented
for both old and young including a dancing pavilion, a
bathing beach, a skating rink, and even a merry-go-round
and pony track.
By the early 1920s the facilities at the lake needed to be
expanded to serve the growing number of visitors. The
Star News reported in May 1921 that George Brown had
built a new bath house on the lakeshore that could hold
350 people: “This is one of the most needed improvements
and is certainly appreciated by the Big Lake people. Mr.
Brown also has a new line of fine boats to accommodate
4 Historically Speaking
the people.” The population of the village of Big Lake in
1920 was only 363, so there must have been considerable
numbers of day trippers to spur the need for larger
facilities.
Many of those day visitors came up from the Cities for
company picnics at the amusement park. The Northern
Pacific Railroad, for example, held its annual employee
picnic in Big Lake for many years starting in 1915. In
1916 the program for the event advertised that the railroad
would provide a special train and bring employees and
their families out for a day filled with activities—baseball,
swimming, fishing, foot races with prizes, events for
women and children, music and dancing, and free
motorboat rides. In 1921 the railroad sold about 1,500
tickets for the event. The event was still being held in
1931, when the program advertised, among other things,
that the St. Paul Chapter of the American Red Cross
would be providing “handsome and competent life
guards” for the day.
The railroad wasn’t the only company to hold its
employee picnic in Big Lake. In a one-week period in
1927 the park hosted three separate employee picnics
including the railroad (employees and officials at separate
events) and the Minneapolis Meat Dealers Association.
The Sherburne County Farm Bureau picnic was also held
there many times, including in 1927 when nearly 5,000
people attended! The people who came to Big Lake for a
day, a week, or a summer at the lake had a huge impact on
the community.
Undated photo of people swimming and boating in Big
Lake.
Big Lake wasn’t alone in selling itself as a resort
community. Park Rapids, South Haven, Buffalo, Onamia,
Pine River, Duluth, Pelican Lake, Grand Marais—all were
advertising themselves in the Minneapolis newspapers as
vacation spots in the 1920s.
Among those places advertising in the Minneapolis
Sunday Tribune in 1922 was at least one Big Lake
destination, the
Cottage Inn. Located
along the Jefferson
Highway (now
Highway 10), the
Cottage Inn was
operated by Vernon
and Hazel Roman.
The ad boasted of
their wonderful
chicken dinners, but
those who remember
the place rave about
Hazel’s strawberry pie as well.
In 1922 when this ad appeared, many roads in the state
had yet to be paved so the paved Jefferson Highway stood
out. It was a great advantage to be able to boast how easy
it was to reach Big Lake—no getting stuck in the mud and
not too far from the Cities for those early automobiles.
Several other restaurants popped up along the Jefferson
Highway in Big Lake. Many still remember the Big Lake
Café run by George Meeker. Keith Hunt, a former Big
Lake resident, remembered working for Mr. Meeker in
the 1930s: “three bucks a 72 hour week and meal. Two
afternoons off from 2:00 to 5:00; toughest job I ever had,
including a summer on the railroad gang.”
N. D. Brown died in 1932, but Brown’s Hotel
continued to flourish and by the 1920s was advertising
itself as “a pleasant home for tourists” only 39 miles from
Minneapolis. Samuel Rank, former publisher of the Big
Lake Wave, wrote at N.D.’s death that “All his life he was
more or less connected with the development of his home
town, now a live, wide-awake point for tourists.” By the
1930s, N.D.’s daughters Mae and Jessie were running
Brown’s Hotel. Many a Big Lake teenager got early work
experience helping to prepare and clean up after Sunday
dinner at Brown’s. According to Lois Keen (N.D.
Brown’s great-granddaughter), people came in from St.
Cloud and Minneapolis for a Sunday dinner of roast beef,
mashed potatoes, gravy, creamed peas, a slice of lettuce
with French dressing, homemade rolls, dessert and coffee.
Along with the hotel and the roadside eateries, gas
stations were an important part of Big Lake’s downtown
landscape and tourism economy. With so many people
passing through there was a demand for both gasoline and
garages that could do car repairs.
Keith Hunt worked one summer at the Pure Oil station
a block east of Meeker’s Café—he was paid 15 cents an
hour and got part-time winter work. According to him, the
“high point was always the summer, when the lake
cottage people came for the season. Grocers in the village
delivered orders to the cottages first thing in the morning,
and Frank Kolbinger...would come wheeling in for gas at
7:30 in the morning, his Model A delivery truck loaded
with stuff to deliver to cottages full of pretty girls and
their good lookin’ brothers. Some of the girls would show
up later at the gas stations we locals worked, needing air
in their bike tires. In later years, they told us they’d let the
air out of the tires a block before they got to the station of
their choice. Tough duty.”
By the early 1940s the Park Association had disbanded
and everything at the park was gone except for the dance
pavilion. But there were still cabins available for tourists
to rent. A postcard written in 1942 from a vacationer in
Big Lake to friends in Minneapolis began “This is a
Vacation with a capital V! Our host and hostess and their
daughter are doing everything for our pleasure. They have
a lovely home and a unique café—a dining car.” Clearly a
satisfied customer!
The “paved highway” that made Big Lake an easy
destination. The closest building on the left is one of the local
eateries. Notice the car parked in front of it—they didn’t go
as far or as fast as ours do!
But change came to Big Lake and today almost every
physical trace of the resort businesses that were so
important to the local economy in the early twentieth
century have been erased. As we drive through Big Lake
today, we can only imagine the dances at the pavilion that
drew the college crowd from the University of Minnesota,
or the picnic crowds that filled the lakeside park, or the
hordes of summer people that arrived each year to stay at
the cottages on the lake. The community’s rich past lives
on in photographs and in people’s memories, as well as in
books compiled by history-minded residents such as Rod
Hunt’s A Boy’s Guide to Big Lake Minnesota and Other
Stuff and the Big Lake Historical Society’s book History
of Big Lake.
If you have memories or photographs of Big Lake’s
resort years, please contact us. We would like to
record these memories before they are lost to
future generations.
Spring 2005 5