"After riding another fifteen miles across the trackless,
treeless, boundless expanse of bare-brown, desolate, lonesome prairie,
we arrived at the embryo town of Pipestone, its one little lone
house barely visible in the deepening twilight."-Mrs. J. M.
Bull, in a letter printed in the Pipestone County Star, June 22,
1916, reminiscing about life during Pipestone's first years of settlement.
The town of Pipestone, Minnesota, possesses a rich historic legacy
as a transportation and quarrying center. Noted for its architecture
constructed of locally quarried Sioux quartzite and catlinite, Pipestone
stands as a vivid reminder of a time when Minnesota's expanding
western frontier entered the sacred land of the red pipestone. Visitors
to Pipestone will have a chance to witness the town's interesting
architecture, as well as the nearby pipestone quarries and surrounding
communities. From the earliest American Indian settlements up to
the present, the history of Pipestone is one where the clashing
of cultures produced a town created from the sacred earth. The surrounding
area in Pipestone County is also rich in history, and the neighboring
town of Jasper stands today as a reminder that Pipestone did not
possess a monopoly on quarrying and railroad transportation.
"Scalp Dance, Sioux"
painting by George Catlin. The Dakota (Sioux) American Indians
were the latest in a long line of pre-European inhabitants of
southwestern Minnesota
Courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum |
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American Indian Settlement: According to A History of Pipestone
County, produced by the Pipestone County Historical Society in
1984, the first evidence of human occupation of southwest Minnesota
dates to 8000 B.C., following the Pleistocene epoch of earth's last
great ice age. Hunters equipped with stone-tipped spears hunted big
game in the area, such as the mammoth and a very large species of
bison, also extinct. A large spearhead (Clovis point), one of the
oldest artifacts in Minnesota, was discovered in Pipestone County.
The first petroglyphs (rock drawings) were created about 2000 B.C.
in the area; some were found at the Pipestone quarries. Around 200
B.C. the Fox Lake Culture had emerged in the Pipestone area. They
left behind mounds and pottery samples, and used the bow and arrow.
Clay pots, dating back to 200 B.C., demonstrate that the Fox Lake
American Indians possessed a sophisticated culture. The Great Oasis
Culture followed the Fox Lake people; these people lived in the area
from 900 to 1400 A.D. The Oasis Culture is believed to be the first
to make use of the pipestone from the quarries. They created carved
tablets inscribed with figures resembling crosses as well as pipes
from the stone of the quarries. Dwelling in thatch houses, there is
little evidence that the Great Oasis Culture practiced much agriculture,
although members in northeastern Iowa are thought to have cultivated
corn. These people were replaced by the Oto and Iowa people, descendants
of the Mississippian people known as the Oyote. In the 1600s and 1700s,
the Dakota migrated to the area, and among them were the Yankton Dakota,
a part of the powerful Dakota or Sioux Nation, who settled near the
location of the present-day town, and utilized the soft red stone,
called pipestone.
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Pipestone artisan
National Park Service |
European and American Exploration and the Founding of Pipestone:
The French were the first Europeans to explore Minnesota. The Groselliers
and Radisson, Father Louis Hennepin, Baron LaHonton and others left
accounts of their journeys as well as descriptions of the red stone
found in pipes and other items American Indians traded. The region
passed from French to American control in 1803 as part of the Louisiana
Purchase. With the 1814 Treaty of Ghent clarifying the boundary
between British North America (present-day Canada) and the United
States of America, large areas of the American west became part
of the United States. The famous Lewis and Clark expedition traveled
through the area soon after. Lewis and Clark noted the pipestone
quarry in their journals. Fur trader Philander Prescott wrote another
account of the area in 1831. Five years later, the artist and writer
George Catlin traveled through the region. He sketched the landscape
surrounding the quarries, and this drew general interest in the
site.
Pipestone County was established in 1857, but it was still many
years before European-American settlers came to live in the county.
The region had been visited by explorers and traders, but settlers
stayed away, considering the county "Indian territory," until well
after the Civil War. In 1837 the United States government negotiated
treaties with the Sioux and the Ojibwa, who held title to the entire
Minnesota region, to give up lands in the triangle bounded by the
St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers and by a line drawn eastward from
the mouth of the Crow Wing River. As soon as the treaty was signed,
lumbermen moved into the region, and settlements rapidly grew up
at Stillwater and St. Paul. Further treaties with the American Indians,
combined with the growing might and population of the United States,
eventually opened up the rest of Minnesota for settlement. Alarmed
at the number of settlers entering the region, the Sioux rose in
August of 1862, which resulted in nearly all the Sioux being expelled
from the State. During the 38 day war, 500-800 American settlers
and an unknown number of Sioux were killed. After this war, immigration
grew in the western Minnesota. The first Pipestone County survey
occurred in 1871, but the surveyors neglected to mark the Sioux
reservation on the drawing of the land that was later named Sweet
Township. The town of Pipestone, Minnesota, county seat of Pipestone
County, was first platted from 1873 to 1874, and finally incorporated
on February 1, 1891. Two individuals, Charles H. Bennett and Daniel
E. Sweet were instrumental in the founding of Pipestone. In April
1873, Sweet surveyed the 20-block townsite in Section 12 of the
township which was later to be named Sweet. The town itself was
located near the center of the county, a mile south of the quarries
where the red pipestone is found, and for which both the town and
county are named.
Bennett, born in Union town, Michigan, in 1846, served four years
in the Civil War and acquired a pharmacist's education by working
in pharmacies in the East. He lived for a while in Sioux City, Iowa,
before it had a railroad, and built a thriving drugstore business
in Le Mars, Iowa, before coming to Pipestone in 1873. Bennett used
his own capital and all he could borrow in efforts to develop the
community. In 1883 he persuaded the Close Brothers, William and
Frederick, two Englishmen, to settle in Pipestone. The Close Brothers
advertised the bountiful landscape in circulars distributed throughout
the Northeast and England, promoting the rich black soil, civilized
nature of the country, and the paradise which awaited the hopeful
immigrant. The English land-speculating brothers did not mention
the severe weather, devastating insect pests and the treeless landscape,
which had earlier prohibited settlement. The selective nature of
the ads helped to lure settlers, and with the increased settlement
the railroads arrived. Later two more Close brothers, John and James,
arrived, and along with S. H. Graves, they formed the Close Brothers
Company. Through connections with wealthy Englishmen, they were
able to buy large amounts of land in southwestern Minnesota and
northeastern Iowa, forming one of the largest land companies in
the region.
Pipestone City Hall, now the Pipestone County Museum
Courtesy of Lorraine Draper
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Railroads, Quarries and the Growth of the Town: The plotting
of the townsite in 1876 did not result in the immediate growth of
the town. A rush for land began in anticipation of railroad construction
after 1878. On Thanksgiving day, 1879, the first train arrived in
Pipestone. By 1890, the town possessed four different rail lines and
became the transportation and shipping hub of southwestern Minnesota.
In 1879 the Minnesota and Black Hills branch of the Sioux City and
St. Paul Railroad was constructed from Heron Lake in Jackson County
to Woodstock. In 1881 this line was extended to Pipestone. The nearby
towns of Ruthton, Holland, and Ihlen were developed in 1888 in anticipation
of the 1889 construction of the Willmar and Sioux Falls branch of
the Great Northern Railroad. The town of Jasper was also founded in
1888 by several Pipestone capitalists interested in quarry development.
Railroad lines brought many different businesses and people to
the growing town. With 20 trains entering the town each day, Pipestone
thrived. The increased rail service brought many positive aspects
to life in Pipestone, but it also brought increased tensions, as
fuel sources were scarce in the flat plains and the railroads monopolized
the small coal supply. In 1879, 22 businesses were operating in
Pipestone, and in just one year the number jumped to 53. Three physicians
were in residence by 1879. Over the next 20 years Pipestone became
a real "boom town" and it was then that the buildings in the Pipestone
Commercial Historic District were constructed. Masons used locally
quarried stone to build these lasting monuments to their craft.
The railroad brought access to outside culture, and Pipestone even
boasted the Ferris Grand Opera House in the Ferris
Grand Block Building built in 1898. Not all changes were positive,
though, as monopolies existed concerning the use of grain elevators,
pooling and freight costs. Farmers' cooperatives formed to combat
these procedures. The antimonopoly feeling of the time produced
the Farmers' Alliance and the Arkansas Agricultural Wheel in the
southern states, and a number of organizations, collectively called
the Northern Alliance, in the midwestern and north central states.
Smaller in numbers, the Northern Alliance was more concerned with
railroad issues and resorted to a third party movement to pass reforms.
The town of Pipestone was largely built with rock quarried from
the large deposits of Sioux quartzite in the county. Beginning in
the late 19th century, masons, builders and quarry workers collaborated
to construct buildings from the stone. Their high level of craftsmanship,
sense of beauty and ability to construct buildings of lasting quality
are part of Pipestone's tradition. Several popular architectural
revival styles were applied to the town's early downtown buildings,
but rural architecture largely escaped the excesses found in the
eclectic town architecture of the period. The high standard for
the buildings found along Main Street in Pipestone are testimony
to the builders. The local quarries also produced building materials
for distant cities, with the railroads transporting the red stone
to numerous locations.
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100 Block of West Main St., including
the prominent Ferris Grand Block c.1904
Courtesy of the Pipestone County Historical Society |
Pipestone's Progress: Schools and Government: Pipestone's government
began tackling local issues from the beginning of settlement. Pipestone's
first school was a 10 by 15 foot wooden building, opening in the summer
of 1878 with six students taught by Florence Bennett. This school
was located at the corner of Hiawatha Avenue and 2nd Street. In 1881,
a one-story 26 by 40 foot frame building was built on the northeast
corner of the present Central School site. Two years later a two-story,
five-room brick-veneered building, trimmed with Kasota sandstone,
was built in the center of that property. A fire on March 29, 1893,
destroyed both buildings, and school was held in the town churches
as construction began on a three-story stone building. It was completed
and ready for occupancy in the fall of 1894. As the population increased,
two small schools were built in the eastern and western sections.
The East Ward and West Ward schools served the first four grades.
The use of these schools ceased when a large addition was made to
central school in 1910, doubling its size. With increased enrollment
after consolidation in the 1950s, district elementary students were
bused to either Brown or Hill schools, both post-World War II schools.
Pipestone's history of education also includes the American effort
to provide education to the nearby Sioux. Congress passed a bill
in 1891 which appropriated $30,000 to build the Pipestone Indian
Training School, located about one mile north of town, on the Pipestone
reservation, which included the pipestone quarries. The school appropriated
the entire 648 acres of reservation land surrounding the quarries,
and the Yankton leaders, who did not object to the school itself,
regarded its location as an attempt by the United States government
to invalidate their claim to the quarries. The school opened February
2, 1883. It grew to consist of 56 buildings, including a farm and
cottages. Eleven buildings were made of Sioux quartzite from the
reservation quarries, including the Pipestone
Indian School Superintendent's House, which dates to 1907.
Jasper and Ihlen: In 1888 two other towns in Pipestone County
were founded south of the town of Pipestone. On April 19, 1888,
the Pipestone county surveyor, Alfred S. Tee, surveyed the Jasper
townsite, 12 miles south of Pipestone. The townsite was divided
into 12 blocks and dedicated on May 4, 1888. Partially in neighboring
Rock County, Jasper became a rival to Pipestone, and home to a stone
quarry founded by the five Rae Brothers, Alexander, Andrew, William,
Robert and George, who immigrated from Scotland. By the spring of
1889, 235 people were living in Jasper. Jasper was the last town
in Rock and Pipestone Counties connected to rail transportation.
The first passenger train arrived in Jasper on October 21, 1888.
Religious services began in Jasper the same year, and the town soon
possessed six churches. In the same year, the Great Northern Railroad
company founded the town of Ihlen, five miles south of Pipestone.
All trains stopped in Ihlen, while the conductor reported the number
of cars in each train to the company. Ihlen's businesses were established
soon thereafter. In June 1885 the first general store was opened
by John Olson. In 1894 Albert Olson opened a hardware store and
the bank of Ihlen soon followed, in 1904. The early 1920s saw the
greatest railroad activity in Ihlen, but by the end of the decade
it began to taper off as the advent of diesel-powered locomotives
made it unnecessary for trains to stop there.
Jasper Stone Quarries, the only active quarry in the area
Courtesy of Lorraine Draper
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Pipestone and the 20th Century:As Pipestone grew, so did the
public improvements. The town council established a local Board of
Health, street committee and a waterworks committee, which produced
a water system that used wind power to raise the water to an elevated
tank for water pressure. This happened in October of 1887, at a total
cost of $17,000. In 1895, the town installed street lights on the
major streets in town. Soon after, the streets were paved. In 1907
Pipestone established standards for sidewalks, crossings and curbs.
The Benjamin Building on 112 East Main Street was built in 1929, just
before the Great Depression, and was named for its owner, Dr. W. G.
Benjamin, who practiced medicine at this location until 1970.
The 20th century also brought Pipestone's first hospital, the Brown
Hospital, constructed in 1912. The police and fire department
expanded, and the original three-person mayor-council grew to a
five-person mayor-council. An airport was constructed in 1946. As
automobiles became common, the need for train travel decreased and
the Calumet Hotel began to suffer for lack
of business. Establishment of the Pipestone National
Monument in 1937 and the Song of Hiawatha Pageant caused usage
of the hotel to soar from the 1940s to 1960s, as Pipestone became
a popular tourist spot. The Song of Hiawatha Pageant, which ended its run in 2008, was held annually
during the summer.
This show, derived from Longfellow's poem, possessed a cast of 200,
and was known for its lighting effects and costumes. The Pipestone
town charter, a document that outlines the form of government, initially
limited the power of local government, but in 1978 the town adopted
a new "home rule" charter that expanded the powers and responsibilities
of local government. In the late 1970s Pipestone's historic and
architectural significance was recognized by its listing as a historic
district in the National Register of Historic Places.
Today, Pipestone is a progressive community of about 4,600 people
and the county seat for the roughly 10,000 people in Pipestone County.
With numerous sports facilities, a performing arts center, various
festivals and the town's proximity to three local regional airports,
including the Pipestone Municipal Airport, Pipestone is still a
transportation hub, with the Pipestone National
Monument, the Pipestone Commercial Historic
District and other nearby historic locations waiting to be discovered
by the interested traveler.
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