Community
information brought to you by:Jim Hermes
612-221-0768
Beginning in the 1850s, Swedish immigrants disembarking at New York or Montreal headed for Chicago, where they could go by train to Rock Island, then by steamboat up the Mississippi. They were seeking to reestablish their farming way of life on American soil. The first Swedes reached the Chicago Lakes area in 1851, and it subsequently became the most Swedish area of the nation. Other early settlements developed in Goodhue and Carver counties.
In the 1860s, Minnesota lured Swedish immigrants here to purchase railroad land grant tracts. Swedish settlements sprang up along the rail lines, westward toward Kandlyohl county and northward towards Moorhead.
The farmers supplemented their incomes by cutting timber or helping build the railroads. As the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul burgeoned in the 1870s and 1880s, thousands of Swedish men found work there, particularly in the timber mills and the construction industry. Women worked as domestic servants, cooks, laundresses, janitors, or seamstresses in the garment factories.
Among the most literate of immigrants, Swedes soon published newspapers in their native tongue. People tended to settle with others from the same region of Sweden. Large concentrations came from Smaland, Skane, and Dalarna. Churches were the center of most Swedish settlements, whether Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, or Mission Covenant.
Swedish Americans have made significant contributions to education, business, industry, government, civic affairs and cultural life in Minnesota.
Crabtrees Kitchen is in Copas, an unincorporated town between Marine and Scandia. It's known as a wonderful place for those home cooked meals & catch up with local news. In business since 1947, the restaurant is located on Highway 95 (St. Croix Trail). Stop in and say "hi" to Terry and Bev Bennett, its present owners.
In the old days, this building was called the Scandia Mercantile, with a hardware store and a funeral parlor upstairs (the Mattson Funeral Home, now located in Forest Lake).
Gammelkyran, the first sanctuary of Elim Lutheran Church, was built in 1856 on a site near Hay Lake, two miles south of Gammelgarden Museum. Used as a church until 1860, then moved and served as Hay Lake School until 1899; it was then sold, dismantled and moved to the Frank Forsell Farm. In 1981 it was donated to Elim and Gammelgarden by Mr. and Mr. Archie Forsell. Once again, it was dismantled and moved. It was redirected on September 12, 1982. This is the oldest church building in Minnesota.
The district was organized in 1855. This building has been named to the National Register of Historic Sites.
Featuring the same Swedish log construction as the Gammelkrykan and the Prast Hus, the exact construction date of this house is unknown, but the original land patent is dated 1855. It was used as a home until the early 1900s, and then it was used as a granary. Mr. and Mrs. Russell Jackson donated this building to the Gammelgarden in 1985 when it was moved from its original site on Bone (Bonne) Lake.
Scandia Elementary school K-6, part of School District 831, with District offices at Forest Lake. Until the 1950s, there were 4 country schools 1 to 8th grade, all one-room school houses. Grades 9-12 were held in Forest Lake. Many of the children knew both Swedish and English.
Jim & Nancy, Wade & Teresa, and Joe Hermes