• Home
•  | 
• Login/Register
•  | 
• Help

TAKEN FROM: A Short History of North Branch
By Sue Leaf

In the 1860’s St. Paul banker William Banning and other St. Paul business men organized to promote a railroad between St. Paul and Duluth. The Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad was completed in 1870. St. Paul and Duluth had been connected in the 1850’s by a rough Government Road that the stagecoach used. Now they were linked a second time, bringing the major urban area of Minnesota-- the Twin Cities—in contact with the shipping routes through the Great Lakes to big cities in the eastern United States. The new tracks put Minnesota in touch with the rest of the world. The state could ship out raw materials and receive manufactured goods much more easily.

"North Branch Station" was sited by the railroad company on the north branch of the Sunrise River that same year. The railroad wanted to encourage settlement, so that communities and farmers would use the trains to ship goods. People and their livestock needed water, so the railroad stations were placed, if possible, next to streams or lakes. Forest Lake, Wyoming, Stacy, North Branch, Harris and Rush City all got their start next to a body of water.

Two months after the railroad opened, the station received a post office from the federal government and George F. Flanders became the first postmaster.
The establishment of a post office drew new settlers to the young town. Frank Pratt, a Civil War veteran and former newspaper editor built a one-story general store in partnership with George Flanders, who became its clerk.

You must be logged in to post a comment regarding this story.