Lake Wobegon is a fictional town created by Garrison Keillor as the setting of the recurring segment "News from Lake Wobegon" for the radio program A Prairie Home Companion broadcast from Saint Paul, Minnesota . The fictional town serves as the setting for many of Keillor's stories and novels, gaining an international audience with Lake Wobegon Days in 1985. Described as a small rural town in central Minnesota, the events and adventures of the townspeople provided Keillor with a wealth of humorous and often touching stories.
71-411: Keillor has said that people often ask him if it is a real town, and when he replied that it was not, they seemed disappointed because "people want stories to be true". So he began to say it was in "central Minnesota, near Stearns County , up around Holdingford , not far from St. Rosa and Albany and Freeport , northwest of St. Cloud ", which he says is "sort of the truth, I guess". Keillor has said
142-458: A booze runner who has had many conflicts with the law. At the time of his death, a Federal charge of illegal possession of liquor was hanging over his head, the trial being scheduled for later in the year. It is alleged that he peddled liquor at dance halls over a wide area and other rumors credit him with having hijacked many liquor runners in this section of the State." Following the 1941 entry of
213-717: A family with roots in the parish removed the bell from St. Mary's church in Holdingford and gave it as a donation to Holy Myrrh Bearers Orthodox Church in St. Cloud. The only priest who lies buried in St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church cemetery in Holdingford is Fr. H. William Wilkens. According to his 1914 obituaries in local newspapers, Fr. Wilkens was a member of the Belgian nobility from Namur , and former seminary professor in Galveston, Texas . After concerns about his health forced
284-537: A household in the city was $ 34,000, and the median income for a family was $ 42,788. Males had a median income of $ 31,053 versus $ 21,141 for females. The per capita income for the city was $ 15,410. About 6.2% of families and 11.2% of the population were below the poverty line , including 13.9% of those under age 18 and 9.2% of those age 65 or over. Holdingford Public Schools are part of the Holdingford Public School District. Schools in
355-472: A household in the county was $ 42,426, and the median income for a family was $ 51,553. Males had a median income of $ 34,268 versus $ 23,393 for females. The per capita income for the county was $ 19,211. About 4.30% of families and 8.70% of the population were below the poverty line , including 6.70% of those under age 18 and 8.60% of those age 65 or over. In its early history Stearns County was heavily Democratic due to being largely German Catholic and opposed to
426-549: A listener query on the Prairie Home website, he pointed out that, in keeping with their Scandinavian heritage, Wobegonians prefer to downplay, rather than overestimate, their capabilities or achievements. Businesses, organizations, and landmarks in Lake Wobegon include: Keillor has written several semi-autobiographical books about life in Lake Wobegon, including: Stearns County, Minnesota Stearns County
497-603: A loaded shotgun. As he and Buchan fled back to their escape vehicle, Tuffy Olson received two fatal shotgun blasts in the back. Following an investigation by the Stearns and Todd County Sheriff's Departments, Tuffy's two surviving enforcers and the Dzierweczynski brothers were both arrested pending criminal charges. According to the Long Prairie Leader , "Tuffy Olson has for years had a reputation of being
568-499: A magnificent grain elevator, and the pleasant lake itself. The Lake Wobegon effect is a common name for illusory superiority, a natural human tendency to overestimate one's capabilities. The characterization that "all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and the children are all above average" has been used to describe a real and pervasive human tendency to overestimate one's achievements and capabilities in relation to others. In one survey of high school students, only 2% of
639-480: A map showing Lake Wobegon about two miles north of Holdingford, northwest of St. Cloud. Keillor often refers to a cafe in downtown Lake Wobegon called the "Chatterbox Cafe". There was a real cafe and gas station in Olivia by that name, but it is now closed and abandoned, with nothing remaining to identify it but one sign. Olivia is in north-central Renville County. The Minnesota Rails and Trails project began creating
710-536: A real town in northeast Stearns County . The nearest good-sized town referred to in Keillor's monologues is St. Cloud . Lake Wobegon is sometimes compared favorably to a rival fictional town called Millet; a real town called Rice lies 20 miles north of St. Cloud. Microsoft Virtual Earth returned a location northeast of St. Cloud when Lake Wobegon was entered into its search engine. The programs distributed at live performances of A Prairie Home Companion in 2005 had
781-508: A recognized ethnicity today), and in 1905 negotiated with the Canadian authorities to establish the St. Peter Colony in north-central Saskatchewan ." The first courthouse was put into service on July 12, 1864, and it remained in use until the present courthouse was dedicated in 1922. In 1913 a campaign was mounted to shift the county seat to Albany , due to its more central location. The effort
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#1732791127080852-516: A transfer to the Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Cloud , Fr. Wilkens served at a series of local parishes. He also became very well known locally in the decades before his death as a highly intelligent German-language essayist on religious and philosophical topics and a regular contributor to Der Nordstern . Similarly to other Stearns County German- and Polish-American communities, the Holdingford area opposed American entry into
923-588: Is "most Wobegonic", is on Stearns County 's Lake Wobegon Regional Trail and advertises itself as the "Gateway to Lake Wobegon", even hosting a "Lake Wobegon Cafe." Keillor formed most of his ideas for Lake Wobegon while working at public radio station KSJR on the campus of St. John's University in Collegeville , basing it on Avon , where he lived, and other local towns such as Albany , Freeport , Cold Spring , Richmond , Rockville , St. Joseph , St. Stephen , St. Wendell and Holdingford . Stearns County
994-509: Is a county in the U.S. state of Minnesota . As of the 2020 census , the population was 158,292. Its county seat and largest city is St. Cloud . Included within the Minnesota Territory since 1849, the county was founded by European Americans in 1855. It was originally named for Isaac Ingalls Stevens , then renamed for Charles Thomas Stearns . Stearns County is part of the St. Cloud Metropolitan Statistical Area , which
1065-644: Is also included in the Minneapolis - St. Paul Combined Statistical Area . The Stearns County area was formerly occupied by numerous indigenous tribes, such as the Sioux ( Dakota ), Chippewa ( Ojibwe ) and Winnebago ( Ho-chunk ). The first large immigration was of German Catholics in the 1850s. Early arrivals also came from eastern states. The Wisconsin Territory was established by the federal government effective July 3, 1836, and existed until its eastern portion
1136-415: Is devoted to agriculture or has been developed. The terrain slopes to the east and south, with its highest point a local protuberance at 7.6 miles (12.2 km) west and 1.6 miles (2.6 km) south of St. Joseph , at 1,461 ft (445 m) ASL. The county's total area is 1,390 square miles (3,600 km ), of which 1,343 square miles (3,480 km ) is land and 47 square miles (120 km ) (3.4%)
1207-938: Is now Stearns County, each centered on a church-oriented hamlet. As the farmers prospered, the small frame churches were replaced by more substantial buildings of brick or stone such as St. Mary, Help of Christians , a Gothic Revival stone structure built in 1873. Stearns County retains in its German character and is still home to one of the largest rural Catholic populations in Anglo-America." Furthermore, according to Kathleen Neils Conzen, "Stearns County Germans early established daughter settlements at West Union in Todd County , Millerville in Douglas County , and Pierz in Morrison County, later flooded into North Dakota (where 'Stearns County German' remains
1278-515: Is now Stearns County, each centered on a church-oriented hamlet. As the farmers prospered, the small frame churches were replaced by more substantial buildings of brick or stone... Stearns County retains in its German character and is still home to one of the largest rural Catholic populations in Anglo-America." Holdingford was platted in the 1870s by Randolph Holding on a site near a ford. A post office has been in operation at Holdingford since 1872. According to local historian Fr. Vincent Yzermans,
1349-594: Is part of the St. Cloud Metropolitan Statistical Area . Writing in 1997, Jewish-American historian of America's religious architecture Marilyn J. Chiat described early settlement in the region, "Father Francis X. Pierz , a missionary to Indians in central Minnesota, published a series of articles in 1851 in German Catholic newspapers advocating Catholic settlement in central Minnesota. Large numbers of immigrants, mainly German , but also Slovenian and Polish , responded. Over 20 parishes where formed in what
1420-437: Is portrayed as the seat of Mist County, Minnesota, a tiny county near Minnesota's geographic center that supposedly does not appear on maps because of the "incompetence of surveyors who mapped out the state in the 19th century": the surveyors worked inward from the state's boundaries, and when they reached Lake Wobegon, had no room left for it on the map. The town's slogan is Gateway to Central Minnesota. Holdingford now has
1491-555: Is the home of the Whippets baseball team, tuna hotdish , snow, Norwegian bachelor farmers, ice fishing , tongues frozen to cold metal objects, and lutefisk —fish treated with lye which, after being reconstituted, is reminiscent of "the afterbirth of a dog or the world's largest chunk of phlegm." But it is also the home of the Mist County Fair, old-fashioned show yards with flowers "like Las Vegas showgirls", sweet corn,
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#17327911270801562-614: Is water. The northeastern border of Stearns County is formed by the Mississippi River. The land consists of rolling hills, scenic lakes, prairies, savannas and woodlands of a mixture of coniferous and deciduous trees. Stearns is one of 17 Minnesota savanna region counties with more savanna soils than either prairie or forest soils. The county has 166 lakes. Source: Sources: Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from
1633-531: The First World War , but produced many local recruits and draftees once America declared war on Imperial Germany in May 1917. In November 1917, the largely German-American parish of St. Mary's heard a "very impressive sermon" on American patriotism by Fr. Scheuer followed by the presentation of the parish's service flag, which bore 15-stars in honor of each of the young men from the parish who were serving in
1704-631: The Lake Wobegon Trail in 1998. It now stretches from Waite Park, Minnesota just west of St. Cloud, to Freeport, Minnesota , where it forks; one trail heads northwest to Osakis, Minnesota , the other northeast to Holdingford, Minnesota and Bowlus, Minnesota , and on across the Mississippi River . Keillor participated in the trail opening ceremonies and said that Holdingford was the most "Wobegonic" town in his mind. The Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon takes place every year in May on
1775-609: The Sanctified Brethren . The 800 residents (1950 Census: 728) are proud of the Statue of the Unknown Norwegian (so called because the model left before the sculptor could get his name). Lake Wobegon is in competition with its fictional rival, St. Olaf, for having the most descendants of the same common ancestor. Lake Wobegon became a secret dumping ground of nuclear waste during the 1950s. The fictional town
1846-688: The United States military . America's Independence Day 1918 was understandingly the largest ever seen in Holdingford, beginning with a Requiem Mass at St. Hedwig's Church for the fallen soldiers of all the Allied Armies, followed by a dinner served at noon by the women of the parish. Five Holdingford-area Doughboys lost their lives while serving in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), Private Nicholas Heinz, who died on 13 September 1918 from wounds received in
1917-469: The Upper Midwest , especially western Minnesota , North Dakota , and to some extent, northern Iowa , Wisconsin , eastern South Dakota and northeastern Montana . These are rural, sparsely populated areas that were settled only in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, largely by homesteading immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia . One of these, Holdingford, Minnesota , which Keillor said
1988-671: The 2 September capture of a German machine gun nest near Vilcey-sur-Trey , for which he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross ; Ernest Roehrs, who died of the influenza on Sept. 29, 1918 at Camp Funston , Kansas; Gregor Hartung, who was killed in action on France in October 1918; John Elkanic who was killed in action on 22 October 1918 and buried in the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial ; and Private Francis Feia who
2059-809: The Head of the Japanese Orthodox Church , also served at St. Mary's Russian Orthodox Church in Holdingford as a Reader and schoolteacher. The parish altar lamp was a personal gift from Tsar Nicholas II . During the 1920s and '30s, the Russian Orthodox priests from Holdingford sometimes made missionary visits to the Rusyn Americans living in a similar farming settlement in Browerville, Minnesota . They made some converts, but otherwise had little success. The Divine Liturgy
2130-700: The Pitzl Brewery in New Munich and Holdingford. The other suspects were Stanley Dobis of St. Anna , as well as Albin Bohmer and Joseph Sigmeth of Avon, Minnesota . All were held in Minneapolis pending trial on Federal charges of violating the Volstead Act . According to local historian Fr. Vincent A Yzermans, during the Prohibition era , "a popular little ditty was being sung and hummed along
2201-726: The United States into the Second World War , young men from every ethnic background living in Holding Township became voluntary recruits to the United States military . In April 1944, Holdingford native Private Walter Krystosek was killed in action at the Anzio landing . On New Years Day 1945, Clarence Scepaniak, was a paratrooper serving in the European Theater with the 17th Airborne Division when he
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2272-425: The age of 18 living with them, 44.8% were married couples living together, 9.8% had a female householder with no husband present, 7.5% had a male householder with no wife present, and 37.9% were non-families. 32.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31 and the average family size was 2.92. The median age in
2343-413: The book Mabou Pioneers , one elderly Holdingford settler recalled, "As I look back, I can remember they were a jolly group of people, and when all their children were born, they made quite a gathering when they were all together at parties in their different homes, with singing of Scottish songs , violin music , and of course, dancing Scottish reels ." The Highland Scottish dancing at local ceilidhs
2414-562: The city was 37.3 years. 25.8% of residents were under the age of 18; 7.5% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 25.1% were from 25 to 44; 25.2% were from 45 to 64; and 16.2% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 50.7% male and 49.3% female. As of the census of 2000, there were 736 people, 286 households, and 197 families living in the city. The population density was 1,182.1 inhabitants per square mile (456.4/km ). There were 297 housing units at an average density of 477.0 per square mile (184.2/km ). The racial makeup of
2485-464: The city was 99.18% White , 0.54% Asian , and 0.27% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.14% of the population. There were 286 households, out of which 32.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.4% were married couples living together, 12.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.1% were non-families. 27.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16.8% had someone living alone who
2556-422: The city. The population density was 832.9 inhabitants per square mile (321.6/km ). There were 330 housing units at an average density of 388.2 per square mile (149.9/km ). The racial makeup of the city was 98.6% White , 0.1% Asian , 0.4% Pacific Islander , and 0.8% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.7% of the population. There were 306 households, of which 29.7% had children under
2627-538: The colony's motto was Ubi Quid Ubi (Latin: "We're Here!...Where are we?"). Later the motto in the Lake Wobegon incorporated town seal is described as Sumus Quod Sumus (Latin: "We Are What We Are"). Most of the population are descendants of German immigrants, who are mostly members of the Catholic parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, and descendants of Norwegian and Swedish immigrants, who attend Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church. Keillor's family were members of
2698-514: The county's isolationism gave strong support to William Lemke ’s Union Party . Stearns County turned Republican until another Catholic nominee, John F. Kennedy , returned it to the Democratic ranks after being one of only 130 counties nationwide to back George McGovern in 1972. Since the “Reagan Revolution”, Stearns County has voted reliably Republican, with no Democrat gaining a majority since Jimmy Carter in 1976, and Bill Clinton in 1996
2769-518: The district include Holdingford Elementary School and Holdingford High School. Holdingford Elementary serves Preschool to 6th grade, and Holdingford High School serves Grades 7–12. The Holdingford Huskers are expanding in the sports area. They have baseball/softball, volleyball, football, basketball, tennis, swimming, track, wrestling, and cheerleading. Stearns County Road 9 (4th Street), Stearns County Road 17 (River Street), and Main Street are three of
2840-478: The earliest settlers and founders of St. Mary's Church were Irish-Americans and Canadian Gaelic -speaking immigrants from Sight Point, Cape Mabou , Cape Breton , Nova Scotia . For this reason, Holdingford was originally called, "The Scotch Settlement." The early Scottish-Canadian pioneers of Holdingford included descendants of Clan Stewart , Clan MacArthur , Clan Campbell , Clan Kennedy , and Clan MacPherson . In an interview with Rev. Alex D. MacDonald for
2911-489: The farmhouse of Holdingford bootleggers Joseph and Anthony Dzierweczynski to buy 85 gallons of Minnesota 13 , Tuffy Olson first announced that the Dzierweczynskis would now be paid in cash. Then, however, Tuffy Olson and his enforcer Harley Buchan drew their sidearms and announced that they intended to take to 85 gallons of moonshine for free. Joseph Dzierweczynski, however, managed to flee the room and returned with
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2982-490: The highways and byways of Holding Township": In June 1933, Clarence Olson, alias Tuffy, a bootlegger and gangster based in Eagle Bend, Minnesota who, according to The Long Prairie Leader , "has long had a reputation as a liquor runner and hijacker and who has been claimed by many to be the toughest man between Minneapolis and Duluth ", met his destiny in a Holdingford area gunfight. After arriving with two associates at
3053-579: The influence of visiting theology student John Sabol in 1886, founded the Slovak Congregational Church, locally called "the Country Church", which still stands across a country road from the former site of St. Mary's Orthodox Church. In 1902, Bishop Tikhon , the future Patriarch of Moscow , travelled from Minneapolis to bless the first completed Orthodox Church. While still a seminarian, Vasily Basalyga, who later became
3124-463: The largest city. 45°33′N 94°37′W / 45.55°N 94.61°W / 45.55; -94.61 Holdingford Holdingford is a city in Stearns County , Minnesota , United States. The population was 708 at the 2010 census . It claims to be "The Gateway to Lake Wobegon ", the fictional central Minnesota town created by author Garrison Keillor . Holdingford
3195-618: The main routes in the community. Holdingford is home to the longest covered bridge in Minnesota. The bridge is located along the Lake Wobegon Trail extension that runs from Albany past Holdingford. It is 186 feet (57 m) long and was built in 2008 by the Holdingford Lions club. Each May since 2008, runners in the Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon start in Holdingford before running 26.2 miles south on
3266-525: The mutual distrust, attended different Catholic parishes and only rarely intermarried. The Holdingford area remains, however, a center of traditional German and Polish folk music and of the speaking in local homes of both Silesian Polish and "Stearns County German". During the 1880s and '90s, a small farming colony of Slovaks and Rusyns migrated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire via Pennsylvania , and then settled on homesteads to
3337-524: The naming of three county commissioners and specified St. Cloud as the county seat. Writing in 1997, Jewish-American historian of America's religious architecture Marilyn J. Chiat commented, "Father Francis X. Pierz , a missionary to Indians in central Minnesota, published a series of articles in 1851 in German Catholic newspapers advocating Catholic settlement in central Minnesota. Large numbers of immigrants, mainly German, but also Slovenian and Polish , responded. Over 20 parishes where formed in what
3408-689: The northeast of Holdingford. The immigrants were mainly Roman Catholics , or Byzantine Catholics from the Slovak Greek Catholic Church or the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church , but enough converted to the Russian Orthodox Church that, with the assistance of Fr. John Maliarevsky from St. Mary's Cathedral in Minneapolis , they were able to build St. Mary's Russian Orthodox Church around 1897. Local converts to Protestantism under
3479-458: The only one to manage a plurality. The county's growing social conservative bent has fueled the Republican trend. In 2016 Donald Trump won the county with 59.8% of the vote, the highest percentage any presidential candidate has received since President Eisenhower in 1956. He improved on that in 2020 with 60.1% of the vote. As of 2024, one city in the county leans Democratic: St. Cloud ,
3550-412: The pietistic Scandinavian Lutheran Republican Party of that era . It did not vote Republican until Theodore Roosevelt swept every Minnesota county in 1904. Anti- Woodrow Wilson feeling from World War I caused the county to shift overwhelmingly to Warren G. Harding in 1920 before swinging to Robert M. La Follette , coreligionist Al Smith and fellow “wet” Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt . In 1936
3621-438: The population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 56.9% were of German and 9.4% Norwegian ancestry. There were 47,604 households, out of which 35.00% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.30% were married couples living together, 7.50% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.50% were non-families. 23.60% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.40% had someone living alone who
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#17327911270803692-588: The racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race. As of the census of 2000, there were 133,166 people, 47,604 households, and 32,132 families in the county. The population density was 99.2 per square mile (38.3/km ). There were 50,291 housing units at an average density of 37.4 per square mile (14.4/km ). The racial makeup of the county was 95.99% White , 0.83% Black or African American , 0.26% Native American , 1.58% Asian , 0.03% Pacific Islander , 0.47% from other races , and 0.82% from two or more races. 1.37% of
3763-635: The same slogan. Lake Wobegon is occasionally said to be near St. Olaf, Minnesota , another fictional town referred to in The Golden Girls television series. (There is actually a St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.) The town's school and amateur sports teams compete against the Uff-das of Upsala , a real town in southwest Morrison County , which is close to Holdingford . The town residents drink Wendy's Beer, brewed in St. Wendel ,
3834-458: The students reported that they were below average in leadership ability. The authors of a study suggest that what they consider the “Lake Wobegon effect” can in some cases negatively affect doctors' treatment advice when, in planning treatment, doctors portray the patients as “above average”. Keillor himself has offered a contrarian opinion on the use of the term, observing that the effect does not actually apply in Lake Wobegon itself. In response to
3905-595: The surrounding communities of Bowlus , Upsala , Browerville, and St. Cloud . During the late 1980s, however, the parish "metrical books" were transferred to the Cathedral in Minneapolis and the Church was closed. Writing in 1997, Marilyn J. Chiat , described the empty church as, "a small white Gothic Revival building crowned with a tin onion dome , a rare sight on the edge of a cornfield in Minnesota." In 2002,
3976-530: The town's name comes from an old Native American word meaning "the place where we waited all day in the rain [for you]." Keillor explains, " Wobegon sounded Indian to me and Minnesota is full of Indian names. They mask the ethnic heritage of the town, which I wanted to do, since it was half Norwegian, half German." The English word woebegone means "affected with woe." Keillor's weekly monologue about Lake Wobegon included recurring elements: The fictional settlement Lake Wobegon resembles many small farm towns in
4047-686: The trail. Runners leave from Holdingford and run to St. Joseph, Minnesota . Keillor chronicles a number of bizarre incidents in the fictional town's early history, akin to the events in Black River Falls in Wisconsin Death Trip . Keillor identifies the original founders of what became Lake Wobegon as New England Unitarian missionaries, at least one of whom came to convert the Native American Ojibwe Indians through interpretive dance . A college
4118-452: Was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.55 and the average family size was 3.13. In the city, the population was spread out, with 27.6% under the age of 18, 9.8% from 18 to 24, 23.5% from 25 to 44, 20.2% from 45 to 64, and 18.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.7 males. The median income for
4189-441: Was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.64 and the average family size was 3.15. The county population contained 25.70% under the age of 18, 16.10% from 18 to 24, 28.00% from 25 to 44, 19.10% from 45 to 64, and 11.00% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females, there were 101.20 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 99.80 males. The median income for
4260-596: Was because organized crime figures from the Twin Cities , Chicago , and Kansas City , made frequent trips to the Holdingford area to purchase Minnesota 13 ; a very high quality moonshine distilled locally by Polish- and German-American farmers with the collusion of corrupt local politicians and law enforcement. In October 1923, four Stearns County residents, including mobbed up County Commissioner Val Herman, were arrested by Federal Prohibition Enforcement Agents following an extremely violent car chase between
4331-519: Was founded at what was then called New Albion, but the project was abandoned after a severe winter and numerous attacks by bears. The project had only one survivor, a very practical woman who married a French Canadian fur trapper who fed her in exchange for her help with the chores. This pragmatic couple were the founders of the current settlement. New Albion's founders decided to settle at Lake Wobegon because they had gotten lost and did not know how to get back to where they had last been. To celebrate this,
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#17327911270804402-544: Was granted statehood (as Wisconsin ) in 1848. The federal government set up the Minnesota Territory effective March 3, 1849. The newly organized territorial legislature created nine counties across the territory in October of that year. The original counties had portions partitioned off in 1851 to create Cass County and in 1853 to create Sibley , Pierce , and Nicollet counties. In 1855 parts of those counties were partitioned off to create Stearns County. It
4473-494: Was killed in action aboard the U.S.S. Oklahoma during the attack on Pearl Harbor , were posthumously identified through DNA testing by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and returned to his family for burial. Kerestes' whole 25-mile funeral route from Melrose to Holdingford was lined with local people who wished to pay their respects as his American flag -draped casket passed by. Kerestes'
4544-508: Was killed in action on the fall of 1918 and whose Polish-American parents only received definitive word of his death on 12 July 1919. A Tridentine Requiem Mass was offered for Pvt. Feia at St Hedwig's Church on 21 July 1919. Holdingford's American Legion Post #211 was later named in Private Feia's honor. During Prohibition , Holdingford earned the title of "moonshine capital of Minnesota". According to historian Elaine Davis, this
4615-643: Was not successful. Stearns County was also founded off of farmers' markets and crop trades, making it one of the top grossing crop producing counties in the state of Minnesota. Stearns County borders nine counties. The Mississippi River flows southeast along its northeast border, and the Sauk River drains the central part of the county into the Mississippi at St. Cloud . The county terrain consists of low rolling hills, lightly wooded, dotted with lakes and ponds, and carved with drainages. All available area
4686-622: Was often "a source of scandal" to their Steans County German neighbors. Despite the later Germanisation and Polonisation of both parishes in Holdingford, Fr. Vincent Yzermans often heard the famous lines from the Canadian Boat Song quoted in later years by the descendants of the Holdingford Scottish-Americans who had stayed, As the Holdingford area is traditionally ethnically polarized between German- and Polish-Americans, who until assimilation lessened
4757-449: Was predominantly German and Catholic in the 1970s, and the second-most Catholic county in the US (second only to New Orleans ). To balance the religious and ethnic demography of Stearns County with the rest of Minnesota , Keillor "imported" Lutheran and Scandinavian elements into the town, making it more recognizable and therefore more interesting to the rest of the state. Lake Wobegon
4828-856: Was still offered in the traditional Old Church Slavonic liturgical language and only in 1978 did the Orthodox Church in America , which supplied the Orthodox priests who still visited St. Mary's, switch to Elizabethan English instead. In August 1978, the 14th-century Wonder Working Icon of the Our Lady of Tikhvin was brought for veneration from Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago to St Mary's Russian Orthodox Church in Holdingford, by Archbishop John of Chicago and Minneapolis . As of 1985, however, Orthodox laity continued to attend services from
4899-402: Was taken prisoner by the enemy. After being held as a POW in conditions that traumatized him for the rest of his life at Stalag IV-B , Scepaniak was liberated and returned him to Holdingford. He remained silent about his experiences until finally giving an interview about them in 1985. In July 2017, the remains of United States Navy Fireman First Class Elmer Kerestes, a Holdingford native who
4970-525: Was then buried next to his parents in Holdingford with full military honors . According to the United States Census Bureau , the city has a total area of 0.85 square miles (2.20 km ), all land. Holdingford is located nine miles north of the city of Avon at Interstate 94 in central Minnesota. The city of Albany is also nearby. As of the census of 2010, there were 708 people, 306 households, and 190 families living in
5041-487: Was to be named Stevens County for territorial governor Isaac Ingalls Stevens , who had conducted an expedition through the area in 1853, but due to a clerical error, the county was named Stearns for Charles Thomas Stearns, a member of the Territorial Council. (To compensate for this error the area two counties west was later named Stevens County .) The February 20, 1855, act that created the county directed
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