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Litchfield History
In 1856, Ole Halverson Ness, Henry Halverson, Ole Halverson Thoen, Amos Nelson Fosen, Nels Hanson, Colberg and Gunder Olson came to the township. The Congressional township was originally called Ripley from the lake of the same name in that town, and the lake was named for Dr. Frederick Noah Ripley, who froze to death in the winter of 1855-56. Two or three years later, the name was changed to Ness in honor of Ole Halverson Ness. This name was taken from the name of the election or church district of Norway, where Halvorson came from in July 1856. Heindrick Halverson built the first house, Ole H. Ness built the first barn and lived in it till the next season. The first birth in the township was Ole H. Halverson on Dec. 11, 1856.
He was also the first white male child born in Meeker County. The first school was taught by John Blackwell in 1858. The first religious service was held at the Ole H. Ness home by the Rev. William Frederickson in 1858. The first house built was the log cabin of Heindrick Halverson and the construction of the first school house began in the summer of 1862 on the farm of Ole Halverson Ness. But due to the Dakota Conflict, it was not completed until after the conflict. Lutheran Church was organized in 1858, but no building erected til Litchfield was founded in 1869. The first school district was organized in 1861, and school house built. The Village of Litchfield, county seat of Meeker County, was not even a dot on the map until 1869, when the St. Paul and Pacific Railway (Great Northern) established its right-of-way through Meeker County and the railroad station was erected and named in honor of three brothers from London, England. Electus Darwin Litchfield, Egbert E. Litchfield and Edwin Clark Litchfield were contractors and heavy stockholders in the railway company. Electus Darwin was the main contributor. George B. Waller was the owner of what became the original townsite of the village. He deeded a one-half interest of the selected tract to the railway company and joined the company in platting this portion as the first unit of the county's present metropolis. The plat was filed July 16, 1869, and lots were placed on the market at a reasonable price. Lots on Sibley Avenue in the business section sold as low as $100 for a 25-foot frontage. A county seat contest between Forest City and the embryo villages of Litchfield and Darwin was inaugurated at the general election Nov. 2, 1869. Litchfield won over Forest City by a plurality of 82 votes. Very few homes had been erected prior to this time. Waller had erected a residence and a house was in the process of construction by J.M. Miller.
The establishment of the county seat at Litchfield caused a rapid influx of a substantial class of business and professional men. The business buildings and homes located in Forest City were placed on skids and hauled to Litchfield. A few of these buildings remain to serve as historical landmarks of this eventful period. Among the enterprising business and professional men who established their residence in Litchfield and contributed to the growth and development of the village during the year of 1869, we mention the following as among the first business and professional men: General merchandise, C.D. Ward and S.A. Heard; hardware, W.S. Brill; lumber yard, Joseph James; photo studio, C.L. Angell; livery, Chase and Dunn; hotel (Litchfield House), Charles Elmquist; Railway Land office, Hans Mattson; physician, Dr. George H. Weisel; lawyers, Charles Strobeck, Newton H. Chittenden and Frank Belfoy. Jesse V. Branham was elected the first president of the council. Heard and Ward built the first general store in 1869, at 239 Sibley Ave. N.
Also in 1869, C.L. Angell opened a photographic gallery.
The first lumber yard was started in 1870 by John Esbjornnson and C.
Peterson. The Roller Mill, with the capacity of one carload of flour a day, opened its doors in 1869. The Meeker County News, started by Frank Belfoy, was started in 1869. Other business establishments during the first 100 years of Litchfield history were the Litchfield Bottling Works established in 1878, the Minor Motor Co., founded in 1917 by H.J. Minor, and the Weber Implement Co. organized in 1926 by N.C. Weber. The first banking institution in Litchfield was established in 1875 by Harrington and Lyons, this later collapsed. The Bank of Litchfield was established in 1891. The First Litchfield Post Office was established in August 1869. At that time, delivery service was provided to 695 families by four rural carriers. During the 1870s, these pioneers in the settlement of the village were joined by men of marked ability in their chosen fields of labor, a detailed record of their varied careers of activity may be found in the Meeker County Album of History (1888). The first banking house, having any degree of permanency was the Meeker County Bank of which W.R. Merriam and Walter Mann were the promoters and leading stockholders. The growth in population of the Village is fully shown in the census reports of the following years:
1870: 353
1880: 1,250
1890: 1,899
1895: 2,044
1900: 2,280
1910: 2,333
1920: 2,790
1930: 2,880
The Lenhardt Hotel, formerly the Howard House, was among Litchfield's most substantial business buildings. The solid native brick structure was erected in 1880 by Colonel Jacob M. Howard, a veteran of the Civil War who came to Meeker County in 1867 and purchased a farm in Greenleaf town. In 1872 he came to Litchfield and erected the first independent grain elevator dividing his efforts in the operation of the farm and buying and shipping of grain. In 1887 he retired from active business and devoted his attention to the management of his varied interests and the upbuilding of Litchfield. He was one of the leaders in the organization of the Woolen Mill Co. and became its first president. He served as mayor of Litchfield in 1885. In October 1901, Erhardt Lenhardt purchased the hotel from which time it became known as the Hotel Lenhardt. Lenhardt operated the Litchfield Brewery, which operated from 1873 to 1919, on the north shore of Lake Ripley.
The site was desirable because it was a high point on the lake shore. The four huge cellars excavated were well above the water level. The family home was there, and the employees, usually four, lived in housing on the premises and took their meals with the family. The first building was the bottling house. It had clapboards on the outside, 14 layers of tar paper, and then white plaster walls on the inside. This was a method of insulation. Other buildings were the malt house, bottling house and the ice house. Labor was all manual - there were no mechanical devices. Sacks of barley, for instance, were carried up a ladder by workers and poured into the vats of warm water. Bottles, the earliest ones, were closed by hand. Marketing was mainly in Litchfield, but the horse-drawn wagon made deliveries as far west as Atwater. In 1912, Lenhardt sold the brewery to his son, Edmund, and his son-in-law, William Shoultz.
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