These recollections were dictated by Helen Kaufenberg of New Market in 1980 and originally shared in the collection “As I Remember Scott County”
New Market MN around 1900. Photo from the SCHS Collections.
My earliest memories of my childhood are the first ten years of my life that I spent in the hotel that my parents operated. It was a busy little lace as very few people owned cars. The traveling salesman would come by train to the neighboring village of Elko. Then they would come to New Market. If they came in the evening, they would have to stay until the next day. Also the farmers from neighboring Cedar Lake Township had to haul their grai to the elevator at Elko by team, so many of them would stop at the hotel for a meal. They were charged twenty five cents. This was around 1910 to 1920. We had several girls who helped with the cooking and other chores.
I remember mother getting up some mornings at 3 o’clock to do the laundry. There was no electricity and it was a little scary to come downstairs alone. I laso recall that some of the laundry was sent to the cities by train. It was put in large canvas hampers around 4 feet long and 3 feet high.
There were dances held in the Village Hall and during intermission a supper was served at the hotel. On one particular night they served a turkey supper. They had everything waiting for the crowd when the stove pope in a the wood range fell down. It was really a disaster.
St. Nicholas Catholic Church of New Market, 1890. Photo from the SCHS Collections.
Another time, my folks told about a burglary at the Post Office next door. A salesman for the Schmidt Brewery had been on the train and got off at Elko. He had seen to suspicious men get of the train. He immediately walked around to the other side of the train and walked toward the train elevator. He called from the depot and alerted the people at New Market, so when the hotel closed at 11 o’clock, some of the people stayed up and watched through a window at the back of the hotel. They were watching the Post Office and also the bank which was next door. The salesman got ahold of a gun and opened the window just enough to put the gun through. When the burglars tried to get in the back door of the Post Office they were frightened away. There was evidence that the burglars had waited in the choir loft of the church as there were cigarettes and cigar stubs left behind.