The History of Louisville Township Part 3: Merriam Junction

Merriam Junction train tracks with the train station visible in the distance, date unknown. Scott County Historical Society collection.

Like Louisville, Merriam Junction was located in the northwestern part of Louisville Township, near the present-day site of the Renaissance Festival. From its onset, the community was conceived as a transportation hub. It was located at the crossing of two major railroad lines—the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad and the St. Paul and Sioux City. The crossing was an active transfer point for regional travelers.

The community itself was not surveyed until 1866, at the behest of the rail companies. The first structures built were not stores or farm buildings, but a train depot and a rail agent’s house belonging to the St. Paul and Sioux City Railroad. Because the two lines running through the junction were competitors, a second depot for the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad was built about a mile away. It wasn’t until 1878 when the original depot burned down that the two companies finally reached an agreement to share a single structure. 

The Merriam Junction train station, date unknown. Scott County Historical Society collection.

Because Merriam was a major crossing point, a community soon sprang up around the rail buildings. A store opened, along with two hotels—one in 1879 and one in 1881. Both hotel buildings were two-story, wood-framed buildings. The hotels provided meals for those with short layovers and a place to stay overnight for travelers with longer delays. A water tower and coal bin were also built for the settlement, useful for resupplying steam engines. A post office opened in 1872, run by H. H. Spencer, the former promoter of Louisville. Like Louisville, this post office was unfortunately short-lived, closing in 1873. 

Julius Coller described Merriam Junction in his book The Shakopee Story, published in 1960. He said, “It was quite the little settlement. The businesses were largely patronized by traveling people and people working for the railroad.” He also described the outsized impact that Merriam Junction had on the region: “Shakopee became a way station with a stub train consisting of an engine, a baggage car, and coach running from St Paul to Merriam and return. Travelers had to change trains at Merriam to make the 12 mile trip from Shakopee to Jordan” 

At the community’s height, an average of 20 trains went through Merriam Junction each day. With such a high rate of mobility in the population, Merriam developed a local reputation for being home to transitory communities. The area was home to a group of Eastern European immigrants, called gypsies at the time. Supposedly they camped near the waystation because the water tower and coal bins provided easy access to fuel and fresh water. Local residents at the time also complained that they would beg, or come to local houses in an attempt to buy food. Unfortunately, this small group of families took on a negative, almost legendary status in households at the time. Children would be warned that they would be taken by the “gypsies” if they were naughty, and unsubstantiated tales of stolen livestock abounded. 

Merriam Junction was also chosen as a hideout for the nationally notorious James Brothers gang. After their famous robbery at the Northfield Bank, the gang hid out in a cave near Merriam, supposedly obscuring their tracks by putting their horses’ shoes on backward. Some members of the gang, the younger brothers of Jesse James, were captured after this incident.

Though the train spelled disaster for Louisville, the rise of the automobile led to the end of Merriam Junction. Even though trains were still being used for shipping and distance travel, by the 1920s, shorter-distance trips for business and pleasure were being taken by automobile instead of rail. Passengers no longer needed the services of a community like Merriam Junction, and the hotels and stores, reliant on travelers, lost their customers. By the end of the 1920s, Merriam Junction, like Louisville before it, was mostly deserted. 

Further Reading

• Coller, J. (1976). The Shakopee Story. North Star Pictures, Inc. Available to look at in the SCHS research library.

• Stanwood, M. (2017, October 19). “A Chance for Beginners”: Ghost Towns of the Southwest Metro. Swnewsmedia. https://www.swnewsmedia.com/eden_prairie_news/news/local/a-chance-for-beginners-ghost-towns-of-the-southwest-metro/article_d9645265-06d1-5fd5-9b10-447998297792.html

Ghost Towns of Scott County

Merriam-Webster’s definition of a ghost town is: “a once-flourishing town wholly or nearly deserted usually as a result of the exhaustion of some natural resource.”1

It is sad to say, but Scott County has its fair share of ghost towns. Below is a list of those ghost towns, with years that the towns were founded and/or ended. As you can see, many of these towns only lasted a handful of years, at most.

• Louisville, 1854

• Mount Pleasant, 1856

• Bellefontaine, 1856

• St. Lawrence, 1856

• St. Joseph, 1858

• Dooleyville: 1855-1870

• Yorkville

• Merriam Junction, 1866-1871

• Helena, 1887

• Village of Joel: Blakeley Township 1897-1917

• Brentwood, 1860

• Luxembourger – early 1900s

• Lydia

Why did these towns disappear? Many of these towns contained grist or sawmills, a post office, church, school house, hotel, general store, creamery, newspaper, tavern, blacksmith, and of course residential houses. So why, with all the apparent success of a growing town, did these towns die out?

For many of these towns, the main reason was location, as well as mode of transportation to the town. Several of these towns were built near rivers, as that was one of the main sources of transportation at the time. For St. Lawrence, the building of the railroad spelled the end for the town. The river was no longer used, and no main roads were built to the town. For Merriam Junction, a town built right on the railroad, the invention of the automobile was its downfall. All that is left of the town is an old dilapidated railroad depot.

For towns like Yorkville and Brentwood, animosity between their neighbor towns caused them to struggle with their business. Yorkville residents were seen as a threat by those in Chaska Township, and many Yorkville residents were lured over to the other side. Brentwood was on the other side of the railroad tracks to Jordan, and held possession of the depot. Jordan residents disliked this fact, and eventually Brentwood was incorporated into Jordan, disappearing entirely.

No matter the reason for its disappearance, the fact remains that these towns that once flourished are no longer standing. Even though many of these towns have little to indicate where they once stood, their memories are still held in the minds of once residents, as well as their family members. These towns still stand in photographs, newspapers, and postcards. Take a look at a few of the photographs the SCHS has in its collection of some of the ghost towns in the county.

Merriam Junction

Lydia

Joel

Helena

If you wish to learn more about the ghost towns of Scott County, please contact the SCHS for more information. If anyone happens to have photographs or information on any of the ghost towns in the county, please let us at SCHS know. We would greatly appreciate the information!