Shakopee

“Hey, That’s My (County) Seat”: The Battle for the Heart of Scott County, Part 2

This story is written by guest blogger Charles Pederson. To write for our blog, email us at info@scottcountyhistory.org

Part 1 described the roots of the county seat controversy and the first two attempts to move the seat to Jordan. In Part 2, learn about Jordan’s continuing efforts to bring the county seat to that fair village. And prepare for a surprise plot twist.

Third Attempt to Move the County Seat: 1876

Jordan had already made two previous failed attempts to move the county seat from Shakopee to Jordan. Ever optimistic, though, Jordanites began agitating again for the county seat to move. The scheming began in early 1874, not long after the previous attempt. Jordanites wrote to John Macdonald, Minnesota senator from Shakopee. Their letter’s sentiments fit right into today’s political climate: “We deem any opposition to the passage of the bill [to move the county seat] a sure manifestation of an unwillingness to submit to the voice of the people . . . [and] a desire and intent to defraud them of their rights. . . . Should you refuse us in this request, we shall hereafter consider you unfit to hold any office of public trust.”

In 1876, a bill passed the house but not the senate. The Jordanites again had to accept defeat and gather strength for their next attempt.

Fourth Attempt: 1878

Despite their numerous unsuccessful attempts, Jordanites helped introduce another legislative bill in March 1878 to move the county seat. The motion was defeated—and the residents of Shakopee held a huge reception and party for their senate representative, who had helped defeat it. However, a measure was passed allowing both Jordan and Shakopee to issue bonds to buy land and build or improve county buildings on it. Jordanites doubtless hoped this was their chance to get the county buildings themselves. But the measure was not acted on.

Fifth Attempt: 1889

Like a cicada, the controversy lay dormant for the next eleven years before surfacing again. Shakopee’s place as the county seat seemed to have become fixed and permanent. In 1889, however, as required by Minnesota statutes, a legally recognized petition was presented to the county commissioners. Alas for Jordan, most of the members voted to disregard it, apparently ignoring their duty.

Whence the residents of Jordan got the energy to continue the fight is speculation. In 1890, though, Jordanites convinced a judge to order that the board must consider the petition, as it was legally bound to do. At a February hearing before a Minnesota Eighth Circuit Court judge, the petition was again denied. Julius Coller, a staunch Shakopee cheerleader, wrote with ill-concealed elation that this “dashed the hopes of the would-be Court House removers.”

Sixth Attempt: 1927–1929

Three decades—and a new century—later, the county needed a new courthouse. One cost estimate for a new courthouse was $160,000 (approximately $2.5 million in 2021 dollars). Commercial interests in Shakopee logically imagined that this could lead to another fight over the county seat. To head off that possibility, a private group retained an architect to look at the building. He reported that a new courthouse was not necessary, that simply updating and remodeling the existing structure would be enough. Still, his repair and remodeling estimate was $65,000—more than $1 million today. Though a hefty amount, it was far less expensive than constructing an entirely new building elsewhere (in, say, Jordan). The board accepted that estimate, but Shakopee’s dreams of peace were dashed when the town was forced anyway to defend its status as the county seat.

Each side in the controversy placed ads in local newspapers to convince voters of the righteousness of their cause. This pro-Jordan ad appeared in the Jordan Independent of June 13, 1929. Scott County Historical Society Collection.

Just as the momentum for a fight between Jordan and Shakopee—those two old contestants—was building, the rivals must have blinked in shock when a surprise contender entered the fray. A group of residents in Lydia (population 60), seven miles east of Jordan, gave notice of intention to circulate a petition to bring the new courthouse to their town, thus winning the county seat. On November 4, 1927, Lydia residents leading the charge circulated a petition to that effect. Jordan, no doubt kicking itself for being late to the show, circulated a similar petition a week later. By mid-November 1927, canvassers of both towns were busy throughout the county, asking voters to sign their petitions.

What followed was a welter of confusion and rancor. Both Lydia and Jordan met the minimum legal number of signatures for their petitions. Lydia’s eight-day head start should have guaranteed that it be considered first for the county seat move, and indeed, the state Minnesota Supreme Court upheld that view. Both sides were anxious because Minnesota law stated that an election on the question could occur only every five years. Both wanted to strike while the iron was hot. Who knew what political conditions would be like in five years?

Lydia sued to halt Jordan’s petition “on the grounds,” said Lydia banker Martin Imm, “that Lydia announced its intention of obtaining the courthouse before Jordan did and therefore is entitled to file its petition first.” The suit was denied. Lydia then filed notice of appeal all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court. In response, a Jordan backer obtained a restraining order to halt consideration of Lydia’s petition. Ultimately, the Supreme Court decided that Lydia’s petition had precedence over Jordan’s and could be considered after all.

After all that, the state attorney general ruled that signatures in the Lydia petition were invalid. As found in the 1905 Minnesota statutes, the petition had been filed, and the county board met to decide which, if any, of the signatures to said petition [were] not genuine; and which, if any, of the signers thereof were not, at the time of signing the same, legal voters of said county; and which, if any, of the signatures thereto were not attached within sixty days preceding the filing thereof; and which, if any, of such signatures have been withdrawn.

In other words, the board decided which names on the petition were invalid. More than 700 names were withdrawn from Lydia’s petition. Coller happily reported, “The petition was subsequently rejected.” Undoubtedly with much weeping and gnashing of teeth, Lydia was knocked out of the running.

Lydia’s exit from the race left only Shakopee and Jordan. There were charges of malfeasance, dire warnings of higher taxes, and claims of prejudice against one town or the other. Jordanites claimed Shakopee was avoiding paying taxes. Shakopee replied with outraged explanations why that was untrue.

Each side sent out representatives to speak with voters, and numerous articles appeared in local newspapers, trumpeting why each town was superior to its rival.

Attempting to rouse their supporters, Jordan and Shakopee took their show on the road throughout the county, attempting to rally their supporters in towns and townships during the week leading up to the election. A feature of at least one rally “was the large number of ladies present,” as reported in the Jordan Independent. This might not seem so remarkable until one remembers that women had gained the national right to vote less than ten years previously.

The Shakopee–Jordan county seat battle culminated in a special election in June 1929. This sample ballot instructs voters how to place an X to indicate their choice. Scott County Historical Society Collection.

Finally, election day, June 15, 1929. A majority of county voters decreed that Shakopee retain the county seat: 4,428 voted to keep the county seat in Shakopee, and 2,533 to move it to Jordan. The vote included “approval of the Shakopee proposal to remodel the old courthouse instead of building new,” according to the Jordan Independent. The newspaper continued, “Shakopee was jubilant over its big victory and celebrated in happy abandon Saturday night, Sunday and on.” Church bells, car horns, fire sirens, and huge crowds distinguished the celebration.

They All Lived Happily Ever After?

This 1929 push marked the end of efforts to move the county seat from where it had been for seventy years and has remained for ninety more. Perhaps, however, Shakopee shouldn’t feel too smugly complacent. The law on changing county seats remains in the 2020 Minnesota statutes. You never knowwhen the fight may kick up again!

Further Reading

“Hey, That’s My (County) Seat”: The Battle for the Heart of Scott County, Part 1

This post was written by guest blogger Charles Pederson. If you would like to write for our blog, contact us at info@scottcountyhistory.org

People long for the “good old days” when folks got along. We may look back on the “olden days” as simpler times, but the fact is that the good old days were tough. Scott County is no exception. It featured a decades-long rivalry, complete with “palace intrigue,” that began at the foundation of Minnesota itself. The titanic struggle: to control the center of power, the county seat.

What’s the big deal with a county seat, anyway? Every time a new county is formed, a county seat is designated—and the jockeying to obtain that status can cause powerful feelings of competition among municipalities. The seat may or may not be the largest town in a county, but it is usually where county buildings and the courthouse are located. In fact, the term ‘county seat’ is a shortening of the expression ‘county seat of justice.’ The county seat provides the court system, law enforcement, and other county services. Normally, county seats are created through voting. Why has rivalry in some places escalated to physical violence, intimidation, or fraud in these county seat “wars”? Is it more than the fact that living in or near the county seat can increase property values?

New County, New County Seat

Counties (or their equivalents in other states; for example, Louisiana has parishes and Alaska has boroughs) underlie U.S. administrative organization. Typically, counties are laid out before statehood, during the territory period. Most states therefore already had counties when they entered the Union. Based on population, many early counties covered vast tracts of sparsely settled land. Those large counties filled up with settlers and were eventually broken up into smaller counties, each with its own county seat.

Scott County followed the same general trajectory. On March 5, 1853, due to increasing population, a portion of land was separated from the western edge of Dakota County to become Scott County. About a year later, five appointed county board members voted that Shakopee become the county seat and be the location of county buildings. To cement that decision, the first county court term was held in Holmes Hall, named after Thomas Holmes, one of the first permanent White settlers in the Shakopee area.

It was decided: Shakopee was the county seat. Not everyone, though, agreed with the decision. Over the next six or seven decades, some residents in Jordan resented the decision and consequent status quo. At the founding of the state, they began the first of many attempts to gain for themselves the benefits of hosting the county seat.

First Attempt to Move the County Seat: 1859

By 1856, a building had been rented in Shakopee for use as a courthouse. The next year, bonds were issued in an attempt to raise $10,000 to build a dedicated courthouse and other county structures. This was all meant to reinforce Shakopee’s location as the county seat. Accordingly, construction began, but more than a year later, the buildings still had not been completed. The money ran out. It was suggested that the county was nearly bankrupt through incompetent efforts to build the courthouse. A popular history of Scott County stated that “it was even suggested that the buildings in their incomplete state be sold . . . to discharge part of the heavy liabilities of the county.”

Residents of Jordan saw the lack of a permanent courthouse, the poorly constructed county buildings, and the perceived incompetent leadership as an opportunity to gain the county seat and its benefits for themselves. In 1859, the year following statehood, a bill was introduced in the new Minnesota legislature to move the county seat from Shakopee to Jordan. This caused panic in Shakopee, and civic leaders went into emergency mode. One historian noted that hurriedly raised private donations allowed “the unfinished buildings [to be] enclosed and the county officers located therein, although in small and inconvenient quarters. By these measures the [county seat] change was overruled and Shakopee continued as the county seat.”

The panic in Shakopee abated, but Jordan was far from satisfied with the outcome of events.

Second Attempt: 1872–1873

Discontented Jordanites again plotted to move the county seat. A legislative representative from Jordan, Joseph Chadderdon, introduced a new bill in the state legislature to move the seat to Jordan. The Scott County Mirror newspaper reported that the bill required that “within sixty days after [passage of bill, officeholders would] remove to and hold their office in the said village of Jordan.” The Mirror later ran a chart describing $10,000 that had been deposited in escrow for the move, as well as an additional $20,000 in pledges on passage of the bill. The bill passed the house and senate, but Governor Horace Austin (1870–1874) refused to sign it without further amendment. The bill was amended, and Austin supported it. Nonetheless, no records showed it advancing through the legislature.

Horace Austin, the sixth Minnesota governor, was briefly embroiled in the county seat fight. Minnesota Historical Society Collection.

Despite state inaction, a vote on the issue was set to be held in the county. One historian reported on “a vigorous contest [that] ensued, decided in favor of Shakopee by a majority of ninety-two votes” (969 in favor of moving, and 1,061 against). An opinion writer in the Mirror put a good face on the defeat by insisting that it was actually a victory: “We are just as sure to get the county seat in the next contest . . .as the sun is to rise and set.”

Check back for Part 2 of this ongoing and weirdly fascinating story. It’s full of wrinkles and surprise plot twists!

President Taft Visits Shakopee

Written by guest blogger, Charles Pederson

1911 was a quiet year, with low-key world and U.S. events. The Spanish-American War had been over for more than 10 years, and the storm clouds of World War I were likewise years in the future. The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (later known as IBM) was incorporated that year. Ground was broken for construction on Fenway Park, the modern baseball stadium for the Boston Red Sox.

A quiet year, but by October 1911, Scott County was abuzz with talk about a coming earth-shaking event. Or at least, there was mild interest. William Howard Taft, once Teddy Roosevelt’s vice president and now himself a candidate for reelection as U.S. president, planned to pass through Minnesota on a reelection campaign tour. One of his planned stops was the railway station in Shakopee, Minnesota.

President Taft speaks at the Shakopee Depot, October 24th, 1911. Photo from the SCHS Collections.

President Taft speaks at the Shakopee Depot, October 24th, 1911. Photo from the SCHS Collections.

In the spring of 1911, a bitter personal feud between Taft and Roosevelt had culminated in Roosevelt’s challenging Taft for the Republican nomination. Historian Peri Arnold noted that “the resulting campaign . . . was the first in which a sitting President campaigned in state primaries.” Taft won the nomination, though consequently, a resentful Roosevelt started his own new, competing party, the Bull Moose Party.

Because campaigning in individual states had worked well for the primaries, Taft continued the practice into October for the 1911 general election. He included a train journey through southern Minnesota, and on the schedule for October 24 were stops in Shakopee and other nearby towns.

Before the visit, the Scott County Argus reported on the preparations being made. These included, of course, local and state politicians, as well as dozens of sheriff’s deputies who would constitute a protective cordon around the train station and a town band that would serenade the president into and back out of town. An Argus reporter breathlessly explained that “the highest official in the world” would receive the respects of his fellow citizens. “It may well be said, ‘the president’s position is greater than a king’s,’ for he holds the place not by accident of birth but by the suffrage” of U.S. voters.

A few days after the event, on October 27, the Argus reported the results of the visit. A respectably sized crowd of about 2,000 people came from the county and neighboring municipalities to hear the president speak. The speaking platform had been prepared for the august visitor. It was decked out with U.S. flags and with local products, including locally grown corn, Shakopee bricks, and beverages from the Jacob Ries Bottling Works, which produced ginger ale and sparkling water right there in Shakopee.

In Mankato during the same campaign tour, Taft received a raucous welcome, according to the Blue Earth County Historical Society. “People arrived in every kind of vehicle from one-horse chaises to automobiles.” In contrast, the Argus reported that among the Shakopee citizens gathered at the local train station, “there was no show of enthusiasm,” though the crowd did listen carefully to what Taft had to say. After a brief 15-minute speech, according to the Argus, Taft boarded his train and left for other stops in Minnesota.

Crowd gathered to hear President Taft speak in Shakopee on October 24th, 1911. Photo from the SCHS Collections

Crowd gathered to hear President Taft speak in Shakopee on October 24th, 1911. Photo from the SCHS Collections

Taft no doubt had held out great hope for his strategy of barnstorming personal appearances. The effort, however, seems to have fizzled. The very popular Roosevelt and his Bull Moose Party clawed away most of Taft’s Republican support. At least partly because of the split, neither man carried the election. Instead the Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, won by a landslide. His 435 electoral votes crushed Taft’s third-place votes, four each from Vermont and Utah. Shakopee’s voters mirrored the national vote. Out of 450-some voters, almost 290 voted for Wilson and 89 for Roosevelt. Taft trailed third with about 75 votes.

Taft in some ways may have been fortunate not to regain the White House. World War I began only three short years later, and as the editor of the Scott County Argus presciently wrote in 1911, “To be President of the United States for the next four years will be no easy job for there is much to be done and it must be done in the right way.”

The History of Jackson Township Part 3: Shakopee Brewery

Shakopee Brewery 

Shakopee Brewery* was one of the most prominent early businesses in Jackson Township. The brewery was built by German immigrant Herman Strunk and opened in 1856. With its opening, the Shakopee Valley Herald ran the following statement ““We understand that the Brewery of Mr. H. H. Strunk will soon be in operation. Our citizens will then be able to procure a pleasant and healthy drink without much trouble” 

It was the first brewery in Scott County, and remained one of its largest until the doors were closed by prohibition. In 1860, Strunk opened a distillery nearby, and then sold both to F. H. Franz. Franz, in turn. Sold to Andrew Winkler in 1863 who retained ownership until his death in 1870. After Andrew Winkler’s death, his widow Mary Winkler took over brewery operations. She ran the facility independently for 5 years until she married German brewer Hubert Nyssen. The two continued to manage operations until prohibition. 

Herman Strunk had built a hunting lodge next to the brewery, and the Nyssen family added to the building and turned it into a residence. It was built out of both limestone and brick- likely the limestone that was quarried in order to build the storage cellar for the brewing facility. The first floor of the house was a family residence, while the second was reserved for lodging for farmers and salespeople who came to deliver brewery supplies. The Nyssens also operated a large farm on the brewery land which grew barley for beer production. In 1987, the Shakopee Valley News interviewed Leo McGovern who worked on the farm and at the brewery when he was 12. He recalled “They had about 80 acres there and they had stock, chickens, pigs and horses. When I worked in the brewery, I helped hand pump the beer out of the vat and into kegs.”

1897 was a difficult year for Shakopee Brewery. On October 28th, a fire started in the brewery’s ventilator system, located under the roof. Fire teams were dispatched from Shakopee, and eventually got the blaze under control using water from the facility’s cistern system, but there was a great deal of damage. Offices, staff quarters, and the entire cooling system for the brewery were destroyed. 

Luckily the brewery was insured, and Nysssen received $3925 in insurance money to help repair the damage. Nyssen stated at the time that the money was not enough to completely cover the damage (at the time the brewery was valued at $14,000.000) but it was enough that the building could be repaired and production would continue. 

Shakopee Brewery, 1912. From the SCHS Collections.

Shakopee Brewery, 1912. From the SCHS Collections.

Less than a month earlier, in a slightly more farcical story, one of the brewery’s wagon teams was lost. The Shakopee Argus reported on September 30, 1897 that a delivery team from Shakopee Brewery met with a toy balloon salesman on the road. The balloons spooked the horses, and the driver lost control. In the ensuing scuffle, the horses were lost, and both drivers were injured. 

Production at Shakopee Brewery 

In August of 1903, a reporter from the Shakopee Tribune spent the day at Shakopee Brewery getting instruction on brewing “as practiced in the big stone building where the amber liquid comes foaming forth to make Shakopee famous.”  

First he wrote about the barley that was used in production of beer at the facility. “Barley is the first requisite after the brewery is equipped, Mr Nyssen raises considerable of this grain, and buys a whole lot more from farmers every fall...The barley is soaked in an immense tank for 60 hours, about a hundred bushels at a time and then spread out on cement floors in the malt cellar and kept at a temperature of 54 degrees.” After this, the barley was turned every day for six days in order to sprout the grain. Next, it was loaded into “a room high up and just beneath the tall cupola which is a feature architecturally in nearly every brewery.” The floor of this room was made of sheet iron, perforated with holes. The barley was heated from below up to 212 degrees in order to remove moisture. During the heating and cooling process  “It is necessary for a man with a long shovel to dash around the heated inferno and turn the grain repeatedly. It takes no imagination to picture it a hot job and the man who can stay in the room for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time is in the line for a job at fire-eating at a circus sideshow” 

After cooling, the grain was ground in a mill, then mashed into a large vat of water that was accessible only by ladders. This process was fairly specific. First, the water was heated to 122 degrees, then held at 154 degrees. When it “gives off no color”, it was raised to 166 degrees and left to stand for an hour. The wort (liquid) was then drawn off int a vat, and the soaked grain was fed to hogs and cattle. This heating process supposedly took half a cord of firewood. The end result was then tasted to ensure it resembled “sweet water” 

After this the liquid was once again boiled, and divided into barrels. Three quarters of a pound of hops was put into each barrel in lots- the first when two hours before the boiling is done, and the second a half hour after the first. When this process is complete, the beer was taken to the cellar and cooled to forty two degrees using an open vat and coiled brass tubing. After this, yeast was added to the brew. 

Shakopee Brewery, 1907. Photo from the SCHS Collections.

Shakopee Brewery, 1907. Photo from the SCHS Collections.

The reporter asked Nyssen where brewing yeast came from. He learned, “One brewery gets its start from another. It is passed from brew to brew in a brewery, and has been at Nyssen’s for half a century nearly, and the supply has never given out. One thing is sure, the beer would not be beer without yeast”

After the yeast was added, the beer was transferred to fermenting tubs to be turned into alcohol. The brewery chalked the date on the side, and allowed each tub to sit for two weeks. After this, the beer was transferred into storage vets for another 6 weeks. Next, it was transferred once again into “chip casks”, where shaved beech chips were added to give it color. Then “kreusen” was mixed in to cause the beer to foam. 

Finally the beer was pressurized, and racked into kegs in the brewery cellar. The cellar was a vaulted space, running underground in the hill for one hundred feet. It was only lit with candlelight, and blocked by a series of doors in order to keep a constant temperature. 

* Note- Shakopee Brewery was known by several different names as ownership changed. For the sake of readability, we have consistently referred to the facility as “Shakopee Brewery”

Scott County Memories: Hairdressing

These recollections were dictated by Ione Theis of Shakopee in 1980 and originally shared in the collection “As I Remember Scott County”


We have read of some of the great women in history and their attempts to beautify by dressing their hair - Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette and others. But what did our mothers and grandmothers do to beautify their hair? If she was a prairie wife or a village matron at the turn of the century, she caught rainwater from the drain spout so she had soft water to use in washing her hair. She may have used homemade soap, or perhaps a product purchased from a traveling peddler, a bar of Castile Soap or Tar Soap. Many preferred to finish with a vinegar rinse. She probably braided her hair in long plaits and wound it around her head as she worked. Many young girls wore their hair in braided pony tails, but on special occasions mothers put their daughters hair up in rags to make long tight bouncing curls.

Women also saved combings form their hair brushing and kept them in celluloid hair receivers to shape into buns or rats which they used to fill out their hair arrangement. They used an assortment of pins to hold this all in place, including common wire hairpins, celluloid hairpins and combs, ranging from plain to jeweled ornaments.

During the years of World War 1, it became fashionable to cut the hair short, and women had to find a new method of dressing the hair. They first attempted to curl the ends using a curling iron with wooden candles bent over the glass chimney of a kerosene lamp. They tested it on a piece of paper for heat and to remove soot, but I suspect many burnt and singed ends resulted.

In the late 1920s and 1930s we were introduced to a professional hairdresser in the area. She had taking training in the Twin Cities and was trained in marcelling, cosmetology and permanent waving. Marcelling gave a rigid wave that was both popular and enduring.

One of the early hairdressers of Scott County was Rosella Dressen Ries who distinguished herself and Shakopee by being chosen “Miss Minnesota” of 1929. She was a contestant at Atlantic City. Rosella operated and managed the “Modern Beauty Shop” on first avenue from the 1930’s through many years.

Ione Theis and Rosella Dressen Ries "Rosie" standing in front of the Modern Beauty Shop, 1944.

Ione Theis and Rosella Dressen Ries "Rosie" standing in front of the Modern Beauty Shop, 1944.

As a recent graduate of the Brady and Rogers School of Beauty, I arrived at the Modern Beauty Shop in the late 1930’s and trained in the methods of the time. Marcelling the hair was giving away to the ore popular spiral wave. The hair was wound on long slender rods, then with a lotion saturated pad was baked on an electrical machine that could be described as a torture device! Somewhat later, and even more popular, was the invention of the Frenchman, Monsieur Crogonle. It gave a tighter curl to the ends of the hair, but still used the heating machine that resulted in many casualties of the scalp. Later, Mr Willette invented the “cold wave”, the forerunner of the permanent wave we enjoy today.

Hairstyles and hairdressing today, for both men and women vary according to individual choice but are far removed from grandmother’s rain water and vinegar rinse.