St Joe's Church, Sand Creek

The St Joseph Catholic Church was said to have been the focal point of the community of St Joe. Jeanette Robling, a lifelong resident of Sand Creek Township, said in 1887, “It was really the church that made the community. There never was a business district. All community centered around the church.”

St Joe’s Church was located at the intersection of county roads 71 and 10 in Sand Creek. The story goes that a group of early settlers wrote to the Bishop in St Paul to request permission to build a local church. They heard that their request might be refused because of their proximity to Jordan which was also building a Catholic church at the time. Supposedly, a farmer came out with his wagon to meet the Bishop when he came to inspect the area. Instead of taking a direct route back to the community of St Joe, the farmer drove the Bishop along a circuitous and bumpy back route. St Joe seemed farther from Jordan then it actually was, and the Bishop gave permission for the church to be built. 

St Joe’s Church was established in 1858, with the first day of work on January 11th. It was built entirely by community volunteers and, due to farming and family obligations, was not finished until the following October. The original building was a 24’x35’ log cabin, not dissimilar to the residences in St Joe at the time. The first priest was Father Eberhard. In 1860 a bell, cast in St Louis, was purchased for the church by the local Young Men’s Society

In 1873, this cabin was replaced by a sandstone church building. For the next two years the priest was Father Duestermann. After that the Franciscan Order took over church management.

Exterior of St Joe’s Church. From the Prior Lake American, September 7th, 1987

In 1874 a school opened on site, run by an order of nuns, with 60 students in attendance. The school consisted of only two rooms, with two teachers on staff. Attendance for each student averaged only 50-60 days per year due to farm work, illness and weather. By 1883, 106 children were enrolled. Unfortunately, this proved to be a difficult year for the school. Several students died in an epidemic, and the school closed for a large portion of the year as a protective measure. In 1884, the nuns retired and the building became the District 22 public school. The building was still shared with the church for religious instruction until 1947. It remained in operation until 1960, when the district combined with Jordan. 

A tower was added to St Joe’s Church in 1925, and electric lights were installed in 1938. The church held its first “annual bazaar” in celebration. 

St Joe’s Church stood for over 100 years. The last mass in the building was held in June of 1971, and officiated by Father Rogers. Many in the congregation were sad to see the church go. There was actually a lawsuit around the decision, based on the fact that the original donors of the land had given it for “church, charitable and educational purposes.” The final ruling was that when the deed was turned over to the Franciscan Order in 1875, this original intent was voided, and the church could be closed and the land sold. 

Items from inside the church were auctioned off in February of 1972, and the resulting funds were put into place to preserve the church cemetery. The old teachers residence was torn down to provide parking. Finally, the church itself was removed in 1988. 

In June of 1989 a memorial to the church was dedicated on site featuring the old church bell. The inscription reads “St Joseph's Catholic Church. On this spot stood St Joseph's Catholic Church. This monument is dedicated in memory of those who worshiped here and supported the church for 113 years. The bell is original. The stone and brick are from the church.” 

The end of the church also marked the end of St Joe. Never a large community, it began to disperse after the church closed. Today it is considered a ghost town. 

Early Sand Creek Township

The Landscape of Sand Creek

Like most parts of Scott County, the Sand Creek Township area was originally settled by the Dakota, thousands of years before European Americans came to the area. We don’t know many details of this Dakota Settlement, but early European Americans in the area commented on Dakota communities on the bluffs along the Minnesota River in the township. The area was home to the Eastern Wahpeton band of the Dakota. Given the landscape of the area, it is believed that there were likely seasonal hunting villages in what is now Sand Creek Township. 

Sand Creek was originally part of the Big Woods. This landscape was made up of heavy oak, basswood and elm. In fact, the forested area in Sand Creek was described by early European Americans as “impenetrable”. The thick trees made traditional European farming methods challenging. 

Early European American presence in the area was tied to milling. The nearby community of Jordan sprang up for this reason as well. The first European American structure we know of in the area was a sawmill built by William Holmes in 1853. William was the brother of Thomas Holmes, a land speculator known as the “Father of Shakopee”. Thomas Holmes eventually left the county, but William stayed on and settled in Jordan. After the mill was constructed, a few homes sprang up in the area, owned by men named John Smith and Comfort Baines. In 1854 a second mill was built, this one a grist mill operated by William Varner. In 1855 the first frame house was built. This small community in Sand Creek Township came to be known as St Joe. 

At this time, Sand Creek was known as Douglas Township, and was officially organized in 1858. Several months later, it was renamed St Mary Township. In 1859 the name was finally hanged to Sand Creek.

Early European American Settlers of Sand Creek Township

On January 20, 1927 the Shakopee Argus Tribune ran a piece profiling the early settlers of St Joe.

W. B. Baudy was born in Indiana in 1822, and came to Minnesota in 1857. While in Indiana he listed his profession as “hired man”. After arriving in Minnesota, he spent several years working in Scott County’s brick industry, and in various pineries. Finally, he was able to purchase 77 acres in section 4 of Sand Creek Township. He didn’t remain on the land long, but enlisted in 1862 and served for two years in the Union army. His first wife, “Miss Springer” passed away while he was at war. After he returned, he married “Miss Barrisford”, and they had two children. 

Frank Matchett was born in Ohio, and studied journalism at the Hiram Institute. After graduating, he worked as printer for the Elmira Eagle for several years, then became a typesetter in Cleveland. He came to Minnesota after accepting a position to work at the St Paul Press in 1874. He did not stay there long, choosing instead to move around the state, helping to start small newspapers including the Wright County Eagle and Howard Lake People’s Advocate. In 1878 he came to Scott County and settled in Sand Creek Township, starting the Scott County Advocate newspaper. He married Sarah Reed of Jordan in 1879. 

Eli Palmer was born in Syracuse, New York in 1818. He soon moved to Illinois where he remained for 37 years. In 1855 he agreed to captain a wagon train to California, where he built a trading post and remained for two years. After this time, he sold his property in Illinois and bought land in Sand Creek township. Eli Palmer enlisted in the Union Army in 1861 and served for three years. 

Henry and Francis Eckman came to the United States from Germany in 1850. They originally moved to St Louis where Henry drove a butcher’s wagon. After saving up money for several years, they came to Sand Creek Township and claimed a homestead. Henry built a small log cabin with a bark roof. For their first year, they had no oxen to help with breaking the ground. They used horses to “scratch the surface” of the land and planted a few crops among trees and stumps. The next year they bought oxen. Over time, they were able to plow the land and eventually built a barn and upgraded from a log cabin to a brick house. Eventually they focused on dairy cattle and sold butter and cheese. Henry and Francis had seven children. One started a sawmill, one a furniture store in Jordan, and three joined forces to open a brewery in Glencoe. 

History of St Lawrence Township Part 4: The Township Continues

Rip Van Winkle

In 1987, the Prior Lake American described St Lawrence Township as “Rip Van Winkle”. While the Village of St Lawrence had floundered due to transportation concerns, the construction of Highway 169 during the 1950s brought new people and businesses to the quiet farm-focused area. Soon several restaurants sprang up along the highway, as well as some attractions. One of the early attractions, Jim’s Apple Farm, now dominates the highway as Minnesota’s Largest Candy Store. Along with these new businesses and attractions, the population of the township began to increase. 

Another prominent feature in the area is the Minnesota Valley State Recreation Area. The scenic and recreational potential of the area was recognized early on, and the first park was suggested in 1939. In 1967, a bill proposing an 18,000-acre state park along the river in St Lawrence went before the Minnesota Legislature, but it failed to pass. However a bill creating the Minnesota Valley State Trail did pass in 1969. The trail was to run from Fort Snelling State Park to the town of Le Sueur and include six waysides totaling over 5,000 acres. In this roundabout way, portions of the valley were added to the state park system. The Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge was authorized in 1976 and additional lands originally desired for the state park received federal protection.

Minnesota Valley State Recreation Area

Today the Minnesota Valley State Trail runs through the recreation area with both paved and natural sections. Trails are also in place for hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, horseback riding, mountain biking, and snowmobiling. The landscape of the park includes wetlands, floodplain forest and blufftop oak savanna. The park also provides a home for raccoons, mink, muskrat, wood duck, beaver, white-tail deer, rabbits, squirrels, or red and grey fox. 

The Fair and the Threshers

Sunday afternoon at the 1973 Scott County Fair. Photo from the Belle Plaine Herald, August 2 1973

Scott County has hosted a fair since the early days of European American residents. The first fair was held in 1857 with the goal of showcasing the agricultural possibilities of the county and encouraging immigrants to move to the area. Until 1885 the fair was held piecemeal, in the buildings and streets of downtown Shakopee. Then land was purchased just outside of Shakopee, allowing the fair to expand and have a permanent home. In 1915, the fair was held in Jordan for the first time. 

In the early 1970s, the Scott County Fair Board purchased 80 acres in St Lawrence Township to be the new home of the Scott County Fair. Ground was broken, and the fair was held in its new home for the first time in 1973. 

A new cattle barn, horse barn, 4-H building, sanitation facility, and concessions stand were built on site. Four other fair buildings were moved from the old fairgrounds in Jordan. The Fair Board also chartered busses that ran from the fairgrounds to neighboring communities for a cost of forty cents per passenger. 

The big events that year were the horse show, horse pulling contest, 4H auction, demolition derby, tractor pull and chuck wagon races. 

St Lawrence Township is also home to the Scott Carver Threshers and the grounds of their annual Harvest Festival. The first threshing festival held by the group was in 1964, after Ernie Morrell suggested to his nephew Ken Scott that they fire up their grandfather’s engine, hook it to the separator, and see if they could thresh some grain. 

Today, the mission of the group is “to preserve the agricultural and industrial history from the past for the enjoyment and education of the future generations.”  Their annual festival includes displays and demonstrations of steam tractors, engines, threshing, milling, printing, blacksmithing and rug making. 

Gravestones and Ghost Stories 

St Lawrence has a few unusual gravesites. A single headstone is located in Lawrence Wayside, part the Minnesota Valley State Recreation Area. Before becoming park land, the property was part of the Henry Barlage Farm. The grave is for Frances N Strait who died at age 19 on Dec 21 1860. She was the first wife of George Strait, of milling fame, and the two married when she was only 16. It is unknown why she was buried at a remote, isolated location. 

There are also two gravesites on the property of railroad magnate turned farmer Frank Erikson. They are from children who died during the diphtheria epidemic that tore through the county in the 1870s. Clara Frank recalls spending time on the property with her friends in the early 1900s: “I remember when we were children we used to run and play there, but we were always careful not to step on the graves. You never knew what would happen if you stepped on the graves.”

In 2007 a ghost hunter named Kathy visited the Strait house along with a reporter from the Jordan Independent. Kathy asked some questions to any spirits that might be present, including “Are you angry that your house is now a museum”. She thought that she heard a negative response, but the reporter with her didn’t hear anything. She did leave some tape recorders running at the site, and claimed later to have picked up some “evp” or electronic voice phenomena. To ghost hunters, EVP are otherwise inaudible communications from spirits that can be picked up with a tape recorder. The messages were “Repent!”, and the names “Elizabeth” and “Andy Taylor”.

St Lawrence Township Today

Today St Lawrence Township covers 14.9 square miles and has a population approximately 550 people. The township’s board meetings are typically held on the second Thursday of the month at 7 p.m. at the St. Lawrence Town Hall, 7500 Old Highway 169 Boulevard. While the area is still home to farmland, it also has become a place for homeowners who want to live in a rural area and don’t mind having a commute to neighboring towns or the Twin Cities. 

History of St Lawrence Township Part 3: The Downfall of St Lawrence

The Downfall of the Village of St Lawrence 

St Lawrence’s glory days were short. In 1866 plans for the railroad were laid out. The route did not include St Lawrence, instead passing just over a mile south of the community and stopping in Jordan and Belle Plaine instead. Rail quickly surpassed steamships as the primary method of travel and shipping in Scott County, and St Lawrence was rendered obsolete. As the Belle Plaine Herald put it in June of 1925, “The village was foredoomed to failure. Bands of steel were pushing westward and within a few years the railroad came down the valley, seriously crippling river and stage traffic.” According to a 1996 Belle Plaine Herald article, the village of St Lawrence was all but abandoned by 1869. 

Former blacksmith shop of St Lawrence turned schoolhouse. Date unknown. Published in the Prior Lake American, October 5. 1987

By the 1920s, few of the original buildings from the town of St Lawrence remained. In 1925, the St Lawrence Hotel was part of the farm of E. J Liebbrand. Liebbrand used the building as a granary and storehouse for his tools. The former blacksmith shop was being used as the township’s schoolhouse. 

In 1958 a fire destroyed the hotel, and the former blacksmith shop, now relieved of its school duties, was torn down for safety reasons. Today the only building that remains from the original building is the original limestone home of Horace Strait. 

St Lawrence Township Continues 

An end of the village did not mean that the township was abandoned. St Lawrence boasted excellent farmland, and continued to to be home to many farms and families. 

Faye Libbrand was born in St Lawrence in 1926. She remembers that the “St Lawrence Farmers Club” that was established in the original village continued well into the 1900s. She also recalls a sense of community in the township: “Once a year we had a big picnic. It was one of the social highlights of the township. And there was lots of visiting in those days. People worked together with their neighbors. At harvesting, men would work in the fields, and women worked together in the houses. Kids had it pretty good on those days.” She remembered a township meeting being held once a month. Guest speakers and politicians would be invited, schoolchildren would give recitations, and local musicians would show off their talents. She also said “...afterwards we had buttermilk and donuts. You know, I hate buttermilk.”

Clara Frank was born in the township in 1896. She attended school in St Lawrence, got her teaching certificate in Shakopee, then returned to teach at the St Lawrence school. She recalls “You didn’t have much time [due to the busy farming schedule], but the kids learned a lot in those days.”

The History of St Lawrence Township Part 2: Residents of Early St Lawrence

Early St Lawrence

The first hub of St Lawrence township was the Village of St Lawrence. This community did not spring up organically. The town was founded in 1858 by four prominent businessmen: Samuel Burton Strait, W.H. Stodder, C.L.Pierson, and Warren DeCamp. Within a few years, they paid to have a sawmill, blacksmith shop, general store, six homes, and a massive hotel built along the river. The site was carefully planned, and the four investors hoped that the central location of their community would make it the premier stop for river traffic in the area. 

The hotel in particular was built to impress. The building was four stories tall, and featured limestone walls three feet thick. Special double doors were built to allow immigrants to unload their large trunks. Inside, the building had polished walnut flooring, a large dining room, and an elaborate maple banister. A 1925 article in the Belle Plaine Herald about the township described this banister in humorously flowery terms  “...touching it, one seems to sense a magic contact with the pulsing life of that earlier day. He sees dainty ladies in crinolines mounting the stairs, assisted by young gentlemen in high stocks and stovepipe hats. It was an age of courtesy and reserve; but who knows but what that haughty maiden tingled a stolen kiss, coming down those stairs after a ball. Who knows what marriage pacts were sealed on those stairs. Ah what tales that banister could tell.”

The first school in the township was established in 1858. It was taught in a log cabin by Mary Evermann. The post office was also founded in 1858, and W. H. Stodder served as postmaster. He was succeeded by John Hewitt who held the post office until it was closed in 1880. Neither Pierson or Stodder remained long in Sand Creek. After a few years, both sold their land and moved east. Similarly, DeCamp sold his property and left Sand Creek. Of the original founders, only Strait remained in the area.

Others seemed to agree that the founders’ vision of a river hub was a good one. By 1860, the town of St Lawrence had a population of 216. 

Residents of the Village of St Lawrence

One of St Lawrence’s early residents was Fredrick Erikson. Erikson had immigrated to the United States from Sweden in the 1840s. He came to the United States with more wealth than the average immigrant at the time, and invested in the burgeoning railroad industry. By 1860 he had set his sights on “retiring” as a farmer, and bought 1100 acres in St Lawrence Township. 

He built a four story house on a hill, a two story “manouse” capable of housing 30 farmworkers, and a barn that could hold 150 horses. 

St Lawrence resident Clara Frank who was a little girl at the time recalled visiting the upper floor of the house and being awed at seeing the landscape around her from the vantage point of a four story view. She also said that every night she would hear the farm workers be called in to dinner with the clang of a giant bell that she compared to a church bell. 

Erikson farmed in St Lawrence for about 20 years before deciding that the railroad business was more lucrative. He sold his land and moved west to California to rejoin the rail industry. The large Erkison farm, called Oak Farm at the time, was broken up and sold to neighboring property owners. 

Strait House, 1998. Photo from the SCHS collections.

Samuel Strait, one of the founders of St Lawrence, also built a home for himself in the community. Like the St Lawrence hotel, the house featured thick limestone walls. It was large, with big windows and a shaded front porch. 

For those people steeped in county history, the name of Strait will seem familiar. Samuel Strait held property in Sand Creek, but eventually moved to Shakopee. He originally claimed 130 acres of land in Sand Creek. He then paid others to claim land in his name and gained 900 more. The first election in Sand Creek was held on May 11, 1858. Strait was chosen to moderate the election, and was also elected Chairman of the community. 

Strait Flour Mill, 1885. From the SCHS collections.

One of Samuel’s sons, George Strait became a prominent local miller. He opened mills in Jordan and Chaska, eventually settling in Shakopee where he started the Strait Flour Mill. By 1885, this mill ground more than 300,000 bushels of grain annually. 

Major Horace Strait, around 1865. Photo from the SCHS collections.

Horace Strait, another son raised in St Lawrence, enlisted as a private in company 1 of the 9th Minnesota after the Civil War broke out in 1862. Horace rose through the ranks, eventually becoming Inspector General on the staff of General Andrew Macarthur. Andrew Macarthur was, in turn, the father of famed General Douglas Macarthur

After leaving the service, Horace Strait pursued a career in politics. He was elected as a Republican to the 43rd, 44th, and 45th congresses, but failed in his reelection bid in 1878 to the 46th congress. However, two years later he was elected to the 47th and reelected to 48th

and 49th congresses. His political downfall finally came when he supported a tariff on lumber coming into Minnesota from Canada in the 1880s, a time when much of the Southern portion of the state was in need of inexpensive lumber to support a boom in building.