The Slow Death of Small Towns in Minnesota

Many of the small towns in Minnesota are slowly dying.  I can see it clearly because I have been away from them for so long.

My home town of Hancock had two hardware stores, two grocery stores, a bank, a veterinarian, a doctors office, and two gas stations when I was a youngster.  All are gone now.

The big-box stores in the bigger towns like Alexandria and Willmar seem to have killed the retail business in small towns.  

Young people are moving away in the search of a better destiny.

Small farms are going away and being consolidated into giant agri-business companies.  That is a two-edged sword because those agri-businesses are the big employers around here today.  Lloyd Fehr, my age, has 113 employees on his farms.

Losing your local school through school consolidation is also a path to failure as a small community.

I write this today because I have just returned from a visit to Chokio, Minnesota, the home town of my mother.  My grandparents lived there, as did an aunt and uncle and their two boys.  Our family made the trek from Hancock to Chokio many times.  More information on them as I continue.

The rock of the town and center of all activity was Nelson's Store.  I grew up playing with store owner Irv Nelson's children, Nancy and Johnny.  Nancy has lived her entire life on one block.  Johnny died of ALS.

Nelson Store

My grandfather Johnson owned a farm implement and had several employees.  The implement is gone now, replaced by a bunch of buildings.  I loved playing on the farm machinery.  It was just off main street.  Here is main street today.

My Johnson grandparents built this house and it still looks good today.

My uncle Gene Wensman was the Postmaster in Chokio when I was young.  My cousins Chuck and Randy lived in a house on this lot.  It is gone but the garage is still there.  Go figure.

The Nelsons lived here and you can see my Uncles garage across the alley.  This was our playground area.

This is the yard we avoided.  Wyatt Earp lived here.  Yes, that was his name.  He was a tough kid and was to be avoided.  I wonder what ever happened to him?

My grandparents are buried in nearby Hoffman, Minnesota.  They are buried next to his parents, immigrants from Sweden.

Remembering Chokio family members, left to right - Minnie Johnson, Leona Johnson Wensman, Bernice Barbara Johnson Estensen, Art Johnson.

My grandfather built this car for me in his shop at the farm implement.  It had pedals for power.

Mom, left, and Leona.  Dad told me one time that Bernice (mom) was considered to be the smart one and Leona was considered to be the pretty one.  But he said they were wrong.  He said he thought Bernice was both the smart one and the pretty one.  

So, in closing out this post I show how my sisters and I looked during those years when Chokio was an important and thriving destination for us.  

Clare, Gail and Gene