Lake Minnewaska - Going Home: Hancock

My home town of Hancock, Minnesota is just a speck on what is called the Great Plains. If you sit back and think about it you realize each of us is a very small cog in a very large wheel.

Great forces have been at work. The glaciers retreated and left the rich soil of the Great Plains. The prairie grasses on the plains became the home of the bison and the Sioux. The Sioux Uprising of 1862 led to the Sioux being pushed out toward Montana. They did get some revenge in 1876 along the Little Big Horn River.

The Great Northern Railroad of James J. Hill and others would transform the plains at it pushed through all the way from St. Paul to Seattle. The railroad got 40 million acres of rich farmland along the railroad from the government in order to finance the railroad. They set up marketing operations overseas to sell these lands. Immigrants from Norway, Sweden, and Germany would populate the plains with small farms and small towns like Hancock would pop up to serve the farmers. Some immigrants from France came down from Canada to establish Clontarf near Hancock. Some came from Switzerland and settled near Hancock and Morris, the Switzers.

Small towns like Hancock built large grain elevators to support the local farmers. That grain was then transported by the railroad to St. Paul where large companies like Cargill, General Mills, and Pillsbury would form to process the corn and grain coming in from the small farms out on the prairie.

In my lifetime, the small farms were swept up into the giant farms of today. Gains in farming technology would allow just two percent of the American population, the farmers, to feed the world. My grand parents Johnson owned a farm implement serving the local farmers. My grand parents Estensen owned an oil company which supplied gas and oil to the local farmers. Dianne grew up on one of those small farms of this region. Her dad planted corn.

Some young people stay here. Some, like Dianne and I, left for the Twin Cities and on to Germany, and Atlanta, and Hudson, Florida. It is when you return for a visit that you see the result of the great changes sweeping the plains. But the one constant is the corn fields.

Some of the best farmland on earth runs through Hancock. A look at a map of the corn belt shows us the range of that great crop land, running from the Red River Valley, down through the southern half of Minnesota and into Iowa and Illinois.

Yes, I grew up in the corn belt. Yes, there is corn everywhere around here, as far as the eye can see.

There is a certain amount of sadness in the story of Hancock during my lifetime. It is a story of change. The huge grain elevators track-side at Hancock held the grain of countless small farms. Those small farms are gone now, replaced by giant corporate farms. Agricultural Business is the big employer today. Riverview Farms, located between Hancock and Morris has over 1,000 employees at its various dairy farms. They milk 80 to 100 cows at a time at enormous facilities containing 4000+ milk cows. They have spread to five states now, all from one farm near Hancock. Yes, some of the children of the small farmers of my day are now running these corporate farms.

Want to see 80 cows milked at one time? Each cow has a computer chip and a life cycle. View the inputs and outputs of these giant farms near Hancock. Please take the time to watch in wonder at these short videos on Riverview Farms. I grew up with some of the owners.

What about main street Hancock? It is a victim of progress.

The bank where my mother worked is gone, closed.

Yet Glenwood has two banks and Alexandria has six or seven. Go figure.

There were two gas stations a block off main street. Both are gone. My grandparents owned one of them. It is gone and this is what it looks like now.

The two hardware stores are gone. Glenwood has a nice ACE Hardware however. Go figure.

The two grocery stores are gone.

The Veterinary Clinic is gone.

The Medical Clinic is gone.

The liquor store is gone.

The VFW Club is gone. Dad managed that as Quartermaster for some 30 years, gratis.

Main street looks naked now.

Dad's Post Office is still there.

What is powerful in the Hancock of today is the school system. With Open Enrollment, the students flock in from long distances. Good schools require good teachers who own homes. Thus, Hancock has a lot of nice homes.

As an 18 year old, I went off to work at Hancock Concrete Products. It was a big outfit then, and really large now. Lots of good jobs for Hancock, then and now. I made cement tiles. Hard work.

Hancock Concrete Products is now a division of Superior Industries, another local company grown big. Superior is a multi-million dollar company known all over the work for its material handling and aggregate processing equipment.

My childhood in small town America was simple. I went off to grade school a long time ago. First day. Note the caps and the school in the background. All Minnesota men wear caps all day. Don't believe it? Come check it out. They all drive pickup trucks too. At least it seems like it.

Then, and now.

I grew up on ice skates. The town rink was near our home. Now the rink is a parking lot. "Take paradise and put up a parking lot".

Back to homes for a minute.

The home of my Estensen grand parents is still standing. The screen porch is different now as is the bar-b-q pit of large size in the back yard. Wow. The memories of get-together picnics in that back yard.

My parents and grandparents at that home, and me too.

My parents built this house. Next door was the home of my long-time friend, and now brother-in-law Larry.

Here we go up the side walk between our homes, off to school. Larry and I dressed up on the Fridays when we had football games. Nice ties, no belt! The lady at the Hancock Record said I looked like Elvis. What do you think?

Driving around Hancock brings back a flood of memories. I can't drive down a farm road without remembering hunting pheasants with with Dad and Grandfather. Dad always liked to stop at Lake Emily to "check on the ducks and geese". I think it was his favorite quiet spot. We went back there and found it to be little changed. The dirt road is still there. Dianne caught me reflecting about when my dad stood in this very spot.

Growth of the Ag-business, school system, and concrete products contrast with the demise of downtown Hancock. Lot's of change there. Lot's of memories as I drive the country roads.

And it all started for me at Hancock when Osten (Austin) and Anne settled onto their farm on Long Lake near Hancock.