The Medina location was carrying out nicely about 125 years ago.
A largely German colony had set up north of the neighborhood and had its personal schools and churches. A far more varied group, which includes people from about North Dakota and the United States, had settled south of Medina. This group had a couple of churches and schools and got its mail at a rural post workplace named Bloomenfield.
The region’s economy seemed to operate without having a lot of money. The farmers about Medina paid for the goods they purchased at the retailers in Medina with butter. An post in the Jamestown Alert mentioned the retailers shipped about six,000 pounds of butter per week to Minneapolis. The bank at Medina worked with banks in Minneapolis to transfer bank drafts back to Medina.
I assume farmers headed for town did not carry their butter in their pockets like we carry a wallet now.
Flax was a different crop that aided the Medina boom. It was mentioned to spend a improved return than wheat.
Farmers could plow the sod of the native prairie in the fall and plant flax the subsequent year. Yields came in at up to 15 bushels per acre with a money price tag of about $1.50 per bushel.
Adjusted for inflation, that amounts to $40 per bushel or $600 per acre in money return.
Some farmers had been functioning land acquired by way of the Homestead Act. These who purchased land probably paid about $three per acre. Adjusted for inflation that amounts to $80 per acre in today’s dollars.
The Alert post mentioned farmers had been paying off their complete debt with the proceeds of their initial crop with adequate cash left more than to expand the farm operation.
One more benefit to the Medina location was its access to lignite coal. A ton of coal price about $two.20 though the retailers had been providing the farmers about a dime a pound for the butter they brought in.
So you preserve the sod shanty warm just by maintaining the cows milked.
Author Keith Norman can be reached at
www.KeithNormanBooks.com
