Austin’s golden moment
Published 11:58 am Saturday, September 6, 2008
“I wonder how many people know there once was a gold rush in Austin?” Richard Hall said.
When Hall talks history, everybody listens. A good story was sure to follow his announcement.
He’s the author of four books on Austin and Mower County history, whose dogged research sets him apart from others.
Want to know the original Austin street names? Ask Hall.
Want to know about railroads? Ask Hall.
Want to know about the Mower County Courthouse? Ask hall.
The octogenarian is an expert on all things Austin.
Naturally, when he mentions “gold rush in Austin,” it’s a story worth hearing, but there’s also rich Cedar River history to be shared.
Very different ‘river city’
“Today when strangers come to Austin in the summertime and see what has been done to beautify Austin’s Mill Pond with the island, they marvel at its appearance in the heart of the City of Austin, and how lucky Austin is to have such a beautiful location,” Hall’s story begins. “Little do they know that it wasn’t always that way.”
Hall’s meticulous research has revealed a very different “Mill Pond.”
“In 1916 there was a gold rush in the little town of Austin,” he said. “It all started at the north end of Austin’s Main Street and extended north of where the Main Street met Lansing Avenue,” he said. “Over the years the citizens of Austin had been well aware that at one time gold had been discovered in the Cedar River near Austin. Now again, in 1916, history was repeating itself and gold was discovered in the Cedar River in the heart of Austin.”
“It’s difficult to try to describe how the area at the end of Austin’s Main Street must have looked before there were two changes made in the river channel in Austin,” he observed.
More recently, those changes in the Cedar River’s pathway through the city have been blamed, in part, for the city’s requiring flooding woes.
As Hall pored over old newspapers and their pictures, he discovered a different city.
“There was a time when the whole area was referred to as a ‘muck hole,’” he said. “The whole area didn’t have the slightest resemblance to the Austin Mill Pond that we enjoy today.”
That’s one point not in dispute. Today, the Mill Pond (Cedar River) is circled by the Mill Pond Pathway, a popular walking and biking trail.
Spruce Up Austin, Inc. planted more than 400 trees along the shoreline and in the greater park area. Sculpture, a play system and picnic area, the SPAMTOWN Belle and the Austin Municipal Swimming Pool make the entire area a magnet for attention.
But, a “muck hole?” How could that be?
Hall knows.
“Right in the heart of Austin was the ugliest and most undesirable location in the town,” he said. “There were no buildings at the north end of Main Street. The dam formed the Mill Pond that was much more wide-spread with its back water reserve in the Austin Mill Pond today.”
“Most of it was a slough, or swamp, with the Cedar River snaking its way through it,” Hall said. “Much of the summer the land was so low you would sink and the water would ooze up above the ground.”
“When the water was high, it must have looked like a lake,” he added. “When the water went down, all of the debris from the high water that came down stream was spread along the shoreline, rubbish, branches, hazel nut and goose berry brushes, even large trees with their roots.”
There was a reason for the accumulation of so much debris.
“It was common in those times for people to dig a large hole to dispose of their rubbish or garbage,” Hall found out. “There was also so much unused land, some people would find a gully or hole within walking distance to dispose of anything they didn’t want.”
“The end of Main Street must have filled the need for many and this made it a haven for flies, bees, swarms of mosquitoes, rodents, snakes, etc.,” he discovered. “It was also a haunt for dogs and cats that ran loose in those days.”
Muck hole
has got to go
More than nine decades ago, Austinites had good reason to call it a muck-hole, the historian’s research revealed.
Not to worry: Not all the land along the river was bad. Off to the east side there must have been some higher ground with a bend in the river, according to Hall. “This made a place with a sandy bottom and washed sand up on the shoreline, giving some of the citizens a place to swim,” he said. Some of the citizens cleared the area of brush and unwanted trees and brought in picnic tables. “They might even have had a diving board,” Hall suggested.
The location soon became a favorite place for picnics and swimming for some.
Then, Hall put himself in the shoes of those residents.
“Many of Austin’s residents dreamed of the day that the city would clean up the adjoining muck hole, but nothing was ever done about it,” Hall mused.
Because the land was in the town, the citizens “must have assumed it belonged to the little town of Austin,” Hall suggested.
Then, everything changed in a single moment in time.
On “one warm summer August day in 1916 to the surprise of the residents of Austin,” the State of Minnesota took action and acquired the muck hole.
Now, the land belonged to the state; not the town of Austin.
The state shipped in a dredge and had it floating on the Cedar River. There were also crews of men with teams of horses, clearing away the brush and unwanted trees and trash.
All along the river channel they were removing dirt and changing the river channel’s direction of flow and making it deeper.
Hall explained further.
“What happened was that the State Legislature had passed a law making the land at the north end of Austin’s main street a State Park, honoring one of their own: Horace Austin, a distinguished member of the legislature,” the historian said.
In later years Horace Austin was twice elected Governor of Minnesota. “One can only imagine the excitement at that time in the little Village of Austin with all of the people coming down to the north end of main street watching them remove the dirt and debris from the river with horses and slips,” Hall said. “They were piling up the dirt from the river bottom and using it to build up the shoreline and low places. They even brought in more gravel to build up the road and they built an island in the Mill Pond.”
Then, Hall claims another important name in Austin history became part of the story.
“It is said that George Hormel had a crew of men and horses, building up the shoreline on his property along the river channel,” Hall discovered.
But the most startling discovery was yet to come.
Everyone remembers George Hormel, the meatpacking pioneer, but could he have also been a gold prospector?
“When the piles of dirt dried in the sun along the river bank, sparkling in the sun on piles of dirt were small flakes of gold,” Hall said. “Little did the State Legislature ever dream that when they decided to put a new state park in Austin that they would create a gold rush,” Hall observed.
Not Alaska, Not California, but SPAMTOWN USA, where gold fever took over.
Gold fever
strikes city
The stunning news of the gold not only seized the attention of all the people of Austin, but the newspapers throughout the state and beyond were telling of gold being found in the red Cedar River in Austin.
“There were rumors that the flakes of gold came from a large nugget or a vain of gold that was being washed away by the Cedar River and there were some who believed that there were places on the river bottom where there was gold,” Hall discovered.
The big day of the discovery was Aug. 13, 1916, according to Hall’s research. Unfortunately, there isn’t any information whether it was by chance or organized, Hall explained.
But the gold discovery touched everyone’s imagination.
Citizens had high hopes of becoming rich. “What a day for the little village of Austin that must have been,” Hall said.
The historian recreated the scene thusly: There were people from all over lined up and scattered, some in groups all along the Cedar River banks and in the water all the way to Ramsey. There were also south of Austin along the Cedar River, Turtle and Dobbins Creeks. Many were knee deep in water at their chosen locations.”
“Every kind of method that they could think of was being used,” Hall continued. “Everyone seemed to be caught up in the gold craze. The local hardware store ordered picks and shovels and regulation-size miner pans, and they were sold out before they could get them loaded.”
“There were some who were using miner rinse boxes and even some with old frying pans,” he vividly recalled.
There were a lot of stories published in the newspapers about the gold rush and many rumors that followed.
“There was talk about a group of people in the Twin Cities who had stock options for the purpose of buying the land that the state was making into the state park,” Hall said. “They were informed that it wasn’t for sale, and couldn’t be bought.”
“It was suggested that they might buy the adjoining land along the Cedar River,” according to Hall.
“It was a time when people’s imaginations ran wild with on rumor after another.”
More and more people arrived in Austin to swell the gold rush fever.
Then Hall’s research reached a dead end …… of sorts.
“There were not any stories of anyone finding anything but a few flecks of gold,” he said. “With all of the people coming to town, business was very good; some were even selling out of things.”
But the boom quickly — very quickly, to be sure — turned to bust, according to Hall’s research.
“Looking for answers, a group of professional and business men formed an organization and made an investigation into the situation,” he said. “They were able to get a few samples and have them assessed. When they received their report, their specimens only tested 1:80 to the ton.”
Austin’s gold rush had lasted but one day.
Hall described the aftermath and broken dreams.
“After the big day the Austin gold rush was over with very poor results,” he said, “The gold-seekers, tired, dirty and wet, decreased in number, and the gold rush died out as quick as it got started.”
“There were a few who stayed around longer with the high hopes of still becoming rich,” he added. “The only way that the people of Austin could explain what had taken place that on that hot summer day on August 13, 1916 was that the people of Austin went crazy with heat. There was no other reason they could give.”
In time the last of the prospectors became disgusted and tired and packed up and went home, the historian discovered.
What lessons were learned from this brief, but illuminating, chapter in Austin’s history? Hall believes he has the answer to that question.
“The citizens of Austin may not have had any luck finding gold, but they ended up with a new and better river channel and got their muck hole cleaned up and had the beautiful Horce Austin State Park.”
“For many years the park’s bathing beach was the finest in southern Minnesota and was very popular for picnics, swimming, skating and celebrations.”
Bottom line: No gold, but one golden park.