History of the Rapid River Logging Camp by Paul Putz
In the early 1950s, America had a love affair with its frontier past. Famous woodsmen Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone were TV heroes. So was folklore figure Mike Fink, the raucous Mississippi River keelboat captain. In 1955, Disneyland, with its many Western themes, opened to an astonished nation, and the concept of “living history,” an interpretation allowing visitors to experience past environments directly, was wildly popular. Each region of the country, from the former colonies to the western coast, seized upon heritage to seal its identity. In Northern Minnesota, the towering legend of lumberjack Paul Bunyan strode through the imaginations of young and old alike, becoming its cultural totem. For Elver Raymond Danielson, a Thief River Falls electrician eager for a career change, it seemed the perfect time to launch his dream of opening an eatery. The resort-rich Park Rapids area, with Lake Itasca State Park nearby, was an ideal location, and what better atmosphere could he choose but one with a logging theme? By 1953, E. R. Danielson and his wife Gladys were ready to go for it. All they needed was some land.
The Danielsons couldn’t have done better in selecting a location with a logging pedigree. Their lots, which rolled gently downward from Highway 81 to the sparkling Potato River, began their deeded chain of ownership with the Northern Pacific Railroad. In 1891, timber magnate Fredrick Weyerhaeuser and his partners acquired the lots. Weyerhaeuser’s mammoth Pine Tree Lumber Company, operating the world’s largest lumber mill, cut down stands of White and Norway pine from horizon to horizon. Succeeding owners of certain parcels included the well-known Park Rapids loggers George “Haywire” Wilson and H. A. Connor. Logging neighbors also included J. S. Pillsbury, one of Minnesota’s entrepreneur governors.These outfits undoubtedly constructed wooden low-head dams across the Potato River to hold back spring runoff and float heaps of cut logs downstream to the Park Rapids sawmill – remnants of these dams are still visible. In winter, the woods along the river would ring with the sound of axes and the thunderous crash of falling timber. Hard-working lumberjacks prepared giant trees for sawmills downstream, the men fueled by enormous meals served in the woods on icy plates at noon and morning and evening laid out on the trestle tables of their camp’s sprawling dining halls. Typical fare included flapjacks, rich meats, mashed potatoes, and (always) donuts. Following this schedule, the men labored six days a week, clearing an area around their camp of valuable timber and then moving on.
Weyerhaeuser turned a portion of the property over to his Immigration Land Company, which peddled the slashed, sandy landscape as farmland to hapless buyers. But it had other values. Park Rapids businessmen Peter Turnbull, who surveyed the road to Itasca, and flour mill owner Leonard Rice probably bought parcels at this scenic spot for personal recreation.
Promotions of the waterway included locks supported by the Park Rapids Ladies Improvement Club around 1911, which allowed boating over the dams between the city mill pond and Potato Lake. The rough-hewn presence of loggers receded, replaced by gentlemen in straw hats and women in elaborate sunbonnets, rowing against the placid current of the once log-jammed stream. Big logging waned, but timbering continued on a smaller scale up to today.
By the spring of 1954, Elver and Gladys had assembled considerable acreage and were hard at work laying out the logging camp plan. E. V. had done his homework, guaranteeing visitors would experience as close a thing to a real logging camp as practicable. Near a broad bend in the river, where the meander embraced a shallow man-made pond, Danielsons laid out a frame bunkhouse, foreman’s shack, blacksmith shop, and a long, log dining hall. Their manner of construction was true to buildings of the past. Smaller outbuildings complemented this assemblage, along with genuine logging artifacts: a portable sawmill, Log Jammer (timber crane), and steam engine. Included were a working ice sled to haul logs and the giant sprinkler which iced its roadway, powered by large draft horses and an impressive steam tractor. Tools used by loggers finished the collection.
On Memorial Day, 1955, the Rapid River Logging Company opened for business; its long, benched tables, sufficient to serve 90 customers, were heaped with food. Danielsons hired Charley Lind, a notable local cook, to oversee the production of flapjacks, ham, and eggs for breakfast and an alternating dinner menu of roast beef, turkey, pike, mashed potatoes, and trimmings. Outside the dining hall, clouds of steam rolled over onlookers as the sawmill and other equipment roared to life while the massive horses strained to draw their loads. It was quite the display. Afterward, sated visitors could digest their meal and experience while wandering trails through the adjacent woods.The Rapid River Logging Camp became an immediate success. Area resorts were happy to recommend customers to a place with good food featuring local history, and area residents took pride in the Camp’s acknowledgment of their heritage. Soon business and organizational conventions, eager to provide unique events for attendees, hauled visitors to the Logging Camp by the busload. Elver and Gladys ran the Logging Camp for a few years before passing it on to another couple looking for something new.
In May 1957, Jim and Catherine Colby left the insurance business in Omaha, Nebraska, to take over. They ran Rapid River Logging Camp for many summers, and it inspired a winter version that the Colby’s opened in Apache Junction, Arizona, called the Superstition Mining Camp. Colbys continued the successful formula of good, all-you-can-eat food and maintained the Logging Camps’s historical ambiance. Expense demands necessarily reduced the living history aspect of the Camp, but the displays remained a compelling draw.
In 1981, Jim and Catherine Colby finally sold the Camp to Ken and Theanne Pritchett, who left Minneapolis behind to return to Ken’s childhood home of Park Rapids. There they continued a family legacy of restaurant ownership. Pritchetts rebuilt the Camp kitchen and kept on cooking those big meals. Recently, Ken and Theanne passed the Rapid River Logging Camp on to their daughter Erica and her husband, Brian Davidson. Erica grew up working at the Logging Camp, leading tours when still a child, selling souvenirs in the Foreman’s Shack, and generally charming customers while learning the business. Brian tackles everything at the Camp, from kitchen work to carpentry.For nearly seventy-one years, the Rapid River Logging Camp has delighted visitors, introducing them to Northern Minnesota’s history in a unique way. The Logging Camp particularly recognizes working men and women of the late 19th century, many of whom began their journey as Americans in the frozen, dapple-lit forest, sawing down massive pine trees, swinging trimming axes, and wrestling huge logs to the mills. Timber barons aside, the Logging Camp celebrates lumberjacks and women workers who labored at such isolated places. These are the people whose lives are touched upon down the long tables of the dining hall.