Forest Lake
Forest Lake Township, originally part of Marine Township, was separated and organized in March 1874 and incorporated in 1896. At the time of organization there were 223 people living around Forest Lake and Clear Lake. The village of Forest Lake was platted on the northwest shore of the lake for which it was named in 1868, but not organized until 1896.
The book "Reflections of Forest Lake" by Elsie Vogel tells the history of this community from 1893 to 1993.
The first settlers found the land in the township rolling and covered with a vigorous growth of timber, interspersed with hay meadows or marshes. Because much of it was not easily farmed, and because it was 14 miles from the St. Croix River, the highway of the early immigrants, Forest Lake was one of the last townships in the county to be settled.
The lake named by the first settlers for the lush timber on its shores was called by the Dakota Indians “The Lake They Bury Eagles In.” Its north shore was on the boundary line set out by the US government in 1825 to separate the warring Chippewa (Ojibwe) to the north and Sioux (Dakota) to the south. The area was frequented by Indian hunting, fishing and ricing parties, but because of the danger from war parties no modern era Indian villages were established in the township.
Prehistoric Indians did reside in the area, building mounds and encampments on the Rice Creek chain of lakes in Anoka County. Mounds of the Hopewell culture are found about a mile southwest of Forest Lake.
Early settlement
Louis Schiel, a German, and “a man by the name of Wilson” were the first to settle in the township in the year 1855, Schiel to the south of the lake and Wilson to the northeast. Schiel came up from St. Paul with a prospecting party following the old road from St. Paul (roughly along Centerville Road) to Wyoming in Chisago County. In the winter of 1854-5, Willie Nettleton of St. Paul had started a stage line between St. Paul and Duluth that followed this road to Sunrise on the St. Croix River, where it joined the newly opened Point Douglas-St. Louis River Road (Military Road). This stage road allowed people to move north from St. Paul and by 1863 the township had 47 families, 39 of them farming with a total of 511 acres in cultivation. It also had a school-teacher, Mary Poston, who began instructing children in her log cabin on the lake in 1861.
In 1867 there was little on the site of downtown Forest Lake. The nearest settlements were Wyoming, Centerville and Marine. Forest Lake Village got its start as a fuel stop for the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad, which opened in 1868 to Wyoming, and soon ran from St. Paul to Duluth as the Duluth and St. Paul Railroad, later the Northern Pacific. The village was platted in 1868 by the railroad, which immediately established a woodyard, water tank and depot at the site. This location was a boon to farmers clearing their land, who could haul their logs to the railroad for fuel.
Banking on railroad traffic to come, German-born Michael Marsh opened a store at Clear Lake in 1867. That business soon burned, but the following year Marsh was back in business with a resort hotel, mercantile store and boat landing on the northwest shore of Forest Lake. For a while, his was the only business. The post office was located in Marsh’s hotel, and March became the first postmaster. The first Swedes arrived in the township in 1869 and in 1876 Swedish natives Ole and Gust Alm opened a general store. Another store opened in 1880; a blacksmith shop and saloon were next.
Forest Lake becomes a resort
The North Shore House, later renamed the Marsh House, became a famous resort, entertaining guests from all over the world. Presidents McKinley and Cleveland were visitors, but wealthy St. Paul people were the chief patrons. At the height of its popularity, the summer resort hotel had room for 75 guests and featured a horseshoe-shaped dining room with a goldfish pond in the center courtyard. Guests were provided with boats and fishing tackle: one visitor reported that he and a companion had caught 597 bass in two hours. For non-fishermen and ladies, there was the fashionable game of croquet and a small steamboat, the Germania, for excursion trips on the lake. The hotel burned in 1893, but by that time Forest Lake was well established as a resort. Among the attractions were the popular Euclid Hotel, built by A. P. Noyes, and a summer hotel and four rental cottages on the west bank of the lake, built by H. D. Gurney in 1876.
By 1897 there were four trains a day to and from St. Paul. Excursion trains ran daily and breweries and factories in the Twin Cities held their summer outings in Forest Lake. Two large dance pavilions operated at the same time and also offered public entertainment. The picnic grounds on the lake in the center of town featured tennis courts, a bandstand, a coaster slide and a bathhouse with bathing suits for rent.
Village growth
As the town center grew, other stores, a blacksmith shop, post office and school were established. There was a little starch factory where people took their potatoes. The wheat they grew had at first to be hauled to the grist mill in Marine but by 1880 there were milling facilities in the village. In 1880 a creamery was started by John Houle and A. H. Anderson. Houle also operated a charcoal kiln southwest of the village. By World War I the railroad village boasted a large cooperative creamery, telephone service, bank, dry goods, grocery and hardware stores, a roller mill, elevator and a stockyard.
By 1901 there were three plats on or near the lake: the original railroad company plat, Forest Lake Park (north of Clear Lake) and Richter’s Forest Lake Addition, on the south shore. Summer homes began to spring up. Many lakeshore cottages were built between 1910 and 1930. King’s Forest Hill, a very large subdivision laid out on Forest Lake’s north shore with curving drives, advertised their lots in a circular called “Where and How to Enjoy a Real Summer.” Other plats of this period were Elms Park, Elms Ridge, Elms Beach, Simmons Park, Forest Grove Heights, Paradise Mound and Springdale on Forest Lake and several on Clear Lake as well.
The Mary Davis Sunshine Lodge, established in 1903 on the site now occupied by City Hall, drew hundreds of poor children from the Twin Cities every summer. The camp was moved in 1926 to the south shore of the lake. In July of 1910, the first Boy Scout club in Minnesota was formed: The Forest Lake Wolf Patrol.
The first newspaper, The Enterprise, was printed in 1903. Its name changed in 1907 to The Forest Lake Advertiser and later, in 1916, to The Forest Lake Times, as it remains to this day.
By the 1920s Forest Lake was a busy place on the main road from St. Paul to Duluth, later Highway 61. But the presence of the railroad meant roads were considered to be of secondary importance, and few were improved. Forest Lake had to wait until 1926 to get its first pavement. However, housekeeping cabins and rustic cottage resorts continued to flourish around the big lake in the 1930s and ’40s, in addition to roadside restaurants and watering holes, drawing thousands of summer visitors and automobile tourists.
By 1969 the flavor of the town had changed. Interstate 35 was completed, connecting Forest Lake with the Twin Cities and making commuting much faster. In time Forest Lake became a bedroom community for the Twin Cities. Many of the summer cottages became year-round homes. Along the freeway strip, industrial and commercial growth became concentrated.
The City of Forest Lake was incorporated in 1893 with 175 residents; it became a statutory city in 1974. Since then it has shown impressive growth, from a population of 4,600 in 1980 to 6,900 in 1999. In the 1990 census the township boasted 12,250 residents. Since the annexation of the Township into the City of Forest Lake on September 26, 2001 the population has increased to over 15,800.
Village of Garen
In the early 1900s the farming community of Garen could be found on Highway 61 south of Forest Lake. Here the railroad built a switch line with cattle pens so farmers could load their cattle into boxcars for shipment to St. Paul. Named by the railroad for local farmers, Garen also had the C.I. Olson store and a school which doubled as the community center. The Half-Way Inn was a popular roadside stopping place in the 1930s and ’40s.
Moonshine and gangsters
The 18th Amendment of 1919, prohibiting the sale of beer and liquor, brought changes to Forest Lake. Deprived of their favorite beverages, many otherwise law-abiding citizens turned to making “home-brew” in their kitchens and basements. The making, selling and distributing of illegal spirits fostered the gangster era.
Chicago gangsters were known to hang out around White Bear, Big Marine and Forest Lakes. While John Dillinger and “Baby Face” Nelson were renting cottages at nearby Big Marine Lake, the infamous “Ma” Barker and her gang occupied one of the cottages behind the Forest Theatre. Several gangsters were known to occupy the Smith cottages on the east side of Forest Lake.
One of the Smith cottages was occupied by a Mr. Devers, nicknamed “Bubbling Over Devers,” who turned out to be a wanted jewel thief. As federal agents closed in, Devers escaped, and the agents tore the cottage apart trying to find the jewels, but there were none to be found. Another time a doctor, George Ruggles, was taken at gunpoint from his home to his office, where he was forced to remove a bullet from one of the Barker-Karpis gang members.
The Feds had jurisdiction over trying to put a stop to the illegal making of whiskey. Local police were quite tolerant of bootlegging. The big trucks loaded with illegal whiskey used old roads to get to St. Paul and nobody dared stop them. It all quieted down when the 18th Amendment was repealed in1933.