Archive - Oct 2008

We are little over  a week away from the Northfield Historical Society's Annual Auction.  This year we have developed a web page devoted to the auction.  All of the live auction items are listed along with some silent auction items.  Click here for the link.  If you would like to order tickets for the auction they are $20 until Friday October 31.  After Friday, the tickets will be $25.00.  For more information you can call us at 507-645-9268 or email us.

To see pictures from last years auction visit Locally Grown's web site.

The public is welcome to a book release party for the Northfield Historical Society's newest publication, “Caught in the Storm” on October 29, at 6:30 p.m. at the Northfield Historical Society.  At the book release party we will hear from the student authors of the book as well as from those who assisted the students in their journey from initial research to completed project. 

Since the fall of 2004, a select group of 8th grade students (26 in all) from the Northfield Middle School in Northfield, Minnesota have been researching and writing a history and travel guide that chronicles the drama of the James and Younger Gang in their attempt to get out of Minnesota after the failed robbery at the First National Bank.   The book entitled, "Caught in the Storm" portrays those two weeks when the wounded outlaws, under dark and rainy skies, journeyed over one hundred miles in their attempt to get out of Minnesota and to a safe hiding place.  The gang encountered rain-swollen rivers, unsuspecting citizens, the largest posse in U. S. history, and the most harrowing adventure of their lives.   Frank and Jesse escaped on September 14, but the remaining outlaws would meet their defeat a week later at the shootout at Hanska Slough.

For 4 consecutive years, a group of students in the SCOPE Program (Student Community Outreach Program Experience) handed off their completed chapters and on-going research to the next student group until all 13 chapters were finished.  Now completed, "Caught in the Storm" makes its debut at the Northfield Historical Society Museum Store.  It's a thoroughly researched book that tells the tale of the outlaw trail unlike any other account on the subject.  The first page of each chapter contains a map, driving directions, mileage, GPS coordinates and a present day photo for the interested traveler who wants to take a personal journey from Northfield to Hanska Slough. "Caught in the Storm," chronicles in exciting detail, who the gang encountered and the fateful decisions made along the way making it both a field guide and an excellent stand-alone history for readers aged 9 to 90.

For more information on the party or Caught in the Storm please call NHS at 507-645-9268 or email us.

They were the great-great grandsons of the mighty Sariavo himself...Storm and Shalimar; the sons of Dancer. But they could not fully prepare for the trials that would face them.

Race alongside Shalimar as he travels eastward and is captured by men from the Pony Express to be used as a mail carrier. Travel westward with Storm as he discovers friendship in a very unlikely place, and finds the meaning of true love when he meets an independent mare, kaya, who has vowed never to belong to any stallion. together, these two borthers must find their destinies, and when a terrible forest fire threatens their home, one of them must learn the meaning of true sacrifice. 

Fury, the fiery red stallion was determined to carry on the lineage of his ancestors. His adopted father, Sariavo, who previously captured the hearts of many readers, was now ready to settle down and stay home, but Fury wasn't satisfied. He needed to explore and to see new things.

Accompanied by his beautiful black mate, Novana, Fury journeys far into the heart of the American West.

The heart-warming story depicts one stallion's fight to prove himself worthy of the title "Mighty Stallion". Journey with him as he finds out what makes a Mighty Stallion so diffrent from all others, and what things in life really matter. 

Mr. Koblas presents a detailing of American Indian history from earliest times, carefully setting up the climate of inevitable confrontation with the arrival of white settlers in Minnesota. He explores the treaties made with the United Sates government and the Indian nations and explains why and how these treaties failed, how both sides failed to understand the fundamental differences in culture, and how the pressure put upon the politicians in Washington D. C., to open land for settlers enticed them to break treaties almost before the ink dried. Ashes continues with the final battles in the Indian Uprising through to Wounded Knee and the aftermath of the war.

Volume III, Ashes, is the third and final book in a three volume set focusing on the conflict.