Being from St. Cloud....

Everybody has a sort of home town.  My closest town was Sartell, which was where my grade school was located.  At the time, Sartell had two large industries, a public grade school, a private grade school, several churches, a new public high school, and up until I started high school, bars outnumbered both churches and post offices.  We also had one small store for a great many years, at the end of the bridge.  Rips, as it was known, was a prime location for candy and pop, but it was two miles from my home, so I did not go there alone, often.  

I do not recall the exact year, but when they cleared the vacant lot next to that store and construction started, we got an almost-useful store.  We did not need to go into Sauk Rapids or St. Cloud for some of the basics, but there were limits.  However, it did carry outstate editions of the metro papers, which did become a bigger deal when my father and uncle's collaboration on a teach-science comic strip made it possible for us to get the Press Dispatch, the paper which my uncle had worked for for many years.

Because my father was both into history and a pretty good writer, I got close up experience with a lot of the area's history.  In the end, Dad did around a half-dozen books.  It started with the Bicentennial history of St. Cloud another person had tried to start, but was very far behind on the deadlines. One of my father's former bosses, the same fellow who had hired both my father and mother before they were married (so yes, they did meet in the work place, I'm thankful for Stockinger Advertising), asked if he might be able to help out.  

He did not so much as help out as he took over.  The book came out a few weeks late, but still in 1976.  And it led to a second, third, fourth, and, well...  Other books.  

Because my father was fairly willing to share a great deal of the bits of local history, which gave me a deep reservoir of mostly useless trivia.  Unless, well, I watch TV.

A couple years ago, my wife and I found a TV show called the ugliest house in America.  The first season which I was aware of pointed out a home I went past every morning on my route to high school in St. Cloud.  Cathedral was composed of 4 buildings when I was there, the South, the L-shaped building here, the Central building, which was new when my father attended Cathedral, a North building which was torn down shortly after I graduated, and the "Boy's Gym" on the very north end.  The "Girl's Gym" was in the Central building, still is.  They also turned an old parish church into a performing arts center since the old Theater on the back of the former North building.  

Dad's big love of local history came from the Pan Motor Company, which was started in the core of this building, among several others, most of which have been torn down.  There is a fair amount of modern, well, history that comes from the Pan Motor Company.  For example, if you ride or drive in a modern motor vehicle, both the reclining seat and curved window glass ties back to Samuel Pandolfo, who made those possible.  When it comes to reclining seats, one of the more scandalous features in the Pan Sedan was the fact that both the forward and middle row of seats would recline flat.  The car was marketed towards doctors, veterinarians, and traveling salesmen who could sleep in the vehicle.  

On the rear bumper there was a toolbox that also included a water reservoir for washing or adding to the radiator.  Considering most of the motor vehicles of the early 20th century were questionably assembled, a toolbox was a good idea.  

As was curved glass.  Before 1918, glass could be curved, but only in one plane.  Or in other words, you could bend it, but not in two directions.  One of the engineers Pandolfo imported from France was able to develop the mathematics to calculate and express how the glass would be made.  And it worked.

The other modern process that you may not be aware of is investment information.  Careful organizations will not send any sort of stock information via US Mail.  That's because if the promises made in the documents they send fail, the investors who feel defrauded can have the organization charged with using the mails to defraud investors.  Samuel Pandolfo went on trial for that charge in what my father was pretty sure was a case that was financed, in part, by some of the growing Michigan automobile manufacturers, who feared Pandolfo.  I expect there's some truth to that given the talent that was hired from St. Cloud to Michigan.

St. Cloud was suffering some of the aftereffects of Pandolfo when I was in high school.  A large section of town was known as "Pantown".  Pretty much the area between 13th and the rail line, from 25th to highway 15, was known as Pantown.  The houses were built with a fair amount of care, most were still solid and in use when I lived in town.  One of my uncles lived in Pantown. 

But then the other night I happened to catch another episode of Ugliest House, and there was another home that I recognized.  It's a lot easier to recognize it from street level.  It was across the street from one of my favorite houses in St. Cloud, right on the bank of the same river where I spent most of my life, but that was replaced by this monstrosity.

Then tonight on the PBS show Antiques Road Show, they were in Akron, Ohio and a woman brought in some newspapers published by Jane Gray Swisshelm, who also published a paper in St. Cloud - or had until a group of townsfolk took umbrage in her lack of support for a Southerner who brought his slaves to St. Cloud.  Being a free state, there were plenty of people upset by this, but those who prefer to do their work after dark and anonymously, decided to "disassemble" her press and toss it in the river.

So there's plenty of history in my old home town.  Thanks, Dad, for exposing me to much of it.