Roots & Riddles

In the late 1860s, when newspaper publishing was largely a man’s world, one remarkable woman was making headlines of her own in Spring Valley, Minnesota. Her name was Bella French, and she was far more than a newspaper publisher. A poet, author, lecturer, and advocate for women’s rights, French brought her newspaper, The Western Progress , to Spring Valley before embarking on a career that would t...

In the early morning hours of September 15, 1951, 19-year-old Doelan Peterson was shot and killed outside a Rushford home. The person holding the rifle was 16-year-old Carrol Bakken—and at the center of the story was a 15-year-old girl both boys knew. Within hours, Bakken had signed the first of two statements describing firing at Peterson from just four feet away. But when the case reached a pack...

In the early years of Fillmore County, social lines could still follow settlers into the frontier. One local story tells of a mother who once objected to her son’s friendship with another boy she considered beneath him. Years later, the Civil War changed everything. Charles Pray and Patrick H. McConville enlisted in the fall of 1861. At Gettysburg, Charles was wounded—and according to the 1912 his...

No, not that Freddy Krueger—but the real Fred Krueger of Wykoff has a story strange enough on its own. In 1885, a local newspaper reported that former German newspaper editor Frederick C. Krueger had “skipped” town, leaving his wife and children behind amid allegations of financial wrongdoing. But where did he go? Follow the trail from Wykoff to Rochester, Missouri, and Chicago as we piece togethe...

On the night of July 6, 1947, an unidentified man was struck and killed by a freight train near the Wykoff depot. He carried no identification, and no one seemed to know who he was. But his fingerprints told a much stranger story. Authorities connected the dead man to seven different names, used during arrests stretching from New York and Pennsylvania to Iowa and Minnesota. One of those names—Oar...

In November 1929, a Wykoff man walked into Rochester police headquarters and confessed to a murder in Germany. There was just one problem: the murder apparently never happened. George Rohde told police he had killed a friend, stolen his identity, and come to America using the dead man’s passport. But as officers questioned him, the story began to unravel. Soon Rohde admitted the confession—and eve...

In the early morning hours of March 28, 1895, fire tore through the heart of Wykoff. Starting near the town hall, the flames raced through the village’s business district, destroying stores, homes, barns, and nearly an entire block before finally burning itself out. With limited firefighting equipment, intense heat, and rapidly spreading flames, residents turned their attention to saving whatever...

September is Wykoff month on Roots & Riddles as we celebrate the town’s 150th birthday—and we’re starting with one of its most remarkable early residents. Robert Crowell came to the Wykoff area in the 1850s, built a log cabin, and later enlisted in Company K of the 6th Minnesota Infantry. He served under General Sibley, saw action during the U.S.-Dakota War, and later campaigned in the South d...

In December 1921, 23-year-old schoolteacher Inga Magnusson failed to return home from the rural school where she taught just across the Iowa line from Houston County, Minnesota. Her family went searching—and what they found inside the schoolhouse launched a manhunt across three counties. Bloodhounds followed the trail. Evidence was discovered beneath a suspect’s bed. By the end of the day, 26-year...

Calvin Siscoe Powers was never just one thing. Before settling in Fillmore County, he worked as a marble cutter, sculptor, newspaper publisher, lecturer, and traveling phrenologist. In Fountain, he became a businessman, hall owner, editor, politician—and, in 1877, the inventor of a patented electro-vapor bath designed to combine steam, medicated vapor, and electrical treatment inside one elaborate...

In the spring of 1952, seventeen-year-old Don Haugen was preparing to graduate from Spring Valley High School while carrying burdens few of his classmates could see. He worked exhausting hours on a farm west of town, attended school in worn clothing, and watched as his father, Elling Haugen, became increasingly thin, weak, and desperate. Then Elling fled the farm and told authorities he had been h...

What if one bridge became so notorious that a newspaper devoted an entire article to its unbelievable history? In 1894, The Lanesboro Journal called the railroad bridge on the east edge of town “A Scene of Famous Accidents.” The stories sound almost impossible to believe: a caboose hurled from the trestle with every passenger surviving, a young couple hanging beneath the bridge as a speeding train...

A head injury. A brand-new automobile. A trail that suddenly goes cold. In March 1928, 37-year-old Mabel farmer Harry Goelberg set out to buy a new car in La Crosse. Along the way, he was involved in two automobile accidents, traveled more than 150 unexplained miles, and was last seen walking along a road between Lewiston and Stockton. Then… he vanished. For weeks, family, friends, law enforcement...

How does a young woman simply disappear… and almost no one remembers? This week on Roots & Riddles , Preston and Lenora investigate one of Fillmore County’s oldest unsolved mysteries: Matilda McQuillan. Census records prove she was living with her family near Hamilton through 1865. By 1870, she was gone. Later family traditions claimed she had been kidnapped by Native Americans, but the surviv...

What do rattlesnakes, moonshine, and an early Fillmore County settlement have in common? This week, we’re traveling back to 1856 to the forgotten community of Choice in Preble Township, where one ambitious settler claimed to have discovered the cure for rattlesnake bites. Business boomed—until federal officers arrived to investigate. What they uncovered sparked one of Fillmore County’s most entert...

What did the Fourth of July look like in Fillmore County 150 years ago? In honor of America’s 250th birthday, we’re stepping back to 1876—the nation’s Centennial—to uncover how communities across Fillmore County celebrated one of the biggest holidays in their history. Using newspaper accounts, advertisements, and firsthand descriptions from Preston, Spring Valley, Chatfield, Lanesboro, Rushford, a...

In January 1901, a routine stagecoach run into Preston nearly ended in tragedy. As the Preston–Isinours stage approached town on Engle Hill, a loose piece of paper spooked the horses. Within moments, the team bolted, the driver was thrown from his seat, and the coach overturned as it raced down the hillside. Miraculously, no one was killed—but the accident left behind a dramatic newspaper account...

For nearly a decade, Fillmore County farmers believed they had discovered the future of Minnesota agriculture: Early Amber Sugar Cane. Newspapers praised it, county fairs awarded premiums for it, local mills were built to process it, and hundreds of acres were planted across the county. In this episode of Roots & Riddles , we uncover the forgotten story of Minnesota’s sugar boom. From towering...

On September 21, 1894, an F4 tornado tore through the north side of Spring Valley, Minnesota — killing residents, flattening homes, and leaving parts of the town in ruins. In this episode of Roots & Riddles, Preston and Lenora uncover the terrifying story of the cyclone that changed Spring Valley forever. Using firsthand newspaper accounts, survivor stories, and historical records, we explore...

In 1922, a bizarre and disturbing crime shook the Mabel area of Fillmore County. Former marshal Arch Gordon discovered that several of his cows had been poisoned after eating ears of corn that had been hollowed out and filled with Paris green — a deadly poison commonly used at the time as an insecticide. As rumors spread through the community, bloodhounds were brought in from Waterloo, Iowa, and i...

In the spring of 1940, a gang of safecrackers armed with acetylene torches swept across southern Minnesota and northern Iowa — leaving behind burned vaults, stolen cash, and nervous communities. One of their boldest crimes happened in the heart of Spring Valley, when burglars broke into the local post office under cover of darkness and torched their way through two steel vault doors. In this episo...

In 1934, the notorious Barker–Karpis Gang kidnapped St. Paul banker Edward Bremer and collected a ransom worth $200,000. According to local legend, not all of that money was ever recovered. Some believe a portion of the gang’s loot was buried somewhere along Highway 52 between Rochester and Chatfield — hidden beneath a fence post during the dead of a Minnesota winter. But is there any truth to the...

Before modern hospitals and paved roads reached southeastern Minnesota, frontier communities depended on figures like Dr. Luke Miller. Physician, lawyer, politician, and early Fillmore County leader, Luke Miller played a major role in shaping the region during Minnesota’s pioneer era. From practicing medicine on the frontier to serving in the Minnesota legislature and advocating for railroad expan...

What if a murderer could simply… disappear? In 1874, Patrick Noonan killed a man in  Fountain, Minnesota —in front of witnesses—and fled. For nearly 30 years, he lived freely under a new life, hundreds of miles away. But the past has a way of catching up. This episode uncovers the brutal killing of John McDonald, the decades-long manhunt, and the moment justice finally closed in. Sources:   Histor...

Once a thriving community in southeastern Minnesota,  Carimona  is now little more than a name on old maps and in forgotten newspaper columns. In this episode of  Roots & Riddles , we explore the rise and quiet disappearance of Carimona—a town shaped by geography, railroads, and the ambitions of its residents. We trace where its name came from, who lived and worked there, and why Carimona fade...