by Sue Bruns (from The Depot Express newsletter, Winter 2014) Beltrami County consists of 51 named townships –not all of them organized — and a number of unnamed, unorganized townships in the northern part of the county. Most of these townships have stories behind their names. Here are a few of those explanations. Bemidji Township, along with a village established in 1896, took the name “Bemidji,” a shortened version of the Ojibwe name for the lake “Bemejigamaug,” meaning a lake with water running through it. East of Bemidji is Frohn Township, established in 1898 and named “Frohn” by a Norwegian […]

By Darla Sathre (from The Depot Express newsletter, Winter 2014) Sidetracked by Darla Sathre As I was filing newspaper articles one day, the following few sentences, written by Rosemary Given Amble in 1995, caught my eye: “Bemidji’s industries in 1937 included several lumber mills and kindred activities. We still have some of those. We no longer have the railroad shops, butter and cream factories, the flour mill, the potato chip plant, nor the brick plant.” Potato chip plant? I thought that was worth a sidetrack! I learned that it was called Witting Company. I looked in a 1942 city directory, […]

By Cecelia Wattles McKeig (from The Depot Express newsletter, Winter 2014) In studying the buildings, blocks, and streets of Bemidji, I don’t know why it should surprise me that Bemidji people often lived a long time at the same addresses. After all, my mom is still in our family home after 70 years, but I find it interesting that some families chose to stay in the same house over decades. So much for upward mobility! Maybe we move less than the stereotypical American family, but I found many families and even neighborhoods that did not change much in the make-up […]