Hello Clam Lake!
What a weather week this last one has been! Our temperatures dropped over 50 degrees in a space of a day going from the mid 50’s down to a low of -1 at night with a touch of snow added in. Then back up again with a thunderstorm, complete with hail, thrown in for good measure. One wonders how Mother Nature can do such feats. But, this year she is full of surprises from a winter to beat all winters to one that just didn’t. I can’t really remember a year in which we had no snowmobile season at all but this year was it. One wonders what other tricks she has up her sleeve for us in the upcoming months. Time will tell, I guess.
COMMUNITY CLUB MEETING – The next meeting of the Clam Lake Community Club will be held on Thursday, March 14th beginning at 5:00 pm. The short meeting will be followed by a Pot Luck and then it’ll be down to some serious Clam Lake style Bingo led by Master Bingo Caller Ace Griffaw. Hope to see you there.
CEMETERY UPDATE – The Town of Gordon has notified me that the Clam Lake Cemetery has been put on a Future Agenda to be discussed when there are new developments. I will include any future updates or meetings on that subject in my news. We thank them for keeping us informed!
ELK AELRT – It’s been reported that “gangs” of elk have been spotted on the roadways. Time to exert caution when driving around as elk are usually in no hurry to get out of the way. Randy Sersch (Gandhi) posted a video, looking like Moses parting the Red Sea, as he passed through a group of them. They just casually parted enough to let him get by and watched. Time to keep those eyes peeled and be safe.
HISTORY MOMENT – Back in the day, getting goods to and from Clam Lake was a paid for service as this old ad for trucking attests to. To date it, one has to refer to where the orders were placed. This being the McPharland Drug Store which was run by William McPharland from 1918 thru 1925 in Glidden. Who is doing the actual deliveries or what the deliveries would be is not stated but, as you can see, delivery only occurred every other day. Cost was ½ cent a pound and you had to have a minimum of .25 cents (50 lbs) worth of product (around $5.60 today if using 1918 as a base) for a delivery to be made. Considering we are on the West Fork of the Chippewa River this is what our area would have been referred to at that time. Although motorized vehicles would have been around by 1925, in 1918 it would have been horse and wagon. But, either way making deliveries out to the West Fork in those early days would have been arduous. The West Fork Road, which later became Highway 77, was a rough road – mainly dirt – gravel if you were lucky. It wasn’t paved until the late 1930’s. Considering minimum wage was about 21 cents a day (again in 1918) a load of goods would cost you nearly an hour of wages to transport and whatever the cost of the goods. One can only imagine what those deliveries would have been – building supplies, household goods, farm implements, livestock, food, or a combination of all of the above? who knows?
Until next week…..
Pictured is the Trucking ad for bringing goods to the West Fork area from the early part of the 20th century.
