The plat of the village was recorded in the office of the Register of Deeds in Benton County in 1856. Mille Lacs County wasn’t established until more than a year later, on May 23, 1857.
The county was organized with its present boundaries by an act of the legislature in February of 1860.
A temporary county seat for Mille Lacs County was established at Hanover in 1857, an Indian trading post at the source of the Rum River in Mille Lacs Lake. But when the county was organized on February 1, 1860, the county seat was moved to Princeton and it was there for 60 years until being moved to Milaca on August 3, 1920.
Some of the area included in the plat of Princeton 125 years ago was in Ramsey County which, at one time, extended from a few miles south of Fort Snelling to about 30 mile north of Mille Lacs Lake.
Later, what was to become Princeton village was in Benton County and a couple years later was in Monroe County. Monroe County included the 10 southern townships of the present Mille Lacs County. Monroe County was never officially organized, however, and disappeared from the map when Mille Lacs was organized in 1860.
Princeton village was laid out and platted by Samuel Ross, James W. Gillam, Dorilius Morrison, John S. Prince and Richard Chute in the winter of 1855. Although the plat was recorded April 19, 1856, the village was at first a part of the township and wasn’t separated until March 5, 1877.
Princeton was named in honor of Prince, from St. Paul. He built a sawmill in St. Paul in the early 1850’s. Both he and Daniel Stanchfield took logs for merchandise and outfitted lumbermen going into the woods.
The date of the incorporation of the village was about 30 years after the discovery of enormous stands of white pine, by Stanchfield, on the Rum River, its west branch and on tributaries to the river, the many brooks that empty into it between Mille Lacs Lake and Princeton.
Records show that Stanchfield was the first non-Indian to explore the Rum River for white pine. The report he sent to Franklin Steele at Ft. Snelling helped Steele get enough money to build the first commercial sawmill at St. Anthony Falls.
“I have seen pine that 70 mills could not cut in as many years,” Stanchfield wrote. He thought the thick stands of white pine in the Rum River valley would furnish timber for generations. The history of Princeton, in its first 35 years, was largely the story of the lumbering industry but it didn’t last as long as Stanchfield thought.
Stanchfield’s expedition began in September 1847 and the first timber they encountered was about three miles northwest of where Cambridge is now but it was when he got to the west branch of the Rum where the first thick stands of pine were discovered.
Stanchfield said the stands of pine, on each side of the river, were from three to six miles wide. He would climb a tall tree every six miles on the river and look across the woods.
By 1852 there were 22 logging firms operating on the Rum River and in 1855 it was estimated that 120,000,000 feet of pine lumber came down the river.
The first sawmill at St. Anthony Falls started in 1848 but only 73 years later, in 1921, the last sawmill operating in Minneapolis shut down because the vast expanse of pine lumber, once thought to be never-ending, had been wiped out.
First House
The first house built within the limits of Princeton was erected in 1849, “by a mulatto known as Banjo Bill,” the centennial booklet reported. It was a shanty used as a stopping place and was under a big elm on the riverbank northeast of what was formerly the Princeton Hotel.
Banjo Bill, we’re told, had a job as a sawyer in a St. Anthony Falls (Minneapolis) mill but lost his job “when he imbibed too much liquor one night and wrecked some of the machinery.” It was thought that he then headed north to Princeton.
Then, according to the “History of the Upper Mississippi Valley,” the next shanty and first real place of entertainment was kept by Charles Whitcomb and Mr. Dunton in 1854, who occupied it a short time, when it passed into the hands of A.B. Damon, who ranked as the first permanent white settler of the place.”
The first sawmill in Princeton was built by William F. Dunham and Assoc. in 1856. It had a capacity of about 6,000 feet in 10 hours. Samuel Ross built the next and in 1867 Benjamin Soule built one with a capacity of about 15,000 feet of lumber and 15,000 shingles in 10 hours. It was operated by a 40-horsepower engine.
The first claim in the village was by A.B. Damon in 1854 and covered the present townsite of Princeton. Damon was from Maine and the following summer he plowed and farmed the land where the city now stands.
In the winter of 1855-56 David Day brought his wife into the region and she is thought to be the first non-Indian woman in the county.
The first post office in Princeton was started by Ross in 1856. He contracted to take the mail to and from Anoka once a week. The first postmaster was O.E. Garrison.
Ross opened a hotel in 1856, made of logs, and it was called the Princeton House. At about the same time Thomas Goulding opened the American House.
Ross apparently was a man who had big ideas because he also opened the first blacksmith shop in the village, in 1856. James Roundtree was in charge of the shop.
Ross later built the North Star Hotel in 1869 and it was destroyed by fire 24 years later.
Princeton’s first newspaper was the Princeton Appeal with the first issue appearing in December 1873. It was published by William Quigley and in May 1875 he sold it to J.S. Brocklehurst who continued it until the following spring.
Robert C. Dunn began the Princeton Union in December 1876 and it has been published continuously since, although it has been the Union-Eagle since June 1976. The Princeton Eagle started in April 1974 and the two papers were combined in 1976.
The Princeton News was founded in 1901 and lasted until 1917 when it was purchased by the Union.
The population of Princeton, set at 3,144 today, was about 400 in 1870 and had grown to 750 in 1886.
Railroad Comes
As 1886 began, Princeton residents were becoming discouraged about the prospect of ever getting the railroad to Princeton. At the suggestion of Major A.M. Fridley of Anoka, a committee was organized to talk to James J. Hill, one of the all-time railroad magnates, and in less than nine months trains were running through Princeton.
The line through Princeton was constructed by the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway. It connected Elk River with Milaca and then went from Milaca on to the Great Northern line running to Brook Park, and from there up to Hinckley and Duluth.
The first train came through Princeton on November 24, 1886. Two nights later a ball was given at the Palace Rink to celebrate the railroad’s opening.
By 1900 there were two trains coming from the Twin Cities every day and two trains going there every day. Mail came on the trains until the summer of 1930.
The depot, which now houses the city library and city meeting rooms at which open houses and the like are conducted, was dedicated in January 1903 and replaced a wooded depot that had stood for 16 years.
About 500 people attended the dedication, including people who arrived by special coach from Milaca, Foreston and other nearby points. Mayor Andrew Bryson gave the address.
At the conclusion of the program, the Union reported, sleighs were provided to take those present to Jessmer’s opera house for the dance, which continued until 4 a.m. when the special train for the Milaca people left. The night of the dedication 225 people had supper at the Commercial Hotel with a menu of oyster soup, coffee, biscuits, celery, olives, cold turkey, beef tongue and ham, salad, cake and ice cream.
1890 was big year
Princeton’s population had grown to about 800 in 1890 and it was a big year for a growing village. The first starch factory was built, the first creamery was built and steps were taken to get a feed and flour mill
The growing of potatoes was one of the Princeton area’s biggest businesses and from that industry came the idea for a starch factory where culled potatoes were used.
The Princeton Potato Starch Co. was incorporated in March 1890 and the building was built where Odegard’s is today. The factory was in operation day and night and it was estimated that in the first spring of its operation, approximately 100,000 bushels of potatoes were converted into starch.
Another starch factory was erected but had trouble making money and operated until the late 1920s. The potato industry eventually died out in the area and the original starch factory was leveled in 1939 by WPA workers.
When potato growing was at its height in this part of the state, hundreds of loads were brought into Princeton daily and buyers would swarm around the loads and begin bidding.
Odin Odegard was the main producer of potatoes in this area for many years and the peat bog he farmed northeast of Princeton was known in many areas because of Odegard’s success at growing potatoes.
The making of bricks was also a big industry in this area for a long time and that industry had its beginning in 1889 when the area known as Brickton, two miles north of Princeton, began to be developed. There is a historical marker, erected a few years ago, to mark that spot.
By 1902 the yards started by Woodcock and Oaks had a capacity of 5,000,000 bricks annually. There was also the Princeton Brick Company, which had a capacity of 4,000,000 and had been established in 1892; Cream Brick Company and Farnham Brothers, established in 1900, each with a capacity of 4,000,000; and Kuhn Brothers, established in 1896, with a capacity of 2,000,000.
There were about 20 million bricks being turned out in a year by 1902 and it took 47 trainloads of 40 cars each to haul them away.
Rufus P. Morton brought the Cream Brick Company and had the last brickyard in the area. In 1926 it was still producing as many as four million bricks a year. As train service diminished, however, the industry faded because of a lack of good transportation facilities.
The Villa Manor, located in downtown Princeton today and housing apartments and businesses, was built in 1902, as the Odd Fellows building, and Princeton brick was used, as was the case for most construction here then.
“The building was described as “a three-story solid brick structure, imposing in appearance, substantial and enduring, higher than any building between Minneapolis and Duluth. It is made from the famous cream-colored Princeton brick. The foundation is sandstone granite; the basement is 10 feet deep.”
First Creamery
Logging got Princeton going, the brickyards were a big factor in the area’s growth and potato farming was very profitable here for many years. But today dairy farming is probably the biggest business in the area.
There had been a privately run creamery in Princeton but in 1908 the first cooperative creamery was built. It opened June 30 after businessmen had given farmers $1,500 to help build it.
In 1910 there were 206,124 pounds of butter made and $49,149 paid to farmers. By 1922 the totals were 557,604 and $185,002. At a meeting in January of that year it was decided to build a new creamery.
The building that was opened in January of 1923 is the one still standing today, a block west of the Princeton State Bank. An addition was built on the east side in 1943 and a warehouse was added in 1953.
Butter is no longer made there, the last pound being turned out in 1979.
From: Princeton Union Eagle, Souvenir Section, June 4, 1981