The drought of the 1930’s brought hard times to Sherburne County as its sandy soil blew away after decades of poor farming practices. Game was depleted and farms were abandoned by families unable to eke a living out of the ground. This environmental and economic crisis led to the birth of a conservation movement and eventually to the planting of millions of trees in this county alone. Many individuals and organizations dedicated themselves to this conservation effort.
SHERBURNE COUNTY’S CONSERVATION STORY
by Bobbi Scott
George Friedrich Park
George Friedrich Park. Located at the east end of Michigan Avenue in St. Cloud, has been closed since the mid-1970s, but a recent open day allowed the public to enjoy this natural area and brought its history to light once again. Besides illustrating the growth of the conservation movement in the 1930s, the park’s history touches on the early granite industry of the St. Cloud area and the ethnic groups who came to work the quarries, the impact of WPA and NYA projects in the Depression, and most importantly the passion and vision of one individual, George Friedrich.
Today the park includes several quarry ponds of varying sizes. These quarries date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when Gottfried Julius Hilder, a Swedish immigrant, established a granite quarry just north of the Minnesota State Reformatory wall. This area isn’t far from Swede Hollow, an area of St. Cloud settled predominantly by the Swedish families whose men worked in the quarries. Friedrich’s house later sat on the edge of this area.
Unlike other abandoned quarry sites, the Hilder quarry site does not have large grout piles of waste rock covering the site. Mr. Hilder’s solution to this problem was described in the July 1917 issue of American Stone Trade Magazine:
The Hilder Granite Quarry, like every other quarrying concern that operates in granite, has for years struggled against the great incubus of the typical grout pile. It is a peculiar characteristic of the balance of things that, in the opening of a quarry, the great grout pile is almost invariably placed upon the best part of the deposit of stone…The many years of accumulated grout pile at the Hilder Quarries induced Mr. Hilder to investigate the possibilities of rock crushing equipment for the disposal of granite…The six story plant was completed a year ago and set to work grinding up the grout pile…Day by day, without ceasing, at the clip of 800 to 1000 tons in ten hours, the crusher has gnawed away at the grout pile. It has disappeared entirely and soon, according to Ernest Hilder, who is in charge of the rock-crushing department, there will be a problem producing enough material to economically feed the mammoth crusher.
Mr. Hilder died in 1921 and by 1934 the quarry had been abandoned for some years. In September of that year George Selke, president of St. Cloud Teachers College (now St. Cloud State University), announced the purchase of 51 acres of land that included Hilder Quarry. The driving force behind this purchase was Professor George Friedrich. Friedrich was a prominent biology professor at St. Cloud from 1921 until 1949. He was a popular and inspiring teacher and believed in teaching biology using an outdoor classroom. This area served as an outdoor lab and recreational center for college students.
With the help of laborers from the Works Progress Administration, the National Youth Administration and students, Friedrich supervised the planting of more than 400,000 red and white pine seedlings in the park and the building of roads and a granite wall. Workers also built an elaborate swimming and diving facility in one of the larger quarries with docks, a diving board, a raft, and dressing rooms. This quarry pool was finished in 1935 and was a popular swimming hole until the mid-1970s.
In 1951 the college renamed the area George Friedrich Park in recognition of Friedrich’s dedication. Today the pines planted by Friedrich line the entrance road. A large granite boulder bearing Friedrich’s name sits near the entrance and the now-crumbling WPA granite walls parallel the road as they run through the woods. Granite steps lead down into one of the smaller ponds.
Friedrich’s philosophy is clear in this passage from his 1941 book, The Study of Conservation:
Gone, today, are the accessible woods…children now play on the town and city streets or buy their entertainment. Not only have most of these areas changed…but their remnants are posted with “keep out” signs. Too frequently, parents are quizzically asking, “Where can he go for a tramp in the woods?” The preservation of natural wooded areas near towns and cities should be encouraged. These areas should not be closed to the public, but where necessary, should be acquired by school or municipal authorities and maintained for the benefit of all who can use them.
Friedrich was active in the conversation movement throughout the state. In the mid-1930s, Governor Floyd Olson appointed him to the State Board of Conservation. He was also actively involved in the Minnesota Ornithologists’ Union and he wrote syndicated articles on nature subjects for the St. Cloud Journal Press and later for the Associated Press. He began giving talks on the importance of conservation as early as 1932. Friedrich worked hard to get important conservation legislation passed. This included the 1942 legislation that established Sand Dunes State Forest and the 1947 Nursery Tree Bill that permitted the state to grow and sell trees at cost to private individuals for farm shelter belts and windbreaks. Both of these bills were very important for Sherburne County.
The Sherburne County Connection
Tree-planting efforts were carried out throughout Sherburne County. Ella Kringlund came to the county in 1945 and was the County 4-H agent for many years. She wrote about the beginnings of Sand Dunes State Forest and credited Ray Clement, E.E. Bjuge, and George Friedrich with the successful effort to establish the forest. Ray Clement was Forester in Charge of Tree Planting for the Minnesota Forest Service, and through experimentation he found that jack pine and Norway pine seeds germinated and grew in Sherburne County’s sandy soil. He called on Friedrich and Bjuge, the new county agricultural agent in Sherburne County, for help. Friedrich was also active in achieving the expansion of the forest area from 2 square miles to 17 square miles. Ella Kringlund noted that his work wouldn’t have been possible without the help of his wife, who was also an ardent conservationist.
Local conservation clubs were contacted to promote tree planting so that Sherburne County would not develop into a permanent dust bowl. Tree planting was a community activity and in the end, millions of trees were planted in this county. The minutes of the Sherburne County Conservation Club illustrate the great attention given to tree planting by Sherburne County residents. There is also at least one mention of Friedrich speaking to the local conservation club.
At the meeting on April 5, 1944, the minutes report that Art Nelson gave the Forestry Committee report and “considerable discussion was had finally voted unanimously to order trees and to have planting done by members on May 7th also to order 6000 trees the selection to be up to Art Nelson…Meeting was then adjourned and turned over to Mr. Geo. Fredericks who gave a dandy talk on Forestry Fire Prevention, etc…lots of questions were asked and answered.”
On February 7, 1947, a column by Cliff Sakry appeared in the St. Cloud Daily Times describing the efforts of Sherburne county farmers to get the Nursery Tree Bill passed. As he wrote, “It began in Sherburne County where much of the land is sandy and where the sweeping winds have played havoc with soil fertility for decades.” A group of farmers banded together and developed a plan for planting shelter belts and wind breaks, but they needed a total of 422,000 trees to achieve their goal, and this represented only 10% of the need in Sherburne County. The cost of this many seedlings was a barrier, so the bill proposing that state-owned nurseries supply the soil-conservation needs of farmers was introduced.
Without the efforts of leaders like George Friedrich and dedicated conservation organizations like the Sherburne County Conservation Club, this county would be a very different place to live today. The results of their efforts can be seen from one end of the county to the other, from George Friedrich Park to windbreaks along the highways to the tree farms that developed from the discovery that Christmas trees would grow well in Sherburne County soil.
(Found Historically Speaking - Vol. 19, Winter 2004)