150 years of change led to annexation
Hassan Township, hub of early settler activity, lost its place to upstart Rogers.
by Bob Grawey
Staff writer
When John Rogers sold one acre of land to Great Northern Railroad for $1 in the 1880s, it would prove to be a key determination in the future of Hassan Township.
Mike Borck’s successful attempt to get St. Martin Catholic Church and school built in Rogers shifted a religious and community focus from St. Walburga in Fletcher to the new church location and to Rogers. {snippet instory}
Prior to St. Martin, businesses had located around or near St. Walburga. It was the nucleus of many families in the area for religious and educational activities. It also made business sense to provide goods and services where people were congregating.
But as St. Martin opened in Rogers, church goers no longer had to make what was then a long commute over rough roads to get to church or school.
Consequently, more businesses began building near the new Catholic church and the new railroad, eventually becoming the hub of activity for people in the Hassan and Rogers area.
Main Street businesses included grocery stores, hardware stores, a hotel, a butcher shop that butchered and processed animals on site, and even a new Ford dealership.
At one point, there were three grocery stores along Main Street, according to Paulie Skaja-Bell in her book, “Images of America: Rogers, Hassan Township and Fletcher Remembered.”
Otto Scharber owned Red and White, a grocery store wedged between two of his other businesses, a farm implement operation and a hardware store. He also operated the town’s post office in a corner of his hardware store.
Mary Beth (Rouillard) Schlegel recalls when she spent time in the old post office as a young girl.
“Otto was the postmaster and would let us cancel the letters,” Schlegel remembers. “We would crank that machine as fast as we could to see how far across the room we could shoot them out. If we ran out of letters, we would cancel them again”
Scharber sold the hardware store and the grocery in the mid 1960s. Before long he had to move his John Deere implement business outside town to its present location, as it was getting too large for Main Street.
Progress of the era caused other businesses to change as well, like auto repair shops that opened to meet the growing popularity of automobiles.
A café and a dance hall, though, remained a popular social spot for decades.
Rogers Café and bar, owned by Carol (Berg) Hines’ father, Clifford, sold hamburgers, ice cream and 3.2 beer. It was particularly popular on Sundays when people would go to the café after the Sunday baseball game since it was open while every other business had to close.
Berg sold the café in 1941 to Lester Rouillard who changed the name to Rouillard’s Café. His daughter, Carmen (Rouillard) Hawkins says hamburgers were 15 cents and a scoop of ice cream cost just a nickel.
Hawkins adds that the café also had a pinball machine and enough space that allowed for dancing on Sunday afternoons.
Beer was still sold, too, and occasionally a brawl would break out. Skaja-Bell says in her book that the two women who ran the café took care of the problem. Ferdella (Rouillard) Gmach would open the door when a brawl broke out and Maria (Rueter) LaVasseur would then push the brawlers through the door and into the street, where they continued their fight.
The café was also popular with those attending the Rogers Dance Hall, located where Word of Peace church now stands.
On Friday nights during the 1950s and 1960s the dance hall also offered a free movie night, according to Norbert Zahler in an oral history given in April 2009.
“They (the dance hall) would put a screen up in back of the dance hall (outside) and families would lay blankets out in the parking lots to watch free movies there,” Zahler says.
The dance hall remained until 1978 when it burned down, to permanently change the local landscape. Other things were carving deeper-felt changes, though, in Rogers and Hassan.
One major change came when the state completed Interstate 94 through Rogers in 1972.
At the time Rogers had just several hundred residents. However, the new freeway began attracting attention to Rogers as new businesses wanted to locate near the state’s major east/west transportation route. It was another milestone that was more like a millstone to Hassan’s future status.
Former Rogers administrator Gary Eitel says as large businesses, such as Graco, CDI, Division Stamping, Dept. 56, Target and Reinhart FoodService, moved in to Rogers it created jobs.
More jobs and services also increased the demand for more housing, and like a domino effect more sewer and water services were also needed to accommodate the new growth.
“It changed the Rogers landscape from a downtown Main Street community to a freeway city,” Eitel says.
Long-time residents and developers Jack and Carol Hines say land they wanted to develop in Hassan needed sewer and water services, so they welcomed annexation into Rogers. Broadway Pizza, Lowe’s and Cub Foods now stand on those parcels.
Eitel says at one point Rogers annexed 1,100 acres of Hassan land between the new freeway and County Road 144.
But not everyone in Hassan was happy about this “progress.”
It is thought that Hassan and Dayton were against having freeway access to I-94 at Brockton Lane, Eitel says, because it would encourage people to move into Hassan, causing further development.
Dick Martin has lived in Hassan for decades and has served the town in various capacities and says along with pressure for development from I-94, the 101 realignment added to that progressive development issue.
According to Eitel, 101 was a gravel county road from Elk River to the Crow River. From there 101 became a state highway, meandering through Dayton and back into Hassan. The realignment and the change to a state highway created a better route for commuters which consequently brought even more development.
The added focus on development proved another negative for rural-minded Hassan. The township completely encircled Rogers, and the younger community kept requiring more space as it developed.
Land owners in Hassan whose property abutted city-owned land had the chance to seek annexation as long as sewer and water services were extended. More and more property owners sought annexation, but Rogers was not the only municipality with eyes for Hassan.
Martin says other neighboring cities revealed land use plans for Hassan property. It was a wake-up call for township residents who did not want their town parceled out in different directions.
Former Hassan Town Board Chair Dick Sherman questioned in the late 1980s whether the town had held onto its township status too long. He was apparently correct.
Two attempts to incorporate as a city were unsuccessful, Martin says. He adds the state did not want to grant incorporation to Hassan because it would result in one city completely encircling another city.
John Rogers might be surprised that the acre he sold for $1 would result in a city encompassing thousands of acres of Hassan and Fletcher; once known as “The Big Woods.”
Hassan may be dissolved in 2012 when it is fully annexed into Rogers, but those same families that helped settle the Hassan area can now work together to move Hassan/Rogers into a new era.
For many, that new era will forever be intricately woven together, tied to a shared past history as they continue to write the history of today and future tomorrows.
