Steaming across the prairie

BY RALPH OLSON

Willmar — My father, Martin Emmanuel Olson, told me this story of his experience in 1895, steaming across the prairie from Renville County, Minnesota, to Hettinger, North Dakota.

My father, barely 12 years old, and his brother, Oscar, barely 10, had signed on to a steam engine powered caravan of water wagon, coal wagon, and several teams of horses and wagons, various tools, and a separator. Land owners had stacked the harvest and awaited the arrival of the convoy.

The Olson boys’ job was to fire up the steam engine, starting with straw and match, then adding sticks of wood gathered from groves. When the blaze was hot enough, the coal was added and black smoke signaled a head of steam; the big belt made the separator “come to life.”

Landowners were required to provide the meals, and on one occasion the entire crew became ill. The boss inquired about the food. The landowner had butchered a steer and covered the meal in the straw pile.

The boss retrieved his rifle, shot and killed a steer and told the landowner, “Get busy. That’s what we’re eating for supper.”

The crew harvested the crop across western Minnesota, South Dakota and ended at Hettinger, North Dakota, in a terrible blizzard.

The boss took the Olson boys by their hands, telling them, “Come, boys, we must find shelter” and climbed up the stairs to the hay mound. The boss dug a hole in the hay, telling the boys, “Get one of you on each side of me” and climbed into the hay, then pulled hay over them.

My father stated the three of them slept “like babies” and never left the refuge of the barn for three days. That ended harvesting. For pay for the trip, both boys received a $10 gold piece. Each one bought an overall jacket for 75 cents, two chambray shirts for 25 cents, and boarded the train to Olivia, Minnesota.

Both had $4 in their pockets when they got home and an experience they remembered for the rest of their lives.

Ralph Olson, a life-long willmar resident and past owner of Petersons Shoe Store, and his wife, Evelyn, celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in April.

Ralph Olson in the shoe store.

Courtesy of Ralph Olson