The following excerpt was written by Mrs. A.G. Watson and was published in the Booster Edition of the News Messenger of Lyon County for Thanksgiving on Nov. 27, 1919. Mrs. Watson is describing the changes in Marshall from when she first arrived in 1873 to 1919.

An automobile trip from Marshall to Redwood Falls recently suggested the following thoughts. We came to Marshall in 1873 at the time the Chicago and Northwestern railroad reached the town, which for some time remained the terminal of the road.

Just a typical little shanty town. Church services as well as the public school occupied the second story of a building. One lady teacher taught all the pupils in the town. One of the cheerful sights that greeted me on my arrival was a little cluster of graves said to contain the bodies of the Fox family who were frozen to death in a blizzard.

This affliction of blizzards was quite frequent in an early day. I remember once having prepared for a largo dinner party; had my tables all set when about five o’clock a frightful blizzard appeared and not one guest had the temerity to brave the storm.

Prairie fires, too, constituted a real menace at times requiring the united efforts of all to put out the flames. A vast stretch of prairie, treeless, except for a little fringe along the river bank and an occasional lone cottonwood, greeted the settlers. Farmers’ homes were few and small, some merely sod shanties. But little grain was raised. White covered movers wagons, were constantly seen moving on ever West, Prairie Schooners, they were called. This was also the name of our first local paper.

One of the land marks on the road to Redwood in early days was a new house standing on a high hill, lonely and desolate looking. We were told an enterprising easterner had built the house, but his wife could never be persuaded to come west so the house long stood tenantless.

Higbee’s barn, too, was for some time occupied by a bachelor as a home; he was more fortunate than the other eastern man, for he brought a bride, from the east, and they occupied the bam as a house for some time.

It would be interesting to know how Higbee painted the delights of his western home in order to win his bride however there have always been found women with the pioneer spirit, ready to endure hardship when necessary to establish a home.

How different appears this road today. We left Marshall with its street paving, a beautiful little modem city of 3000 people, embowered in shade trees. In place of the dignified surrey and fine horses with which the trip was formerly made, the automobile bore us swiftly over the good roads. Here and there in the fields remained a pond of water in which many hopes for a good grain crop lay buried, for this part of the country was deluged with continual rain in the spring. These ponds reminded us of the sloughs of early days, in which we sometimes floundered desperately, for we travelled much those days across the open prairie, — that lovely prairie covered with dainty wild flowers and luxuriant grasses.

King Com has planted his flaunting banners upon miles and miles of this against the coming of that other King– Jack Frost.

The photograph featured this week from the Lyon County Museum’s collection is a stereograph (a pair of images, side by side to be viewed through a stereoscope to create a 3-D image) of Main Street in Marshall showing men with shovels and snow. The stereograph was created in 1880.

The Lyon County Historical Society (LCHS) is a nonprofit, member-supported organization. LCHS operates the Lyon County Museum at 301 West Lyon Street in Marshall. The Lyon County Museum is open year-round to visitors. To contact us, visit our website: www.lyoncomuseum.org, call: 507-537-6580, email: director@lyoncomuseum.org, or on our Facebook page.