browerville blade - 11/07/2013 - page 01
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8/14/2019 Browerville Blade - 11/07/2013 - page 01
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Tue. Nov. 5
Wintry Mix
39°/28°
Wed. Nov. 6
Mostly Sunny
40°/26°
Thur. Nov. 7
Partly Cloudy
42°/27°
Fri. Nov. 8
Showers
38°/30°
Sat. Nov. 9
Mostly Cloudy
38°/30°
Sun. Nov. 10
Mostly Cloudy
38°/27°
W EEKLY W EATHER REPORT
A community newspaper serving Browerville, MN and surrounding areas. USPS 067-560
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Volume 98; Number 20
www.bladepublishing.net
75¢
Fall sports seasons
come to an end
Outage shuts down Browerville
The U.S. Postal Service –A long road to today
By Rin Porter
Today, when we go to the post
ffice, we generally go to a brick
uilding on or near the main
treet of a city or town, as in
rowerville. Some have
o drive quite a ways to
et there – as much as 15
r 20 miles depending on
where you live in Todd
ounty. At present, there are
en post offices in the
ounty: Staples, Bertha,
Hewitt, Eagle Bend,
larissa, Browerville,
ong Prairie, Burtrum,
West Union, and Grey
agle.
But during the last 30
ears of the 1800s, in the
ays before rural mail
elivery started, there
were many more post
ffices in the county,
ncluding Daylight, Bear
Head, Batavia, Philbrook,
ak Hill, Clotho, Hartford,rywood, Burnhamville-
illsbury, Birchdale, and
Kandota. (O. B. DeLaurier,
odd County Histories).
The reason for having
o many rural post offices was
hat in the early days, before
ural delivery, people traveling
y team and wagon did not want
o travel a long distance from
ome to get their mail. But they
could walk or ride a few miles to
a rural post office.
Some Minnesota historians
believe that the first post office
in the county was in Hartford,
and was established in 1866
when John Bassett was appoint-
ed Postmaster. Bassett also
founded a school and several
businesses along the Long
Prairie River where he had his
homestead.
EARLY POSTAL HISTORY
The postal service was estab-
lished in Britain’s American
colonies in 1639, in Boston.
People who wanted to
send mail to England
would bring it to
Fairbank’s Tavern.
From there it would be
loaded onto a shipbound for London,
Liverpool, or another
English city. This
makes postal service in
North America 374
years old.
Individual colonies
set up informal post
offices in taverns and
shops where horse-
drawn carriages or rid-
ers would pick up and
drop off mail en route
Individual colonies set
up informal post offices
in taverns and shops
where horse-drawncarriages or riders
would pick up and drop
off mail en route.
(www.history.com).
In 1737, Benjamin
Franklin was named Postmaster
General by the British
Government, but he was fired in
1774 for subversive activities
(“This Day in History, Feb. 20,
Continued on page 12
Thursday, October 31st was an unusual Halloween in
Browerville... the city, and all it’s residents were “tricked”
when the electricity flickered, and then failed at approxi-
mately 10:00a.m.
Residents and business owners assumed the power would
return soon, it did not. It was soon learned that faulty trans-
formers on the north end of town had failed, causing the out-
age. It was also learned that it would be several hours beforenew equipment could be shipped in and power restored. The
city shut down. School was released early, and all of the busi-
nesses on Main Street were forced to close due to the outage. It
was well into the evening before Mn Power crews were able to
return the city’s electric service, just in time for trick or treat-
ing. Left, workers install the new equipment on Halloween
evening.
The 2013 Tiger Sports Seasons came to a close last week. Above, Bryce Irsfeld reaches for a pass when the Tigers
faced Upsala/Swanville in the Fargo Dame on November
1st. The Tigers lost the match up 35-6.
The Browerville Tiger volleyball team ended their season on
Thursday night with a loss to the Royalton Royals 2-3 (13-25,
17-25, 25-16, 25-21, and 14-16).
Additional photos and information on pages 6, 7.