After The Battle

A good friend of mine went to school in Battle Lake. She lent me the book, After the Battle; A History of Battle Lake, Minnesota.  This was the second printing and the binding is coiled wire. I thought it is a very interesting book. The battle was between the Ojibway and the Dakota tribes right on a sand bar on Battle Lake. Most of the information is not about the Native Americans but about the Norwegians and other immigrants who settled in the area. The book lists every business in town, every mayor, every doctor and just about every city council decision. Over the years many businesses in Battle Lake were destroyed by fire. Eventually they got a fire department but even then some building were lost to fire. At one point they made a resolution that people could not let their live stock roam the town because they made a mess of every hay wagon that pulled in.  The book talks about anglers pulling 600 pounds of bass out of Battle Lake in a single day. In 1902 the state game department announced they were releasing ring necked pheasants (a species from Asia) into the area for hunting purposes.  That was a poor decision, in my opinion, because pheasants peck holes in the eggs of prairie chickens and soon we won't have any more prairie chickens. Some of the stories in the book are sad and some are very funny.  Here is an example of a funny story that came from a newspaper article on Dec. 21, 1916: Tuesday with the thermometer from 28 degrees below zero in the morning up to 15 degrees below at noon, automobiles were running into and out of Battle lake.  Running an auto when it is below zero we imagine is colder work than changing underwear on the ice in the middle of Battle Lake at midnight with the underwear wrong side out, four sizes too small and all the buttons gone with no pitch handy.